Cherie Carter: Australia has many stories. Over the last two years as part of the National Library's ongoing commitment to increase the diversity of voices in the library's collection we've been actively engaging with, and collecting stories of, Australians with Indian heritage, their lives and experiences, work and organization, events and publications.

My name is Cherie and I'm the Senior Advisor for Contemporary Published Material here at the Library. This includes newspapers, serials, books, maps, posters and ephemera.

Ephemera is a term that covers different types of material. We collect this material as they form important insights to Australian society. Snapshots of how we live, socialise, our pastimes, events we attend, and issues that shape the times we live in.

So far for the Indian Diaspora in Australia Project Ephemera Collection we have brochures, booklets, T-shirts, a tote bag, trading cards, wristband, invitations, fliers, stickers, and even a sweets box.

This kit here is produced by Melbourne Singhs for Sikh students starting school. The kit contains two cloth patkas, some information on what a patka is and how to tie it, a colouring sheet and stickers. Accompanying the kit is this book in our collection, Jai Singh's First Day at School, in which Jai introduces himself to his curious classmates and proudly shares his Sikh identity and explains the significance of his topknot and patka.

These items were collected by one of our curators at the start of the project, when they visited communities at the good, where Blackburn and Khalsa Punjabi Language School. As textual items, the kits are given special housing to safely preserve them within the collection. These items are all stored in our secure stacks, ready to be requested by visitors to the Library in the future.

I wonder if there are other parts of the community that have similar information or material that could be donated to the library to preserve and highlight for future generations and continue to add to the diversity of our collection?

During the project, we also sought ongoing publications from community groups and organisations, including newspapers and newsletters.

South Asia Times is an independent news organisation committing to disseminating news focused on South Asia, Australia and global issues. There is also a focus on cinema, arts, sports, science, technology, business and data news. The Library had no copies of the print newspaper before for the collection.

While at an Indian film festival event, one of the project curators connected with editor in chief Neeraj Nanda. Neeraj located almost a complete set of the 17 print volumes and donated them to the library, and we hope to continue receiving deposit copies of the electronic version.

The National Library also collects electronic works published in Australia via the National Deposit Service known as NED. Zoya Patel, a writer and communications consultant, was interviewed for an oral history for the project. Two of her works were collected under legal deposit. No Country Woman is a memoir of race, religion, and feminism. And Once a Stranger, a novel about tradition, family, loss, and connection.

We were able to make other connections with people who were interviewed for an oral history, who also wrote books, which we then collected. These two books from Ikram Naqvi, Safarnama and The Way I Saw It: Australia and the World were donated by Ikram after he was interviewed for the project. One is a biography and the other is a collection of letters written by Ikram to newspapers over a 50 year period.

Dhami Singh sat down with oral historian Alice Garner to discuss his experience as an ice cream truck owner and farmer in Shepparton. We'll listen to a snippet of this interview now.

Dhami Singh: Yes, it is unusual. You wouldn't know the community otherwise. How would you know them? Any other job because if you’re doing any hospitality job, you can’t do more than five six years Like we into pieces from our six years. I’m sick of that stuff now, but with ice cream, it’s a happiness It’s not even much money and it’s not even a lot of pressure on to you.  

Just nice to people they talk to you. You know because you know everyone in the community you have more information than anyone else all the politicians want you to have photo with them because for the PR and stuff, and I’m sitting with you because of my truck again, I believe. So, yeah, that was just a community connection. It's a social cohesion, and especially in Shepparton, the stuff I sell is Italian stuff. So, you're living in Australia, and you come from India, you're selling everybody Italian stuff in small-town Shepparton. So, it's just multiculturalism itself.

Cherie Carter: Dr Lariane Fonseca also interviewed for an oral history and then donated her papers to the library, including family histories and a copy of her PhD thesis. We'll hear from her now.

Dr Lariane Fonseca: Well, I've always been known as the family's hoarder of things. I don't know about horder, but certainly collector and I think even as a child, I was always interested in the sentimental value, the things I remember, even in school, you know, gathering things and keeping them. So, obviously, in the process of leaving my country of birth or my homeland, it has ended up being a very useful sort of trait to have because, for me, every object, every little bit of paper is as important an experience because it actually tells your story. Everything contains a story. And I think, in the process of collating, I suppose the stuff for this project, what is being revealed is the importance of the way that it can tell the story of a family, of things and people past and what it holds for people in the future and for others to gather their stories.

So, my parents, met very early in life, I think my father was about 11 and my mother nine when they first met and they stayed friends. And they were sort of, their love provided an incredible role model about love and loyalty. I'm sure it had compromises. However, when we came to Australia, they whole way their marriage contract in a sense changed because, the roles, both my parents had been to university and had had studied, etc., but my mother was never able to use her qualifications as a teacher.

So when we came to Australia, she, was able to teach and I saw a completely different story unfold in terms of their marriage. But the love story of my parents is best reflected and recorded in when my father was only 25 and my mother, 23, he was sent to, he worked for Kodak, as a sales representative, I suppose.

And he was sent up to Pakistan during the Partition in 1947. And at that time, the horrors of the partition, the violence, and some of this can be seen in the family album, which will also be in this collection. The day before he left there, my grandmother gave him this crucifix, and he wore it around his neck.

And the reason why he had it was he had to prove that he wasn't Hindu or Muslim, that he was, in fact, a Christian, and that sort of saved his life. And the reason this means so much is because he carried it with him since that day in 1925, in his wallet. All through, and I found it in his wallet after he died.

And, that was in 2013 that he died, and I've actually carried it ever since in my wallet. So that holds. But an important part of my parents’ love story is, these letters that, I'll talk about. They, in 1953, when I was about two, obviously, they, my father was sent to England on a study tour, and, he was gone for three months. And in that time, every single day that he was away, he wrote to my mother. And just before my mother died, she said to me, she said, Lariane when I die, in the bottom of my wardrobe, in the left hand corner there's a silk handkerchief, with a bundle of letters. And they’re your father's love letters to me.

And I said, well, I want your love letter type thing. And she had said to me, said, well, you might as well have them, because they're all about you. And the reason she said that was because I had actually been I'd been the surviving child from they had lost two children before me and one after me, and so I was considered rather precious.

So these letters are fairly amazing, they were on aerogramme and they document, not only their love for each other, and I suppose my father's love for me, but they also, hold within them if you if you think back to 1947, 1953. Sorry. It was pretty much, not long after the war. England certainly didn't, Britain certainly didn't, have many people of colour. And so I think the value of these letters, as a sociologist, I saw the value of these letters also in capturing the socio-cultural landscape of Britain postwar, because it was the experience of man of colour, in England at that time because he talks about, you know, he doesn't call it racism, but he talks about the way he was, treated, etc.. In fact, the funny story in that is that he records in there, a story about how he had women who were chasing him. They thought he was a West Indian cricketer. So he was quite a good-looking man. And there’s a photo here of him.

So, this little piece of material is, my father actually, unbeknownst to my mother, had cut a piece of her wedding sari and taken it with him as a sort of touchstone. You know? So, what I have done is, and this is something that is good for people to do because it's a great emotional process as well, is I've actually transcribed all the letters into a book which I’ve called Leave the Letters till We’re Gone.

And, I did this basically for my siblings so I could give it. And what it has in it is not only all the letters transcribed, but it actually has some photos associated with his travels. And these are all drawn from the actual family photo album. So, which is which is great. So letters are very, it holds volumes of people's lives and history. You know, one of the things I did discover while I was, looking through the documents was this packet of letters, which I had no idea had been kept. But once again, you know, how often do we receive things from people or letters and postcards? Who keeps them?

But my dear mother actually had kept all the correspondence, from me, from overseas. So what's interesting about them is that they also have records of, you know, various places I've been living in and studying in and working in. And, they also record, what was happening in the world at that time. Which was also interesting. So, I mean, my messages to people don't throw letters and things like correspondence out, because they are invaluable in the end.

Well, in 19, would have been 64, 65. I was, we were in India. We were at my family home, the family, holiday home. I was 14, and I heard my parents talking in hushed tones about leaving India and applying to migrate to Australia or Canada. And, I was completely devastated. I was at a time of my life where I was desperately trying to hold on to my Indian-ness against the wave of, probably the post British Raj, sort of colonial, post-colonial, heritage of my parents.

My parents identified, interestingly enough, very much with being Anglo-Indian, being mixed race in India, and one of the reasons for leaving it there was, ironically, that India was becoming too Indian. And with, four daughters and a son, they were concerned that our futures would be sort of compromised in some way. I was very upset about it. I didn't know who to turn to. So what I started doing, around that time, was writing a journal, and I started writing journals every day virtually, apart from the time that I've been in hospital or unwell, since I was 14. And I'm 74. So part of the artefacts that hopefully will end up in this collection, are 60 years worth of journals for a start. And those journals have been my companion.

As a keeper of journals, I've been able to record, extensively, not only my personal reflections about day to day minutiae, boring aspects like relationships that I've been in and the ups and downs of those, health issues, etc. but as a person who's travelled a lot, it's something that I've loved doing.

I've been a peripatetic, I've sort of, someone said to me recently, well, you know, you like getting out of your postcode. Well, that's precisely what I've done from the from the minute I could, in this first passport, for example, which I've managed to keep, there are records here that bring back memories of times, in places like, Africa, Tangier is where I got locked up in jail, would you believe,

You know, sort of travel to places, where there were a lot of political unrest over the years, particularly in the 70s. I think the value of keeping documents like this is that even if you didn't have the journal, they trigger memory. So, I look back when I open these recently, I look back also on my journals corresponding to the time, and what was wonderful is the sort of correlation and the reference and the being able. But what was also interesting is all the little things that you forget, that come back and so, you know, as triggers to memory, particularly of critical incidents in people's lives, I think, journals as well as documents like this become incredibly important.

You know, I've been in some places that like, I was in Kabul during the first coup and being shot at, I was in the Khyber Pass getting shot at! I mean, I was in Berlin when the wall came down, you know. How many people can you say that you've actually been at Woodstock and saw Jimi Hendrix playing Star Spangled Banner? And I sometimes think mmm, I was there! Yeah, so it's sort of, I sometimes like my life's a bit surreal actually. But that's once again, going back to the importance of things like artefacts and story, because if you can record them, you know they're there.

So, do it. Everyone should be doing it. Just hit the voice memo on your phone. You know, like if you're telling a story just these days it's so easy technically to just you know, just record it, you know. Someone will be interested one day.

One of the things I have realised in reflecting on this whole process is that in fact, rather than it being a sad process, and a melancholic one, which it started out with, because there was the fear of letting go, I've actually reframed the whole experience as something of privilege because, I really, truly believe that we all have a story.

We don't have to be Lariane Fonseca, who's done this, that and the other. Every single one of us has a story. We are our stories. And my mantra has always been without them we are nothing. So the idea of letting go of this has been a privilege because I have been given the privilege to, in fact, through these artefacts, and this record to preserve history, to contribute to history, to preserve a story for others.

So I discovered that there were some things that I felt for all sorts of reasons, I was able to let go of, and have as a living bequest, because in the end, I think they're probably safer. I think I've already said I'm 74, and I think, you know, I've got to let go of them at some stage. But there are some things I still would like to dearly hang on to. So, for example, with the letters, the originals, you know, are going to be safer, in the collection of the National Library archive, whereas the book can be a post, death, I guess, bequest. So there's, you know, there's a balance. It doesn't have to, what I realised, initially is that, oh, I was going to have to let go of all of this, but no you know, it's great that I can hang on to some of it until a later date.

It’s interesting, I have I've been someone who's been for many years now, very comfortable with the concept of mortality and facing my own mortality. But I'm also well aware of what happens in grief. You know, when my parents died, it was a, stuff, and people couldn't deal with it. So what they do is they they grab stuff, they throw it in boxes, put them in their garages, and then, you know, you try and get it from them and it just impossible. So I've always been determined to and not I was determined but worried or concerned about what was going to happen with the stuff that I have. I felt like I was also, you know, responsible for some of the things that I did have from my parents and stuff. So I had started, you know, looking into where things could go.

And then I was made aware of play in the National Library project on the Indian Diaspora, relating to oral histories. And a friend of mine who was quite involved in Chinese market gardener history, he sort of said to me, you've got to do this. You got to apply. This is an opportunity. And I went, who wants to listen to my story anyway?

But it sort of grew from there. And I think as soon as I did the oral history with Anisa for this project, I just had this I felt this incredible weight lift off me because I felt this relief that, you know, my story, even in an oral form, was, not my story, that the family story was going to be preserved in some way. And then, it just went on from there. And, then the opportunity to actually have the artefacts, etc., through the manuscripts preservation opened up and yeah. So I didn't have a second thought about it. I mean, I did consult the family and they were quite happy for it to be preserved. And so, yeah, as I said, it's been a privilege more than trauma to do it.

The National Library of Australia might be situated in Canberra, but this is actually about, you know, the whole of Australia and people’s stories and contributions that can be made and are relevant to all of Australia. But that's that's the joy of it. And that's the way that we preserve history. I think organisations like an institution such as the National Library and its archive can, you know, helps preserve the things and keep them in history.

Cherie Carter: Seeing the connections throughout our collections shows the breadth and the depth of what the library collects. This collecting will continue beyond the formal project.

The catalogue, available on the library's website, is the best way to connect with these items and the rest of our collection. Books and ongoing serials are described individually, and the ephemera is described using a finding aid, which lists the contents of the collection organised into files. One item or kit per file.

When you're browsing the collection, do you know of items that we don't yet have? Family papers, letters, journals, photographs, books, newsletters, ephemera. The library continues to build ongoing relationships with communities, individuals, and organisations. We invite you to contribute to our collection and ensure that it continues to reflect all Australians. Offers can be made via our website.

We want to thank the community for sharing their time and their stories, and helping build a collection for all Australians. 

Dr Lariane Fonseca: So my PhD project was, I did it quite late in life, which I love, the fact that I did because it gave me the chance to do a passion project rather than something that I just wanted as a publication. My obsession with finding a place to belong was the main driver, because since I left India at the age of 16, I never felt like I belonged.

I just had this urge to want to belong. And so the PhD research, in the end, it's called A Journey Around Myself: An Archeological Exploration of Identity. And what it was about was looking at, you know how does a person with a fractured geography, I suppose, put together the pieces of one's life?

And it's very relevant to this, this whole issue of artefacts and, preserving things. How does visual memory and memory actually contribute to creating a sense of self and a sense of identity in a new place? So the PhD was very complex in that it wasn't just a thesis. It started out that the it was contained within this box, which I had managed to keep the original ticket of the, the P&O ship that we migrated out on, which was the SS Oronsay and here's an actual copy on the cover of the actual ticket, with our cabin numbers, etc..

And that was the journey from India to Australia. Now, if you recall, I said it was an archeological exploration. So the whole idea was that the research was done through, examining shards of one's experience or artefacts small, little bits that, you know, shed light upon who I was, where I was and when I was. And as a result of it, it was presented in this box, which was in layers.

And the idea was that as you unraveled or you dug, I suppose, to explore, you came upon various, artefacts at all different parts of one's life. So, in there were three digital stories or short films, and they were all numbered as artefacts. One of them, the first one was An Argument From Silence was, which was to do with, my sexuality as a lesbian and as an Indian.

And talking about, you know, the relationship between, ancient Indian culture and, single sex relationships. Then there was one called A Journey Through Lost Time, which actually looked at the experience of migration through my photography and, return trips to India. And the final one is called Lost in Translation. And that, is probably the most impactful or powerful of them because it talks about my actual experience in Australia as a woman of colour.

So it incorporates things like misogyny, patriarchy, and the whole my involvement in the women's movement, through various, fights or protests, one actually was involved in over time. So in it was also, so as you actually open these, you have different artefacts that talk about, this was about basically about the process of it.

I think one, one that is of more importance than the others is a fable that I wrote, which is a ficto-memoir. It's in the voice of a baby elephant, and it's written in the metaphor of the narrators in the, in the fable. So it's written in the style of the Pancha Tantra, which is the Indian, you know, fabular method.

But it's written in seven parts, which is to do with, a thing called the Guna philosophy, which is about every ending is a beginning. And Sat in Hindi is seven, so it's in seven parts. So I made up a thing called Satatantra but it's actually a ficto-memoir. So it also incorporates the whole experience of leaving India, coming to Australia, and life thereafter.

The this one was called the Hall of Mirrors, which was, A physical, actual installation, a photographic installation. And this, was about, the women and one dog, my dog, McTavish, who were the major influences in my life. So we've got, for example, my grandmother and my two grandmothers. And, then we go on to my closest friend in school, and so it goes.

And then it goes on to people like Simone de Beauvoir who influenced things like my feminist philosophies. So that was a photographic installation. And then I referred to, the family photo album. So, as I could not include the whole album, this was, my mother had put together this album, which will be in the archive, called Happy Memories, and it's got photos of the family from way, way back.

So, once again, it looks at, these were my father's parents. My grandfather, my great grandfather, his father. And he's wearing those medals was actually knighted by Mussolini. He was the consul general to, Italy during the war and, from Portugal. So there's, sort of things. And so it goes through some of the key photographs, out of that album, that have relevance to my family.

And finally, at the end of it all there's the tome! A Journey Around Myself.