Little Saigon

An important part of understanding South West Sydney is trying to understand the complex social situations that emerge from its different areas, and the impacts of these situations. In our two part series on the history of the South West, we draw on important documentaries and films that seek to present an accurate portrayal of the conflicts within South Western Sydney.

“Second-hand syringes and death were swept off the streets to make way for smiling and laughing families. This vibrant culture, a government initiative to patch up the businesses and lives torn apart by drugs, now cloaks Cabramatta. But tug at the loose threads of its past, and the exterior comes unravelling quickly.”

Stephen Pham is a writer from South West Sydney who isn’t ashamed of where he came from. On top of just being an excellent guy, his piece Holiday In Little Saigon, which was published in Sydney’s Overland journal last year, is an excellent insight into life growing up in Cabramatta in the late 90s.

One of the best things about this piece, though, is his reach – being published in a journal like Overland exposed the Cabramatta story to many who normally would be indifferent or ignorant, and the unsettlingly real stories which he shares in Holiday only help to educate audiences that facts and figures can’t.

You can read the full story here.

Background Reading Part 2: Once Upon A Time In Cabramatta

An important part of understanding South West Sydney is trying to understand the complex social situations that emerge from its different areas, and the impacts of these situations. In our two part series on the history of the South West, we draw on important documentaries and films that seek to present an accurate portrayal of the conflicts within South Western Sydney.

The reasons I admire Once Upon A TIme are pretty similar to my case for The Combination – well-put-together, well-informed, and an excellent insight into Cabramatta’s troubled history, the documentary series strikes a particular chord with me, having grown up around the area. I feel like Once Upon A Time is such a hugely important piece of viewing, as even though it addresses and explains so much of Cabramatta’s history, so much of the rest of Sydney is still ignorant of its current day status. That isn’t to say that the problems have entirely dissipated – they haven’t – but if more people sat down and watched through the series, they’d realise that things are very different from how they used to be, and that the area has evolved hugely since then.

 

Going back to where I came from

Having basically spent all of my life living in the South West, it wasn’t until my first year of uni that I began to really get a sense of how the area was perceived in comparison to the rest of Sydney. Not that anyone was particularly rude or snobbish or anything when I told them I was from Liverpool, but it slowly became more clear that being from the area made me a strange minority. I think it became most clear to me after my first web design lecture – I had made my first proper friend of the week, and as we chatted after class, I asked her where she was from. She said something vague and didn’t go into much more detail after I asked a bit more about it, and it was only after that I had told her that I was from the South West that she opened up a bit and told me she was from the area too – Panania, specifically.

Since then, I’ve noticed more and more similar instances, of people from the South West being misleading, or at least a little bit hesitant, in telling others where they’re from. Often, it can simply be a case of convenience – I’ve found that Liverpool is a far more recognisable name than Hinchinbrook to people not from the area, for example – but the many cases I’ve heard in passing from friends who have been in similar situations (most commonly from social situations at uni too, actually) are just indicative of the stigma that is attached to the area.

Earlier this year, when I told a new friend from uni (from Cherrybrook) that I lived near Cabramatta, she had laughed and said that the only thing she knew about Cabramatta was that her mum had always told her to avoid the place, because it was crawling with junkies and drug dealers. It was, above all, just disappointing that people still thought that – despite Cabramatta having pretty much totally getting over its drug issues in the early 90s, that the suburb is still considered just this dirty, dangerous place, especially when I feel like Cabramatta is probably one of the most amazing suburbs in the area.

Robert Barrie, the Youth Member of Wollondilly 2011, also commented on this sense of embarassment in a blog post on Born In The Bearpit last year, having noticed friends telling others that they were from Glen Alpine or Camden, instead of Campbelltown. Robert mentions that it isn’t just terrible that teenagers who had been born and raised in Campbell were so ashamed of their own suburb – it’s just really sad.

Since then, I’ve begun to change the way I approach the issue, and have never hesitated to tell people exactly where I was born and raised – because I concluded, there isn’t anything to be embarrassed about. It’s actually gotten to the point where any conversation that even begins to touch on where I come from ends up with me talking, sometimes excessively, on where exactly that might be, and all the great things about the area. Because being a member of South Western Sydney shouldn’t be a source of embarassment – it should be one of pride.

(Image taken from http://www.flickr.com/photos/74004041@N06/9431680557/)