Effects of COVID-19 on Multicultural Australians

Since March 2020, Australia has experienced many ill effects of the pandemic. These include border shutdowns, unlimited lockdowns, and school and childcare shutdowns. Additionally, there were job and business losses. While everyone living in Australia suffered, culturally and linguistically diverse Australian migrants were the most affected. Find out the effects of the pandemic on multicultural Australians below.

Never before have Australian migrants faced such emotionally tough times. On one side, their jobs were affected. On the other side, they couldn’t go to their respective countries or invite their family back home. Children born during the pandemic missed opportunities to meet others in the community. They also could not see their own grandparents for almost 20 months.

Multicultural Australia

Australia is home to more than 300 ancestries and more than 200 spoken languages. In fact, about 21% of Australians reported speaking a language other than English at home. Owing to this, Australia can proudly call itself a multicultural nation, in more ways than one. From food to culture to languages to religions, there is a beautiful blend of nationalities, here in Australia.

Ill effects of COVID-19 on Asian migrants

The stress and fear that COVID-19 has brought about, caused many Asian migrants to suffer overt racism and inequality. A survey was conducted by Think tank per capita. The Asian Australian Alliance also participated in the survey between April and June 2020. It brought out some astonishing results. Nearly 400 people with Asian backgrounds responded. More than 35% of them cited racial abuse in the form of slurs or name-calling. Unfortunately, the pandemic has further deepened the seeds of inequality for millions of Asian migrants living in Australia. This is even more prominent in the temporary and migrant workers cohort, who are already suffering from insecure work.

If you support anti-racism and social equity in Australia, donate to All Together Now– Australia’s only anti-racism organisation.

Understanding the effects of the pandemic on CALD Australians

Social cohesion is a key driver of Australia’s success as a prosperous, diverse society.

Social cohesion highlights what we share and what keeps us together, as a society. Scanlon Foundation Research Institute has come up with an important report about what has kept Australia united throughout the years. Understanding the effect of social cohesion in Australia is more important than it has ever been before. The pandemic has brought us face to face with some of the greatest challenges of our lifetime. Multicultural Australians are facing the brunt of these challenges. According to the report, almost 60% of Australians felt that racism was a big problem in Australia. This is a jump of 20% from the previous years. To find out more, read this link.

The effects of shut borders on CALD Australians:

Almost 1 in 3 Australian is born overseas. A large percentage of Australians still have one or more of their immediate family back in their respective countries. Australian borders were shut from March 2020 for non-Australian/non-PR holders. This included immediate family as well.

So what did this mean for multicultural Australians? Many CALD Australians were unable to see their aged family back home. Some could not help their aged parents as they struggled with COVID-19. Others couldn’t even attend their parent’s funerals. Many young children born during the pandemic did not experience the physical love and care of their grandparents. The more you learn about the emotional, mental and psychological consequences of the pandemic on Australians, the more your heart sinks. Australian immigration department held the final decision on whose exemption to travel would be granted. Mind you, these weren’t Australians who wanted to go abroad for a holiday. They only wanted to support their family amidst the pandemic.

Parents are immediate family

Never before in the history of Australia have multicultural Australians felt the need to prove this fact- “Parents are immediate family”. With the international border shut for over 18 months, multicultural Australians started getting restless and uneasy. Culturally diverse Australians felt trapped. They had no certainty of meeting family back home. This uncertainty affected their mental health. This restlessness was the root cause of the petition named “Parents are immediate family” that went viral in late 2020. It was finally lodged in May 2021 here.

The petition mainly entailed that Australia is a multicultural country. Many citizens and PR holders have migrated from overseas with parents are living abroad. Australia’s post COVID border policy only allowed Australians and PR holders to enter Australia. Parents overseas were unable to be reunited with family because they are not classed as ‘immediate family’. The petition explained how crucial parents are to migrants living in Australia. The inability to meet them or travel back home is impacting people significantly.

COVID-19 has impacted Australian migrants financially and physically. However, the biggest impact was being apart from parents for extended periods.

After months of online campaigning, a lobby group ‘Parents are Immediate Family’ was able to push for a petition. This petition was signed by more than 70,000 people. There was also a Facebook group created that has now attracted close to 8.5k followers.

The day arrived

On October 15th 2021, the Australian PM announced a change. Parents of Australian citizens and PR holders will be classed as immediate family and can visit. This huge movement helped people understand the power of multicultural Australians and the effect of policies and rules on them.

Read more: Read more about this historical announcement here

How lock downs brought up ugly issues of racism

Many major cities in Australia like Sydney and Melbourne, were in the news for the continuous lock downs. The ugly face of underlying racism also appeared in the news. It affected people living in certain areas. Amidst this COVID-19 outbreak, Gladys Berejiklian faced scrutiny. She singled out three council areas in Sydney’s west for apparent health order breaches. North Sydney residents were allowed to hang out at the beach. In contrast, western Sydneysiders received fines for even taking a walk in their own neighborhood. This was unequal treatment in broad daylight.

The Cumberland City councillor Kun Huang argued that the police operation was harsher on the western suburbs, compared to the affluent parts of Sydney.

“How come one rule applies for the northern suburbs and the eastern suburbs, and another rule applies to western Sydney?” he said.

The three most affected Sydney LGAs had one or both parents born overseas.The effected LGA’s were Blacktown, Bankstown and Fairfield.

Read more: Why western Sydney residents felt targeted amidst lock down

Effects on migrants livelihoods and small businesses

Australia’s small business industry is filled with migrants. In fact, small businesses contributed to almost 32% of Australia’s GDP in 2018-19. It came as no surprise that so many multicultural small businesses in Australia suffered as a result of COVID-19.

1/3 of small businesses in Australia are run by migrants, meaning there are almost 620,000 migrant-owned businesses across the country.

Australian migrants own small businesses in varied industries. These include grocery stores, restaurants, medicine, acupuncture, education, and community services etc. They’re known to be very enterprising, resourceful and
resilient. Because of the nature of the way migrants run their small businesses, they suffered maximum losses in the pandemic. Most of their businesses required face-to-face interaction and community-based activities. They’re either run as a solo business or with very few staff- with very little financial backing. All of these causes have been responsible for migrant-led small businesses in Australia to go in a loss, post-pandemic.

The pandemic caused an exponential increase in domestic violence amongst certain CALD communities in Australia

Domestic violence (DV) raised its ugly head yet again, this time owing to the unlimited lockdowns. Vulnerable people were forced to stay or work from home. Home may be a safe haven for some, but for others, it is the complete opposite. The research was conducted by the Australian Institute of Criminology. They studied 15,000 Australian women 3 months into the pandemic. This research was an eye-opener and found out that a whopping 4.6% of Australian women stated that they suffered from DV. For many women, the pandemic coincided with the onset or escalation of violence and abuse.

Conclusion

COVID-19 has brought to light many issues that multicultural migrants are facing in Australia. While multicultural migrants are resilient, these issues suggest a need for enhanced policy and initiatives to meet the needs of the CALD population. We need to provide them with the resources and cultural-specific help that they need.