Category Archives: immigration

December 13, 2023 · 12:58 pm

Another Time, Another World: Social Science in Postwar Sri Lanka

Uditha Devapriya & Uthpala Wijesuriya, … with highlights imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi

Background:  In Sri Lanka, social science research witnessed an expansion in the 1950s. Various scholars, including Stanley Tambiah and Gananath Obeyesekere, found their calling in anthropology, and went on to introduce and popularise the subject in local universities. This period also witnessed an increasing interest in Sri Lankan and specifically Sinhala society from Western scholars, including Edmund Leach, James Brow, and Richard Gombrich. While many local scholars active in that period have commented on how social science research evolved at Sri Lankan universities, no proper study of this has been done yet.

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September 20, 2023 · 12:52 pm

Neil Para’s Marathon Walk to Secure PR in Australia

Item in the DAILY NEWS, 12 September 2023… where the title reads  “SL asylum seeker granted PR after 1,000km walk to Sydney”

As he neared the end of his 1,000-kilometre walk to Sydney to raise awareness for thousands of families living in limbo as they seek permanent residency, asylum seeker Neil Para and his family have been granted theirs.

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September 28, 2022 · 1:40 am

Sri Lankans in Australia: 2016 Census Data …… The Demographic Profile

Item sent to Thuppahi by Victor Melder ….  at https://www.abs.gov.au/census/find-census-data/quickstats/2016/7107_0 …. presented here with some selective highlights from the Thuppahi pen

People 109,853
Male 57,280
Female 52,573
Australian citizen 60.3%
Not an Australian citizen 38.3%

Families 43,816
Couples with children 26,914
Couples without children 13,326
One parent families 2,972
Other families 592

All private dwellings 52,548
Median monthly mortgage repayment $2,100
Median weekly rent paid $351

 

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September 13, 2022 · 1:43 am

Exposing Sachi Sri Kantha: A Tangential Tamil Sniper

Michael Roberts

In presenting an article on Duncan White’s achievement at the World Olympic Games held in London in August 1948, I limited my focus to the 1940s. Sachi Sri Kantha in Japan has often entered comments on Thuppahi items and on this occasion ventured a point-scoring set of remarks on this item. At times these comments have proceeded tangentially to topics straddling the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

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August 8, 2022 · 11:55 pm

Defections from Lanka: Commonwealth Games Athletes and SL Navymen in USA

Item in Sunday Times, 7 August 2022 …/ taken from AFP and sent to me by Jayantha Somasundaram of Canbera

It is no secret that these days Sri Lankans are trying all sorts of ways to leave the country whether legally or illegally as the economic crisis drags on. The latest is a group of nine Navy sailors who reportedly jumped ship in the US.

The 50-member crew was to join the world’s largest international naval exercise — RIMPAC 2022. Following the exercise, they were scheduled to organise return passage home in a new Sri Lankan Navy vessel, the former USCGC Douglas Munro, which was recently decommissioned and transferred to Sri Lanka under a foreign military aid agreement.

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June 22, 2022 · 2:33 pm

An Australian Minister’s Homespun Reading of Sri Lanka’s Crisis

#7NEWS #BREAKINGNEWS #srilanka

DR KEITH SUTTER : Sri Lanka in TURMOIL – worst economic crisis in 70 years | 7NEWS …..June 21, 2022 ………………………27,741 views

7NEWS Australia

Australia’s Home Affairs Minister has travelled to Sri Lanka after hundreds of asylum seekers have been turned back in recent weeks. The country is struggling with its worst economic crisis in 70 years. Leading to shortages of food, medicine and fuel. And prompting fears of growing social unrest

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May 22, 2022 · 1:00 pm

Australia’s “Whitey” Parliament of Yesteryear

Frances Mao, BBC News, Sydney 20 May 2022, where the title runs as “Australia election: Why is Australia’s parliament so white?”

 Some of Australia’s MPs, pictured here, fail to reflect the country’s diversity, critics say

Australia is one of the most multicultural nations in the world, but it’s a different story in the country’s politics, where 96% of federal lawmakers are white. With this year’s election, political parties did have a window to slightly improve this. But they chose not to in most cases, critics say.

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January 18, 2022 · 11:48 pm

The Pandora’s Box That is the Djokovic Case

Josh Roose, in The Age, 16 January 2022, where the chosen title runs thus: “Right and left unite over Djokovic – and why they are both wrong”

It is easy to dislike Novak Djokovic. At the height of a pandemic that has claimed millions of lives globally, he has consistently refused to reveal his vaccination status, despite freely travelling the world for tennis tournaments, and has been pictured acting irresponsibly on numerous occasions.For many, he has become the embodiment of the adage that one rule applies for the wealthy and powerful and another for the rest of us.

 

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November 23, 2021 · 11:22 pm

Dutch Burghers and Portuguese Mechanics: Eurasian Ethnicity in Sri Lanka

Dennis B. McGilvray, reproducing an essay presented in April 1982 within Comparative Studies in Society and History 24 (2): 235-263 –– an article that is wide-ranging and draws on ethnographic work as well as historical manuscripts. Note that the highlighting and pictorial insertions are the work of The Editor, Thuppahi.

 

 

 

 

 

I: PROLOGUE

Historians and anthropologists in Sri Lanka have tended to migrate in opposite directions, but away from the multiethnic confusion of the port cities. Typically, the heterogeneous, semi-Westernized, postcolonial urban society of Colombo and the larger towns has been only a transit point on intellectual journeys outbound to European archives or inbound to “traditional culture.” This was certainly my viewpoint as I arrived “inbound” in Sri Lanka for my first anthropological fieldwork. I took only passing notice of the clerks of mixed European and Sri Lankan descent who sold me stationery supplies at Cargill’s and mosquito nets at Carvalho’s. These people are given the official designation of Burghers in the government census: they are the racially mixed descendants of the Portuguese, Dutch, and British personnel who occupied the island during four and a half centuries of colonial rule.

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November 14, 2021 · 12:58 pm

Chinese Canadian War Veterans Step Out from the Shadows

Rod Mickleburgh, in The Globe and Mail, 10 November 2021, where the title is  “Chinese Canadian Veterans celebrated at Vancouver Museum”

When the Second World War ended, Ronald Lee did what so many other returning veterans did. He shed his uniform, took up civilian life, married, had kids and never talked about what he did during the war. Mr. Lee maintained his silence for 70 years. Beyond a few medals found in his underwear drawer long ago, his six kids knew almost nothing about his wartime experience. Finally, in his mid-90s, he agreed to be interviewed by Catherine Clement, curator of the Chinese Canadian Military Museum in Vancouver.

 

 

 

 

 

Ronald Lee’s wallet contained tattered photos of himself in uniform and with his commando comrades…. RONALD LEE FAMILY/CHINESE CANADIAN MILITARY MUSEUM Continue reading →

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