This talk, co-presented with the China Studies Centre, The University of Sydney, explores the diverse stories of the Chinese-Australia diaspora.
Has a united or singular “Chinese Australian community” ever actually existed? If so, is a united community a means to an end or an end in itself? And where might this community sit in contemporary multicultural Australia? To explore some possible answers to these questions, Dr Nathan D. Gardner Molina will discuss his new book, In the Face of Diversity.
Delving into the histories of more than a dozen Chinese Australian community organisations from across the country, In the Face of Diversity uses the English- and Chinese-language materials produced by these organisations, as well as interviews with past and present leaders, to reexamine familiar and fascinating moments of recent Australian history: from the official turn away from the White Australia policy and embrace of multiculturalism in the 1970s to the debate about China’s influence upon Australian politics and society, beginning in the 2010s and continuing into the present.
Looking at this historical record, Gardner Molina suggests that “unity” has only ever been momentarily or partially grasped by Chinese Australian community organisations. Nevertheless, the recurring search for unity (in one form or another) has produced real-world outcomes – one of the most prominent being a highly participatory style of Australian multiculturalism. Gardner Molina dismantles the myth of a single Chinese Australian community and rebuilds a solid understanding of many diverse communities instead; each with their own aims, needs and participatory capacities.
This talk is presented as part of the 2026 Lunar New Year Festival program.
Dr Nathan D. Gardner Molina is a post-doctoral research associate at the University of Melbourne who specialises in Australia’s histories of immigration, multiculturalism, and ethnic diversity with a special interest in the histories of Chinese Australian communities. Nathan delivered the 2024 Hancock Lecture for the Australian Academy of Humanities, titled ‘What Makes a Multicultural Nation?’ In 2025 his book, In the Face of Diversity, won the Early Career Publication Award from the Chinese Studies Association of Australia.
