I have been invited, tomorrow, to describe to a consultant, engaged by the Dutch Australian Cultural Centre (The D.A.C.C.) the benefits that this organisation brings to the Australian community. ( I look after its website. "Please take a look.":http://dacc.com.au )
I am one of ten board members, who are in the process of, separately, summarising our understanding of the purpose of the D.A.C.C..
Sure, there is a Mission Statement (Hopefully, you'll already have taken a look!)
The Dutch Australian Cultural Centre Ltd has as its aims and objectives the collection, preservation, promotion and dissemination of Dutch culture and heritage in Australia.
It also aims to be a broad based source of information, advice, assistance and interest for the benefit of people of Dutch nationality or descent in Australia as well as for the wider Australian community.
It will act as facilitator and intermediator where necessary.
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What we aim to do and what is being done and what is possible, is probably debatable.
Wonderful things, have already been done. I wasn't part of that, when the D.A.C. (as it was first) was launched, in 1983.
I had heard, in 1980, through my membership of the SBS 2EA Dutch-Radio Program, presenters team, that the concept was taking shape. But, in the early eighties I married an Australian-born colleague. We had two children and it was important to concentrate on a career.
The brief period of a 2EA Dutch radio presenter was over. Involvement with Dutch-Australian activities was on the back-burner. Something that my parents were still much more active in, than I was.
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In the nineties I attended three meetings, a few years apart and decided that this was not for me. I'm not sure when I joined the board but it must have been during the current decade.
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Together with my daughter and son - then very young - and their mother, I admired the display that the D.A.C.C., put on at the annual NSW Holland Festival.
I was aware that there were cultural activities organised for children of Dutch descent.
My impression is that there really was an energetic burst of activity in the earlier years. Much of it generated by one particular family, father, mother and daughter, the ten Brummelaars. No doubt with lots of support.
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So, children of Dutch descent, were able to find out how the Dutch celebrate(d) Easter and St Nicholas Day and Christmas, etc..
When I joined the D.A.C.C. was still in its own building with display cases, reference sections, books, pictures, displays of costumes, etc..However, it turned out that the management of the retirement village, on whose premises the building is located, found a different need for the building and the contents have been moved to a space, inside Holland House, in Smithfield.
Certainly worth a visit and lots to look at but still not into the shape that it was always intended to be in, i.e., allowing for easy access to information and resources of interest to the Dutch-born and their descendants, living within reach of the D.A.C.C..
I believe that it's a good thing that we, the current, ten board members, come to the D.A.C.C., with different experiences of migration and settlement.
My parents (then 39) and I (then 12), arrived in May 1956, on a migrant ship, after leaving Amsterdam five weeks earlier and, for reasons explained elsewhere, rather than settling in Applecross, near Perth, we found accommodation in four different migrant hostels (ex-army camps) before settling into a house together with another small family, with whom we'd boarded the ship, in Amsterdam.
Networks, with other Dutch were established in those hostels. Dutch-Australian clubs were joined, to relax after much hard work to rebuild a life , in this new country. My guess is that those of us who arrived in that so-called wave of Dutch migration, in ships (How appropriate! - Rather than by KLM, Royal Dutch Airlines) made up the bulk of what Jock Collins (Migrant Hands in Distant Lands, 1988) called factory fodder, encouraged by the Australian government and the Dutch to satisfy the labour market needs, down under.
(Quote: " Their problems with language and their lack of familiarity with Australian institutions and customs made them exploitable and often docile factory fodder " p.87)
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If all ten had been children of factory workers, like myself, the board would not be representative, at all, of the Dutch culture that is our children's heritage.
It is so understandable that, now, at the very other end of the scale, or continuum, the Dutch ex-pats and immigrants who have arrived in recent years, by aeroplane and settled into the wider community straight-away, find it hard to relate to what my parents' generation experienced as quite a struggle to have to same lifestyle and advantages.
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My impression is that the current board of the D.A.C.C. represents a cohort closer to the wave end but only a very small minority did the hostel -thing. (_Latrines, communal ablution blocks, communal dining, sparse, basic, army-style accommodation, etc.._).
When I have my turn, at minding the D.A.C.C., on Wednesdays or Sundays, I like digging out the newsletters and minutes of meetings, that were produced by the Netherlands Society in Bankstown. (Very few members lived in Bankstown.)
I like to read about what so _important_ in those days. ( The hiring of the halls, for the dances and the film nights. The catering needs, i.e., Dutch treats, etc..
The organisation involved in car rallies, bus trips, soccer matches, (Dutch) VIP visits, etc.. I *knew* some of those personalities, who wrote these things and the believe I know the feelings behind those words.
(My father was president of that social club for just under half of its life and I had a turn, in its declining years.)
Do visitors (descendants) to the D.A.C.C., need to know these things? I believe so.
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But, as Edward Duyker, points out in his book on the Dutch in Australia, in the chapter: If I may boast, (and there are further examples on the D.A.C.C., website, under DIMEX project), the Dutch did not only come to work in factories. There are a number of names of dutch-born people, prominent in politics, entertainment and the arts and industry, that are often mentioned.
And it's up to our DACC to continue to make these experiences and achievements, known, as well.
Just as my parents and I migrated, pillarization ( verzuiling ) was dissipating, in the Netherlands. No longer were your friends, family and neighbours, known to belong to the cohort that read one particular paper, listened to (and viewed) one particular broadcasting organisation, voted one particular way, supported one particular associated cause, etc..
My perception is that our (1950s, 1960s) wave brought a bit of that with it, as like-minded immigrants from the Netherlands, settled in certain parts of Sydney, from which a small percentage, which was not into assimilation overt or covert, formed social organisations of like-minded members.
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The D.A.C.C., should tell the story of how all these groups brought their particular for of Dutch culture with them to Australia and if these different groups are not represented on the board, the D.A.C.C. may need help to pass on the complete heritage package.
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To be a little bit politically incorrect, it is still, I believe, sometimes thought at one particular Dutch social club might be much more into readings/speeches/lectures by politicians, business representatives, academics, etc., than others. That in one of the few remaining clubs, you're much more likely to do a Knees-up Mother Brown / hoe-down, than in the other(s).
And that's not specifically a Dutch thing.
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Still with me?
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Tomorrow I shall talk privately, about how I believe we are, and should, as a D.A.C.C., coping with presenting the whole picture, to our fellow Australians.
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Not to mention, whether our collection should be made up of materials only in the English language or whether a mix of Dutch and English is still appropriate.
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Thanks, for staying with me, and being my sounding-board.
