Leaving

This oral history exhibition was launched by Andrea Coote, State Parliamentary Secretary for Family and Community Services at the Immigration Museum on 4 March 2011. It forms part of an archive of 100 stories selected by the Victorian Immigrant and Refugee Women's Coalition (VIRWC) from hundreds of submissions across Victoria. The VIRWC performed a rigorous evaluation process which involved members of the board assessing the significance of the stories submitted. The work is connected to a grant from the RMIT Foundation and the Malcolm Moore Industry Research Award which the author won in 2011 to examine intergenerational migrant narratives. It contributes to strengthening the Immigration Museum's collections and creating a more diverse and complex picture of Australian immigration histories. This work was also awarded an Australian Society of Authors Mentorship Award in 2011, a prestigious national award for developing a manuscript, one of 15 selected from 219 entrants. The work is an important component of the Immigration Museum's collections; it was the first time that 100 stories, from a first person perspective, were collated. It forms part of a project by the author titled Voice from the Margins, which aims to document the narratives of first generation migrants and second generation Australians, and highlight the different ways migrants participate in community life in Australia using digital stories and photographs. This work contributes to creative innovations in representations of immigration through its unique use of digital technologies to tell stories. The work was widely reviewed across a range of media, including the mainstream and multicultural press (see http://www.beyondindia.com.au/news/606/15/A-hundred-women-give-â-Her-Storyâ-to-the-Immigration-Museum.html). Novelist, Fiona McGregor, who reviewed it said, 'The writing...is very bittersweet, it rarely flags, it¿s very fresh. It¿s clear and gallops along.'