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The goldrush colony of Victoria, Australia, was a favoured destination for aspirational emigrants from nineteenth-century Britain. Yet the persistence of high rates of infant mortality blighted the happiness of many first and second generation immigrant families alone in a new land. Drawing on birth, death and inquest records this paper interrogates the experience of infant death amongst the poorest families in the capital city popularly known as 'Marvellous Melbourne' during the second half of the nineteenth century. Although few infants died alone, the familial and community networks in which they were enmeshed were not always committed to their survival. While the paper argues that there was a hierarchy of value which determined the degree to which the death of a child would be welcomed or mourned, it also contests popular notions that evil baby farmers and unfeeling mothers were a major cause of infant death. ☆ This paper derives in part from research undertaken for a project funded by the Australian Research Council. The author would like to acknowledge the contribution of co-researchers Professors Janet McCalman and Ruth Morley, and research assistants Cecile Trioli and Jo Townsend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on participant observation and in-depth interviews with broadcasters of two distinctive Hebrew radio programmes in Melbourne. The two programmes are part of a weekly Jewish programme broadcast in Hebrew, English and Yiddish. They operate within the setting of a local ethnic community radio station, a manifestation of Australian multicultural policies whereby nearly 63 different ethnic and language groups produce radio programmes for their distinct communities. Focusing on the Israeli broadcasters who present the Hebrew radio programmes, I examine how different political identities and a sense of being away from Israel are translated into the programmes they make. Despite their shared cultural background, Israeli immigrants have different personal and collective readings of the past in Israel and of present life in Melbourne. The weekly programmes in Hebrew operate as a cultural site in which political and migratory experiences interact and intervene to produce migratory mediascapes in which contradictory interpretations of identity are played out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the stories of eleven middle-class professionals from Bogotá, Colombia living in Melbourne, Australia. They reflect on class and status while trying to navigate the Australian social structure and position themselves and others in it. Drawing on theories of migration and class, we argue that the participants position themselves in Australian society not only in relation to the local social structure but also through beliefs they have about Colombian social structures, particularly the socioeconomic stratification system. This involves reinterpretation and adaptation of pre-conceptions and beliefs according to the new reality. Further unexpected findings included that English proficiency is crucial to the social mobility and integration of Colombian migrants in Australia. Most respondents perceived education as their best asset, but felt that their chances of success depended on English skills. This research contributes to knowledge of Latin American migrants in Australia and the Colombian socioeconomic stratification system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses data from the 2011 Australian census to test a spatial assimilation model of intergenerational concentration and dispersion involving 40 ethnic groups in Sydney and Melbourne. Multivariate statistical techniques are used to examine how acculturation and socio-economic characteristics predict ethnic residential concentration, measured by the index of dissimilarity. Findings support the thesis that ethnic clustering and dispersion reflect immigrant cultural and socio-economic adjustment to Australian life. Ethnic residential concentration is explained by Australian nativity, immigrant duration of residence, English proficiency, educational qualifications and unemployment. Findings are supported by a threshold analysis, which identifies a declining tendency, from the first to later generations, to live in areas of high coethnic concentration. An examination of outlier groups finds that unexplained factors appear to be slowing the spatial assimilation process for a few groups, consistent with a pluralism scenario. A major contribution of this study is its analysis of multiple ethnic groups across three generations and three time-of-arrival immigrant cohorts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the crystallisation of a community composed mostly of ethnic Ukrainians at Ardeer in Melbourne's outer-west after 1949. The cohort of small-home builders collectively constructed dwellings, grew vegetables, bartered goods and favours, kept animals and nurtured a staunch diaspora nationalism in one of the city's rawest suburbs. Despite a robust contemporary discourse on migrant suburbs, recent historical examinations of the experiences of ethnic settlers on city fringes are scarce indeed. These few accounts fail to locate the hybrid cultural worlds fashioned by the newcomers within key political, economic and intellectual contexts of the post-war era, as this article does. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]