A Study Of Indigenous Australians' Ethnic Identity From The Perspective Of Multiculturalism

Australia is a typical country of immigration, and different ethnic cultures form its cultural diversity, which are represented mainly in indigenous culture and immigrants'culture. Ethnic cultural diversity led to the arrival of multiculturalism in Australia. The multiculturalism policy was adopted gradually as the national policy officially in Australia and generally the Australians showed positive and hopeful attitudes towards it. Indigenous Australians include Aboriginal Australians and the Torres Strait Islanders, who have lived in Australia for at least 50,000 years and have developed their own system of ethnic culture. But since the European invasion in 1788, the indigenous culture has been severely neglected, distorted and suppressed, and the ethnic groups were nearly doomed to extinction, which made the indigenous people suffer from a lack of a sense of belonging and severe identity crisis. Their ethnic and cultural subjugation lasted until the abolition of the White Australia policy and the arrival of multiculturalism in Australia. With the rising awareness of indigenous Australians'ethnicity, the importance of their ethnic identity has become prominent increasingly. In the multicultural society, indigenous culture gradually integrated into the white mainstream culture, and their ethnic identity also got more recognition and improvement.The thesis explored the process of construction of indigenous Australian's ethnic identity from the perspective of multiculturalism. The Australian government carried out invasion and genocide policy, assimilation and discrimination policy, and integration policy towards the indigenous Australians, and these ethnic policies in each historic stage exerted different influences on the construction of indigenous people's ethnic identity forcefully. In addition, the thesis analyzed several artistic forms such as movies, songs and true cases regarding the indigenous Australians, which represent implicitly the construction of indigenous Australians'ethnic identity. The movie Rabbit-Proof Fence and Australia respectively embodied the identity crisis the stolen generation encountered under the assimilation policy from different pointviews. Indigenous Australians have been struggling for their ethnic equality. The government's legislation to take the indigenous people into the census and give them the right to vote in 1967 and the enactment of its land rights legislation in 1976 meant that indigenous Australians started to own their political rights gradually. Uluru is the typical symbol standing for indigenous ethnic culture and the transfer of Ayers Rock back to Aboriginal ownership and the restoration of its Aboriginal name also manifested further improvement of indigenous Australians'ethnic identity. Indigenous Australians are also a part of Australian citizens and they also own the Australian national identity. The new image of Australia was showed to the world by means of indigenous Australians'fantastic performances in the opening and closing ceremonies of 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. The indigenous athlete Cathy Freeman lit the Olympic flame in the opening ceremony which left an indelible impression on the world. Besides, the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made a formal apology to indigenous people in 2008, and all of these manifested equality and improvement of indigenous Australians'national identity gradually in the mainstream society under the multicultural background.