With partners:
Student Snapshot 1
INTERVIEWER: Do you think of yourself as Australian?
FEMALE STUDENT: Yes, sometimes. Not fully Australian ‘cause I wasn’t born here, but I do have Australian citizenship.
FEMALE STUDENT: To me there’s different kinds of wogs. Like, pure wogs are Syrians, Iraqis, Lebbos.
MALE STUDENT: Arabs.
FEMALE STUDENT: Yeah, Arabs. Then there’s Greeks, Italians, and all those wogs.
INTERVIEWER: And is being a wog a bad thing?
FEMALE STUDENT: No, it’s a good thing.
INTERVIEWER: Why is it a good thing?
FEMALE STUDENT: ‘Cause I don’t want to be an Aussie.
FEMALE STUDENT: I think it depends who you’re hanging around with. Like, if you’re hanging around with all wogs, Arabs, then if you say you’re an Aussie they’ll probably think they don’t want you because you’re Aussie or something. And if you hang around with Aussies, you have to make yourself an Aussie so that they like you.
Student Snapshot 2
INTERVIEWER: Do you see Australia as home, or do you see Lebanon as home? Or do you see both as home?
FEMALE STUDENT: Both.
FEMALE STUDENT: Australia.
FEMALE STUDENT: I was born here, so basically I am, yeah…
FEMALE STUDENT: Both, but mostly Lebanon.
FEMALE STUDENT: I reckon here ‘cause we haven’t even seen Lebanon.
FEMALE STUDENT: See, I’ve seen it and I was born there.
Student Snapshot 3
MALE STUDENT: I don’t like being, you know, Lebbo and English, ‘cause like, I’m both right, and I still get teased. See no-one teases me, “oh you’re Aussie, you’re half this and that”. They always come to me, “oh you’re Lebbo, you’re Lebbo”. Like that, especially Aussies, like they don’t know that I’m half, you know what I mean, so like they always go like “you’re Lebbo”.
MALE STUDENT: But you’re not necessarily half Aussie.
MALE STUDENT: I was born here.
MALE STUDENT: Alright, alright, I know what you mean.
Student Snapshot 4
FEMALE STUDENT: Because my mum is Lebanese, my Dad is Italian, but I prefer myself to be Italian.
Student Snapshot 5
FEMALE STUDENT: The nationality of both of my parents is Lebanese. They were both born in Lebanon. I’m Lebanese or Australian-Lebanese. I identify myself as just plain Lebanese.
Watch a video of this snapshotStudent Snapshot 6
FEMALE STUDENT: My parents come from Lebanon. My identity to me is I was born in Australia so I’m Australian and my background is Lebanese because I live here you know and at school we all muck around and talk English and everything but then at home it’s different really and you talk Lebanese and that.
Student Snapshot 7
FEMALE STUDENT: I identify with being an Australian but having a Lebanese and African background.
Student Snapshot 8
FEMALE STUDENT: My parents’ nationality is, well they were both born in Lebanon, and I identify myself as being an Australian with a Lebanese background.
Student Snapshot 9
FEMALE STUDENT: My parents are a mixture, my Dad’s Lebanese, my Mum’s Syrian, so I identify myself as a Lebanese-Syrian-Australian.
Student Snapshot 10
FEMALE STUDENT: My parents’ nationality is Lebanese because they were both born in Lebanon. I identify myself as being Lebanese but I was born in Australia but I like saying I’m Lebanese.