{"id":931285,"date":"2026-10-17T09:14:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-17T09:14:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/931285\/"},"modified":"2026-10-17T09:14:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-17T09:14:13","slug":"australias-first-vietnamese-heritage-museum-opens-in-melbourne-after-decade-long-push","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/931285\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia’s first Vietnamese heritage museum opens in Melbourne after decade-long push"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before the days of b\u00e1nh m\u00ec takeaways and discount flight holidays, to most Australians Vietnam was known only for the horrors of conflict and conscription.<\/p>\n

That was to change with the end of the Vietnam War.<\/p>\n

Thousands of Vietnamese refugees made the perilous journey to Australia in the mid-1970s, saying an abrupt goodbye to Saigon and an apprehensive hello to Melbourne’s Sunshine and St Albans or Sydney’s Cabramatta and Canley Vale.<\/p>\n

\"Tammy<\/p>\n

Tammy Nguyen’s parents escaped Vietnam on a perilous six-day, seven-night boat journey. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

Five decades on, refugee beginnings and generational achievement were recognised with the opening of the nation’s first museum dedicated to Vietnamese-Australian history<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Constructed on a council car park in Sunshine, the unveiling of Vietnamese Museum Australia marked the culmination of a decade-long campaign to establish a permanent monument to the community’s pioneering generation.<\/p>\n

The parents of the museum’s chief executive, Tammy Nguyen, escaped Vietnam on a perilous six-day, seven-night boat journey.<\/p>\n

“There are more than 350,000 people of Vietnamese-origin living in Australia and everyone has their own unique story to tell,” Ms Nguyen said.<\/p>\n

“This museum is a living monument to all those who courageously left their homeland behind \u2014 often as refugees on overcrowded and unseaworthy boats \u2014 seeking freedom and a better future.”<\/p>\n

The project has received bipartisan support, with Victorian Premier Ben Carroll officially opening the centre on Saturday alongside MPs from across the political divide.<\/p>\n

Both the federal and Victorian governments contributed millions to the project, alongside grassroots community contributions.<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/p>\n

The Vietnamese-Australian community worked for more than a decade to establish the museum. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

Liberal MP Trung Luu, who represents the Western Metropolitan Region in the state’s upper house, said the museum’s opening was a significant day for the Vietnamese community.<\/p>\n

“As someone who came to Australia as a refugee from Vietnam, today is deeply personal for me,” he said.<\/p>\n

“This museum honours the courage of every family who made that journey.”<\/p>\n

\"University<\/p>\n

Lan Anh Hoang says racial anxieties lingered due to the legacy of the White Australia policy. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

University of Melbourne development studies professor Lan Anh Hoang said public attitudes towards Vietnamese refugees in the 1970s and 1980s were mixed as the nation adjusted to life post-White Australia policy.<\/p>\n

“In the immediate aftermath of the fall of Saigon, there was a great deal of sympathy and compassion, particularly because of Australia’s own involvement in the war,” she said.<\/p>\n

“But as boat arrivals continued towards the end of the 1970s, concerns grew about uncontrolled migration, and the legacy of the White Australia policy meant that racial anxieties still lingered.”<\/p>\n

Professor Hoang said Vietnamese migrants to Australia who relocate in 2026 find themselves in a more welcoming environment.<\/p>\n

But she added that they also tended to be more educated or skilled, with better English proficiency than the refugees who came in the 1970s.<\/p>\n

“Many describe the kindness and generous support of churches and community organisations (in the 1970s),” she said.<\/p>\n

“At the same time, Vietnamese families and their children faced more than their fair share of racism in the community and at school.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It was not easy to be a Vietnamese kid growing up in Australia at that time.”<\/p>\n

\"Vietnamese<\/p>\n

Flashback: Members of the Vietnamese community pay their respects to Malcolm Fraser at the former prime minister’s 2015 funeral. (ABC News: Clement Paligaru)<\/p>\n

University of Technology Sydney sociology professor Andrew Jakubowicz said the mid-1970s intake of Vietnamese-Australians under the Fraser Government was the first real test of the post-White Australia policy consensus.<\/p>\n

Malcolm Fraser became a champion of the Vietnamese-Australian diaspora and members of the community paid tribute to the ex-PM at his 2015 funeral.<\/p>\n

“(Vietnamese-Australians) were admitted as the first big group of refugees from a group that had almost no prior presence,” Professor Jakubowicz said.<\/p>\n

“Initially, most were Catholic southerners and pro-Saigon. Their actual travel to Australia was traumatic \u2014 they were the first modern boat people.<\/p>\n

“They arrived in the shadow of the end of White Australia into a country that was trepidatiously ready to accept Asians.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Before then, most Asians admitted after 1967 were English-speaking professionals.”\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Before the days of b\u00e1nh m\u00ec takeaways and discount flight holidays, to most Australians Vietnam was known only…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":931286,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,647,75641,21815,44,51184,93929,5611,48618,497804,497805,200255],"class_list":["post-931285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-melbourne","tag-migrants","tag-museum","tag-news","tag-refugees","tag-sunshine","tag-vietnam","tag-vietnam-war","tag-vietnamese-museum-australia","tag-vietnamese-australian","tag-white-australia-policy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=931285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/931286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=931285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=931285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=931285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}