Chinese Immigration and Exclusion Essay

“Because I don't want to be a white coolie in my own country because it's not our country anymore” (Wright). This quote originates from the 1992 Australian film, Romper Stomper, which depicts Hando, the leader of a neo-nazi gang, and his reasons for his nazi obsession. This quote is interesting as it outlines a society of multiculturalism but also hints at ideologies of white nationalism and racism which quite thoroughly encompasses what Romper Stomper is about. Furthermore, the themes of multiculturalism and racism seen in the film Romper Stomper reflect themes that can be seen throughout the history of Australia, particularly in the history of Chinese Immigration.

The film Romper Stomper takes place in Australia shifting towards multiculturalism. It follows a neo-nazi gang led by Hando and Davey who are shown at the beginning of the film to have a very apparent hatred for Vietnamese people as there is a scene where they attack three Vietnamese teenagers and later have an outburst about Vietnamese people drinking at their local pub. The gang is later joined by Gabrielle who falls in love with Hando. The gang’s local pub is bought by a Vietnamese person and his sons. Upon finding out, Hando and his gang go to the pub and attack the sons only to have Vietnamese reinforcement arrive and outnumber them. Many of the gang members fall victim to the Vietnamese mob so Hando and the remainder of his gang are forced to flee and hide in their warehouse only to discover the Vietnamese pursuing and setting their warehouse on fire. The remainder of the gang manages to evade the Vietnamese by going through an exit on the roof and they find a new base after forcing out the previous tenants. While planning to buy guns, they run into the topic of money so Gabrielle suggests raiding her own father’s house. The raid initially starts successfully with Gabrielle’s father being tied up and the gang stuffing their spoils into a car but Gabrielle’s father manages to free himself and scares the gang off with his gun. During this time, however, Gabrielle is seen trying to convince Davey to take Hando out of the gang. After the failed raid, Gabrielle agitates Hando into making her leave but interestingly this causes Davey to voice his intentions of leaving the gang and thus giving Gabrielle the address to where he will be staying. Gabrielle, out of anger, calls the police on the gang and then proceeds to sleep with Davey at his grandma’s house. The police show up and raid the warehouse where the gang is staying and Bubs, the youngest of the gang, is killed in the process. The whole gang is arrested except Hando manages to escape. Hando goes to Davey’s place and finds Davey and Gabrielle together and then proceeds to accuse Gabrielle of snitching the location to the police. Davey defends Gabrielle saying that it was not possible because Gabrielle was with him the whole time. Hando then tells Davey and Gabrielle to run with him because the police will come to check Davey’s place so they leave. During their runaway, Gabrielle overhears Hando trying to convince Davey to leave her so she lights their car on fire and then admits to calling the police. Hando, in a fit of anger, tries to kill Gabrielle but Davey stops him by stabbing him in the back of the neck. The movie ultimately ends with Davey cradling Gabrielle and Hando bleeding out on the beach amongst the ironic speculation of a crowd of Asian tourists.

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One theme that was depicted throughout Romper Stomper and is reflected throughout the history of Australia is multiculturalism. In the film, we see the presence of two distinct ethnic groups; White people and Vietnamese people. At the beginning of the film, although hated by Hando and his gang, we see that the general public does not quite share the same sentiment about the Vietnamese people. The pub that the gang hangs out at serves Vietnamese people without any regard, there were no problems selling property to the Vietnamese and Davey’s grandma disliked Davey’s anti-Vietnamese badges. This gives the impression that the Vietnamese are quite accepted in society by most. One interesting aspect of the film that I believe did not accord with the history of Australia was during Hando’s neo-nazi monologue, he said, “because rich people and powerful people brought in boatloads of human trash-- cheap labor, gooks mainly and there's going to be more” (Wright). Essentially, Hando is implying that the Vietnamese were being imported into the country and stealing jobs, but this is not the case in the history of Australia. According to Museums Victoria, Australia began accepting Vietnamese through resettlement camps due to the impacts of the North Vietnamese communist government taking over Vietnam in 1975 (Vietnam). Le-Thi-Que et al. write in their journal article Asian Survey that they discovered through systematic surveying that the pushing factors were predominantly fear of fighting, the bandwagon effect of others leaving, and fear of living under communist control (Le-Thi-Que, et al.). Later in Hando’s neo-nazi monologue, he also hints that there will be even more Vietnamese people coming into the country. This could be speculated as the result of the passing of The Orderly Departure Program which Museums Victoria explains was an agreement between the Australian and Vietnamese governments made in 1982, allowing relatives of migrants to leave Vietnam and be reunited (Vietnam). An alternative claim that could be made is that the words that Hando uses to describe Vietnamese migration reflect the history of Chinese multiculturalism in Australia. One of the biggest examples of Chinese multiculturalism is the immigration of the Chinese as a result of the 1851 gold rush. According to the National Museum Australia, Chinese immigration numbers significantly increased during the gold rush with that number peaking at 12,396 in 1856 in that year alone, and by 1861, Chinese immigrants made up 3.3 percent of the Australian population (Chinese). After the end of the gold rush in the 1870s, Chinese people in the mining colonies began to dissipate into the cities and establish themselves in other industries and occupations. People found issues with these Chinese people as they “allegedly competed for jobs, worked for substandard wages under poor conditions, and refused to embrace unionism” as documented in Race and Organized Labor in Australia, 1850–1901 by Raymond Markey (Markey 350). These same reasons were reflected by Hando and introduces the aftermath next major theme of Romper Stomper.

The theme that was most prevalent in this film was racism and the ideals of neo-nazism/white nationalism. Throughout Romper Stomper, many instances of swasticas, nazi related items, and neo-nazi music could be seen as well as the gang’s racism towards the Vietnamese. As discussed earlier, Hando hated the Vietnamese because they were cheap labor and because of his neo-nazi ideologies. These circumstances are mirrored with the Chinese immigrant integration into society after the gold rush in the 1870s as they also faced forms of racism and neo-nazism. These forms of racism and neo-nazism were not exactly in the form of individual attitudes and behaviors but rather through the form of legislation and institutionalized structures. For example, the 1881 Influx of Chinese Restriction Act passed in 1881 and 1887 which restricted the influx of Chinese Immigrants making their way into New South Wales from gold-digging colonies prompted by the anti-Chinese sentiment that arose due to job competition (Laws). Another example is the 1896 Factories and Shops Act in Victoria. According to Right Now, an independent, non-profit media organization, the act essentially subjected Chinese workshops and factories to inspections and regulations while the furniture makers of European descent were exempt from the act (Incognita). The most famous white nationalistic and anti-Chinese legislation was the 1901 Immigration Restriction Act better known as the White Australia Policy. This act, according to the National Museum Australia, allowed immigration officers to make any non-European migrant take a 50-word dictation test that could be tested in any language making it essentially impossible to pass (White). This act was quite successful in attaining its neo-nazi ideologies as National Museum Australia also acknowledged that there was an immediate demographic impact where Asians born outside of Australia were recorded as “only 1.25% of the Australian population in 1901” and that percentage “had shrunk to around 0.21% by the late 1940s” (White).

The film Romper Stomper encompasses the themes of multiculturalism as well as racism and white nationalism/neo-nazism that can be seen throughout the history of Australia. There are many more examples and different ethnic groups where these themes can be seen but these themes as presented in the film are quite prominent and closely parallel to those seen in the history of Chinese immigration and multiculturalism. The themes in the history of Chinese immigration are present in the form of past legislation and policy and though those are no longer present, racist and white nationalistic individual attitudes and behaviors towards immigrants and non-whites continue to remain as it does in Romper Stomper.

Works Cited

1. “Chinese Gold Miners.” National Museum of Australia, National Museum of Australia; c=AU; o=Commonwealth of Australia; Ou=National Museum of Australia, 17 Oct. 2019, www.nma.gov.au/explore/features/harvest-of-endurance/scroll/chinese-gold-miners.
2. “Laws in the Colony of New South Wales.” Laws in the Colony of New South Wales - Chinese Immigrants and Chinese–Australians in NSW, guides.naa.gov.au/chinese/chapter1/1.1.aspx.
3. Le-Thi-Que, et al. “Why They Fled: Refugee Movement during the Spring 1975 Communist Offensive in South Vietnam.” Asian Survey, vol. 16, no. 9, 1976, pp. 855–863. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2643246.
4. Markey, Raymond. “Race and Organized Labor in Australia, 1850–1901.” The Historian, vol. 58, no. 2, 1996, pp. 343–360. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24452280.
5. “Vietnam.” Origins.museumsvictoria.com.au, origins.museumsvictoria.com.au/countries/vietnam/.
6. “White Australia Policy.” National Museum of Australia, National Museum of Australia; c=AU; o=Commonwealth of Australia; Ou=National Museum of Australia, 29 Aug. 2019, www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/white-australia-policy.
7. Wright, Geoffrey, director. Romper Stomper. Village Roadshow, 1992.