6 - Ethiopians in Australia: Race, Ethnicity, and Othering

Summary

When I left Ethiopia to come to Australia, I was not destitute. I was a well-educated director of a respected NGO. Yet the label “Ethiopian” made me poor in the eyes of almost every Australian I ever met. Despite having Western qualifications and experience, I was still not Western enough … my knowledge and experience was reduced to nothing…. I became a security guard. (Woldeyes 2016a, 65)

The above excerpt is from the creative nonfiction of Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes, an Ethiopian scholar, poet, and educator residing in Perth, Australia. Born in Lalibela, Ethiopia, Woldeyes started his educational journey in the traditional learning system spearheaded by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. He then pursued western-style education, receiving his bachelor's degree in law in Ethiopia, which enabled him to teach law and work with grassroots organizations. He migrated to Australia after the publication of his first book The Cry of Mountains (2006) a collection of poetry written in Amharic. He followed his then-wife who had already migrated to Australia with their twin girls around 2007. After struggling to find work with his law degree from Ethiopia, he undertook a doctorate in Australia and currently works as a researcher and lecturer at the Centre for Human Rights Education, Curtin University in Perth, Australia (Sheger 2020). His research, poetry, and creative non-fiction writing focus on indigenous knowledge, education, culture, development, law, and politics (Woldeyes 2016b). Woldeyes particularly writes about being Black in Australia, providing insightful commentary on Ethiopian and, more generally, African migrants’ diasporic condition and processes of othering they often undergo in their host nations. For instance, at Bread & Butter, a monthly dinner and storytelling event hosted by the Centre for Stories, Woldeyes (2019) shared stories of his homeland and the confrontation staged by being a Black man in Australia:

I didn't know I was a black man before I came to Australia… . I turned up in Australia and slowly I started to understand that there is actually a subtle meaning of what black people are. So, through the immigration process, through work, there is that usual phrase, “Ah, you are from Africa? You must be very happy; you must be very lucky!” So, this reminds us of a certain narrative about blackness with which I struggle… . That is a story of me about being black—the fact that I didn't know I was black before I came here.