All as One to One for All

Abstract

The recent racism toward Chinese Australians arising from the COVID-19 pandemic recalls the shape and scale of racism last seen during the “Hanson debate” of the late 1990s – so-named for the anti-Asian immigration and anti-multicultural positions Pauline Hanson advanced in Australian politics and society. Further linking these two moments are the responses to racism coming from Chinese Australian individuals and community organizations. In each period, the different backgrounds of various Chinese Australian communities and their representative organizations influenced their modes of responding to racism. Over the years, however, the prominence of a small number of “community leaders” and organizations responding to racism has increasingly eclipsed grassroots responses to racism. I argue that this shift represents a “professionalization” of Chinese Australian responses to racism; partly explaining the form that present responses take, while also problematizing the relationship between the “community representatives” and the “communities being represented.”