CYINGisBELIEVING

Once Upon A Time In Cabramatta

I only just finished watching the 3 part series of SBS’s Once Upon A Time in Cabramatta – a recent documentary commentating on the meaning of multiculturalism in Australia and the struggles our nation and indeed the Vietnamese community battled through to achieve. Multiculturalism has been deemed a failure in many western countries, and it remains very humbling to see how Australia has somehow prevailed where others have failed.

The documentary was of even more interest to me in that I also struggled to find my place in society growing up and witnessed a community only just slowly recovering from the scars left from the past 25 years. Of course I didn’t grow up finding syringes in my local park or witness any horrific gangland tragedies, but I did struggle at times with the blind hatred of racism growing up in country Tamworth. Also, I went to high school during 2003 to 2005 in Glenfield, a couple of suburbs south of Cabramatta. Many of my school mates lived in this area, and hence I saw my fair share of this famous suburb.

I’d been told repeatedly by my parents to stay away from Cabramatta, and I suppose after watching the documentary I can understand why. The years that I spent in Cabramatta were the years that the community was only slowly recovering from the darkness that had clouded it for the past 25 years. Remnants of the old Cabramatta still lingered and every time I was there, I always had the feeling that something wasn’t quite right about the place. The pork rolls were amazing and the pho was amazing. But it seemed as if the ghosts of those passed as a result of the struggles in the Cabramatta of old remained to haunt those that still walked the streets.

I have been there since, and things have changed – for the better. 

Go watch the documentary.