Picture this. Smithton. 1981 (inspired by a famous line of Sophia Petrillo in the Golden Girls television series).

In the early ‘80s, my mother, sister and I left the Philippines for Australia with only three suitcases and carry-on bags.  We left many possessions behind – favourite toys and keepsakes were sold or given away. Apart from a boxful of photos, I literally have nothing material that represents my childhood.

Even more important than our belongings, we left our extended family and support systems behind.

They were not just a town away – they were an ocean away. We did not have one relative living in Australia and there was no Migrant Resource Centre to turn to for support and orientation to the local community.

We arrived in Tasmania just before winter in 1981 in the farming community of Smithton. We were the first Filipinos and only Asians in the village.

Coming from a city of 11.5 million people, Smithton’s population of some 5000 was scarily small.

We stood out and I can still remember our first outing in the main street, feeling the stares of the locals as they tried to work out who the newbies were.

There was a period of adjustment. New language, new faces and not many people who looked like us, strange foods, and a totally different way of living.

Cold weather was another new thing that added to our daily tumble of disorientation.

Our family experienced generational and cultural conflicts particularly through our teenage years. While it is not unusual for teenagers to give their parents a hard time, I struggled to make sense of our new world on top of the normal teenage growing pains.

Like many migrant parents, Mum tried to hold onto the traditional Filipino ways she brought to Australia.

It was inevitable that there would be differences of opinions and perspectives with her teenage daughters who were growing up with Western values.

We were desperate to just be normal while Mum was drowning in the vast cultural gap that existed between her values and those that now confronted her.

No sleepovers or parties, discussions about having a boyfriend were uncomfortable, participating in after-school activities was new to Mum – school production practice and socials made her nervous.

The school camp had my mother sleepless for a week. Worst of all, she did not feel comfortable enough to talk to other parents.

My sister and I attended the local high school which only had about 100 students per grade. The all-girls Catholic school we attended in the Philippines was twice the size of the population of Smithton.  

Our first few years in Tasmania are full of fond and not-so-fond memories.  We all loved farm life – milking, hay carting, wearing gum boots and driving tractors were all new experiences for us city slickers.

Most of the locals were kind and friendly but there were a few who weren’t so welcoming at first.  

My sister and I found the first two years at school quite tough but after that it was generally good for us. The teasing eased and we eventually stopped being called the “Asian kids”.

Mum struggled with employment. For the first time in her adult life, she was unemployed. Although we all spoke English, our heavily-accented speech and quirky American vocabulary wasn’t easily understood in Tasmania.

And my once-executive mother resorted to picking potatoes and broccoli. In our first year, she attended 21 interviews and did not manage to land a job in her field.

Our story is not unusual and fast forward to 2018, many others can share a similar story of building a new life in this great country.

I have found that one of life’s most challenging lessons is learning how to fit into a geographical neighbourhood, and then to do it again and again as our circumstances change.

Starting a life in a new place was hard, but the small community we lived in did not disappoint us. Like many young people, my sister and I left the little country town to explore the big world… but years later returned to the place we call home and the place where we belong.