NOBODY’S SONS: MIGRANT PROTEST AT BONEGILLA. AN EVENING OF HISTORY AND THEATRE

 

Bonegilla was a point of reception and temporary accommodation for approximately 320,000 post-war refugees and assisted migrants who arrived in Australia between 1947 and 1971. Its function was integral to the post-war immigration scheme, officially lauded as an economic and cultural success. However, considerable hardships were endured at Bonegilla, particularly during times of economic and political insecurity. Enforced family separation, poor standards of care, child malnutrition, and organised migrant protest need to be recognised as part of the Bonegilla story. Histories of Controversy: Bonegilla Migrant Centre gives this alternative picture, revealing the centre’s history as one of containment, control, deprivation and political discontent.

 

In this talk, author Alexandra Dellios will explore the events and outcomes of the 1952 and 1961 riots over unemployment that occurred at Bonegilla and in other immigration centres across the country. Italian migrants and their hardships are most prominent in public retellings of these riots, and Alexandra will focus on their experiences of, and resistance to government control and surveillance. The politics of the Cold War, and the role of ASIO, as well as left-wing trade unions allied with the Italian migrant cause, are also a key part of this story.

 

Alexandra Dellios was awarded her PhD by The University of Melbourne in March 2015. In July 2017 she will take up a lectureship in the Centre for Heritage and Museum Studies at the Australian National University in Canberra. She has published on child migrants, commemoration and heritage, and post-war migration. Alexandra lectures in Australian studies and migrant history at The University of Melbourne. She is currently researching post-war migrant accommodation and standards of care, as well as heritage-making practices within migrant communities and the discursive interactions between grassroots groups and official heritage.

 

Tes Lyssiotis wrote and directed Hotel Bonegilla for La Mama in August 1983 with a cast of 6. In 1997 Tes directed Hotel Bonegilla at Hot House Theatre (Wodonga) as a community production for the 50^th Anniversary of the Bonegilla Reunion Festival, with a cast of 32, most of whom had direct family connections to the Migrant Camp.

 

The play draws on the personal stories and experiences of people who made Australia their home. Hotel Bonegilla is a tale about immigration that still resonates because Bonegilla epitomises what has become the main trait of the 21^st century: the movement of people between countries. At the centre of the play is the potent image of the suitcase which helped shape the playwright’s vision, for inside the suitcase are the dreams and the heart of the migrant.

 

Playwright and director Tes Lyssiotis has always been interested in telling on stage the extraordinary stories of ordinary people. For over 20 years she has focused on the complexities of culture and identity. Tes has worked extensively in bilingual theatre since 1982, pioneering this style of theatre.

 

Tes has worked as a teacher, director and freelance playwright for many years. She has received commissions from theatre companies such as the Malthouse Theatre (Melbourne), which featured her groundbreaking drama The Forty Lounge Cafe in its inaugural production in 1990, the Melbourne Workers Theatre (Melbourne), the Swye Theatre (Perth) and the Hot House Theatre (Wodonga). For La Mama Theatre (Melbourne), Tes has written and directed over 10 plays, including A White Sports Coat, Blood Moon, Hotel Bonegilla (which toured regionally and nationally), On the Line, I’ll Go to Australia and wear a hat, The Journey and the highly acclaimed Paradise.

 

Tes’s plays have been produced by SBS radio and television and by the ABC. Blood Moon has been translated into Greek and has premiered at the Volos Festival in Greece. Tes directed and dramaturged Matthew Hardy’s shows for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. She also worked as a script consultant on Mary Coustas’ show Effie the Virgin Bride in 2016. Three of her plays have been published by Currency Press in a collection titled A White Sports Coat and Other Plays.