The Welcome Wall - now going for ten years since 1999. Some 20,000 people are featured at present with a data base behind the names that are featured. These names celebrate those who came by and lived through and with the sea.In this case the names of Peter G - aka Garpet in this instance and his parents Leo G and Katalin G are featured among the 900 people who have been included among the 100 metres of migrant names.
I will be making sure that the museum is sent the stories of my parents and myself for inclusion in their data base. Thus, at some future time, researchers of both my immediate family and the extensive family of my wife Leanne S and her ancestors who migrated far earlier than mine did.
They were instrumental in creating some of the infrastructure that exists today. For example - Henry S was one of those who participated in the Warragamba dam creation. This supplies much of Sydney' water supply. As it happens, another of the family I have joined by marriage also works for Sydney Water. Thus a 'tradition' may have been created.
In my own place my marriage to my new spouse has mixed into a 'tradition' that involves the the provision of social work services in a variety of settings.
For my part - I have been involved in the provision of services to migrants from 1972 onward when the concept of integration replaced the policy of assimilation. A new policy was created by the then new Minister of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs Al Grassby.
A lot has changed since 1957 when my family arrived in this country. So much that in fact it is hard to pick where to start. Perhaps as a maritime experience, when we arrived the AMP building was the tallest building on the Sydney foreshore.
If you look at Sydney today a lot is different. There is an Opera House where my father could now have found work instead of being told there were no opportunities to teach opera singers. My mother might well have been able to continue with her career as an opera singer or chosen to continue her education at the University level instead of having to work in a clothing factory eventually rising to the august position as a foreperson checking the quality of the work of others while at home she and the other members of the family did piece work putting together cheap jewellery just to make ends meet.
Having now travelled extensively around the world - I know for a certainty that the opportunities provided for my generation were far greater and enabled me to finish high school, go to University on a scholarship and obtain not one, but eventually three degrees with which I have been able to carve out not one, but at least two careers that gave me the satisfaction of enjoying that work and to pay back just some of the opportunities given to me. All this would have been of some joy to my parents both of whom died alas before they could bear witness to the fact that their seemingly cracked idea of travelling to the ends of the earth where they knew not the language and where their knowledge and understanding of the country and culture was virtually zero.
They took the risk instead of waiting to be permitted entry to the USA as other members of the family had done. They did not wait even further in a refugee camp in Salzburg they took a punt and it paid off. Having visited the USA and my relatives there I have to say I admire their pluck and can only say that it was rewarded - perhaps not for them, but certainly for me.
For my relatives in the USA, I can only say this - if your stories of arrival, learning, integration and opportunity differ and not necessarily for the better, then this highlights how lucky my parents' decision was for us. Perhaps we can discuss off line and compare the experiences.
For those of my family who chose to remain behind in Hungary for whatever reason - looking at your decisions and how they have effected the generations since the 1956 revolution would also be an interesting task - especially as the economic and political situations have changed in that country over time.
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