Rich Rewards: Cultural Diversity and Heritage Practice

11.9 Report on the Orange Migration Heritage Community Consultation and Workshop

Held Thursday October 21 1999

East West Rooms Regional Art Gallery

Civic Square, Byng Street Orange

From 9.30am-4pm

Facilitator: Kate Rea, NSW Heritage Office

Present: Dr Dhia AlBakri, Mrs AlBakri, Fadel Benhima, Murray Brown, Cecily Butcher, Tracey Davis, Peter Douglas, Bill Erwich, Elizabeth Griffen, Rachel Gully, David Hill, Ross Maroney, Sue McGregor, Sue Merricks, Alison Russel, Brunhilde Srejic, Andrew Wannan,

Introduction

On Thursday 21 October representatives of Oranges ethnic communities, history and heritage organisations took advantage of a unique opportunity to create greater recognition for the cultural diversity of heritage in their area at the Orange Migration Heritage Community Consultation and Workshop.

Kate Rea, project coordinator, Migration Heritage Community Consultation Program, welcomed the participants and thanked them for supporting this initiative. She then introduced Andrew Wannan, Manager of Environmental Services, Orange City Council to give an overview of heritage in the Orange area.

Heritage in Orange

Stressing the importance of heritage to the community in Orange Andrew Wannan announced that the Council had recently introduced a Community Advisory Committee and a number of new heritage incentive programs. He explained that the Orange Heritage Study, originally completed in 1985 - 86, would soon be updated and expanded to incorporate new themes including Aboriginal and migration heritage. He highlighted the contribution of migrants to the cultural, social and economic development of Orange, explaining that the original gateway to Orange had been known as 'Chinamen's Bend' and, more recently, the contributions of Dutch and Italian migrants that settled in Orange in the post World War Two period.

What is Heritage?

Kate Rea explained that heritage tells the story of our history. Showing a range of slides depicting heritage items, she loosely defined heritage as those places, sites and items that are important or significant to our communities. These might be places of work or worship; they could also be places of recreation, such as a social club, dance hall or park. They might reflect one group's contribution to the development of the community or a skill that is specific to your community. Heritage is not only expressed in buildings. It may be a park or garden, a collection of everyday objects, such as tools, or the interior of a shop. Heritage is that which the community values and wants to keep and protect for future generations.

The Migration Heritage Community Consultation Program

Introducing the Migration Heritage Community Consultation Program Kate Rea noted that this pilot program has been introduced to ensure that the experiences and contributions of migrants to the development of New South Wales is reflected in its heritage. Currently, the experiences and contributions of migrants are not recognised in heritage listings by state and local government or within regional museums. The program, initially consisting of three workshops, is a first step in developing heritage practices that celebrate the cultural diversity of the state's community.

The NSW Heritage Office, the independent state government agency responsible for heritage in this state, is managing the project. Its roles include

• Assistance to local government and state government agencies
• Administration of the NSW Heritage Act
• Maintaining the state heritage register

It is a project of the Migration Heritage Centre, the Centre being a NSW Government initiative through a partnership of Premier's Department, Ministry for the Arts, Ethnic Affairs Commission and the Heritage Office.

The Orange Workshop & Community Consultation

Kate Rea explained that the Orange workshop was being held as the third of three workshops in the program. The aims of the workshops are three fold:

• To encourage awareness, identification and preservation of the heritage of ethnic communities from their own cultural perspectives.
• To develop partnerships between individuals and organisations across the community that have valuable contributions to make to heritage.
• To recommend models of consultation methods for application in further programs.

The day had been planned so that participants could develop skills to begin the process of identifying and assessing the heritage sites or items important to them from their own cultural perspectives. She continued that the workshop has been designed to provide a point of consultation between members of Orange's ethnic communities and heritage practitioners.

Following these presentations participants were invited to form pairs, go out, and photograph the items or sites that are important to their communities. To ensure that ethnic communities both past and present were represented in out study, historians Elizabeth Griffen and Ross Marony were assigned the task of photographing some of the heritage material belonging to ethnic communities that no longer lived in Orange.

All of the photographs, developed over lunch, identified an enormous range of places and items that begins to reveal the depth of Orange's diversity. The process assessing the items began after the lunch break. This involved pasting the photographs onto board and writing a short caption underneath. It was suggested that the caption could state why the item was significant to the community or why it was significant to migration. In this way participants began to express the significance of the items. Each pair displayed their findings to the group, giving a short presentation on the site's significance.

Some of the sites identified included:

• The Email factory and Amalgamated Textiles Woolen Mills as a major employers of migrant labour in the Post World War II period.
• 'Temporary' homes in Bletchington and Margaret Streets, originally erected by Email to provide accommodation for workers.
• What is now the carpark at the Email factory. This site was used to house newly arrived workers in tents and other temporary, rudimentary accommodation during the post war materials and manpower shortage.
• The Ukrainian Hall, now the Borree Aboriginal Land Council on the Corner of Clifton and Dutton Street. Built by Ukrainian carpenter John Stylcheck.
• Patmos Ballroom - used as a meeting place for people from a range of communities
• Precinct bounded by Margaret and Bletchington streets, where many migrants arriving in Orange in the Post World War II period built their houses. (Margaret Street, for example, housed Ukrainian, Polish and Russian people, predominantly on the North side of the street. Many sites, for example, 66 Bletchington Street, reflect a pattern of development where new arrivals erected a small fibroboard building at the rear of the block, eventually to be used as a garage. As owner-builders they lived in these single room dwellings while constructing their homes as economic circumstance and the availability of materials allowed.
• Homes within this precinct also housed many first ventures into small business. Mr Vasilevski's Barber shop began from his home in Margaret Street. The Corner of Dolton and Spring Street was a mixed business.
• Chinese artifacts and raceways at Lucknow, a site of early gold mining.
• Russian, Chinese and Jewish grave sites in the cemetery.
• Sites of religious significance including the Russian Orthodox and Lutheran Churches
• Photographic Collection, Princess Beatrice of Netherlands visit to Orange in 1978 symbolises the links of Orange to Holland and the Dutch community to the Netherlands.

Participants also identified a range of items that were important to them that they did not have the opportunity to photograph in the workshop session. These sites were:

Goldfields surrounding Orange

Sampson's stonework

Hang Sing's Vegetable Garden

Railway Station

Cemetery

Bonegilla

Cowra Migrant Camp

The Photographs will be lodged for future reference with Orange City Council.

Some Future Directions for Migration Heritage in Orange

Following the presentation the group discussed ways in which culturally diverse heritage practices could be developed in the Orange local government area. They identified a number of areas including:

• Approaching Council to encourage consultation with Ethnic communities when the Heritage Study is updated.
• Encouraging Council to nominate a member of the Orange Multicultural Group onto its Heritage Advisory Committee
• Working with the Orange District Local History Society to expand the recorded histories of ethnic communities from their own cultural perspectives
• Liaison with Local Studies Librarians at Orange City Library to develop resources and collections that include the experiences and contributions of migrants to the development of Orange
• Work with the regional gallery and museum or local studies librarians to develop a register of collections.

Recommendations

Culturally diverse heritage practices add depth to our understanding of the history of the community. They are inclusive and ensure that the experiences and contributions of the whole community are recognised and celebrated within its story. They create positive identities for people from non-English speaking backgrounds and help generate greater perception of cultural diversity with broad community identity. All of this works to create a stronger sense of community identity and belonging for the community as a whole.

It was proposed that a Committee be formed to undertake the important role of ensuring that heritage items significant to ethnic communities are recognised and protected for future generations to enjoy. It would also serve as a point of consultation, to ensure that the perspectives of ethnic communities are considered in all relevant heritage decisions.

To achieve these aims it is recommended that the committee members should represent the cultural diversity of Orange as thoroughly as possible. The Orange Multicultural Group is an important link to the ethnic communities of the area. It should also include members of organisations that contribute to heritage. The committee could be formed at a public meeting, with a structure to suit the members.

The Orange Migration Heritage Workshop and Community Consultation was an important step toward establishing consultative, culturally diverse heritage practices that recognise and celebrate the experiences and stories of Orange's ethnic communities. It has provided the basis for more comprehensive research and investigation of migration heritage in the area. This success emerged from the enthusiasm for the task of those who participated in the workshop and this enthusiasm should generate further gains in a range of areas.

Kate Rea
Facilitator
12.11.992