Gumtree Skyscrapers and Takeaway Flat Whites: Anzac in the United States

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article extends the transnational history of Anzac by shifting the focus from Britain to the United States. It tells a history of Anzac in the United States, focused on New York and California, that shows how both Anzac Day and the broader language and iconography of “Anzac” has been core to the production of Australian community and identity in the United States from the 1920s until the 2020s. Over multiple generations, stateside Australians have reached to Anzac to enact their Australianness and build ties with fellow expatriates. As a result, Anzac has come to serve as a metonym for Australians and Australianness within the United States. At the same time, Anzac in the United States has indexed Australia’s shift from British to American empires. Once a British affair, it is now an annual event to renew the transpacific alliance.