History Matters

Since the 1970s, women have been at the forefront of supporting other women, in particular in cases of domestic violence. In 1974, the NSW Women’s Refuge Organisation was founded with the establishment of Elsie’s Refuge in Glebe, NSW – the first women’s refuge in Sydney. 

The Women’s and Girl’s Emergency Centre (also called WAGEC) inherited the aspiration for social change from the Women’s Liberation Movement in Sydney. Anchored in the atmosphere of violence and homelessness, WAGEC was founded by Jeanne Devine, a woman who experienced homelessness firsthand after an accident that left her in the hospital for a year. Jeanne joined the Samaritan House, one of the few shelters, like Elsie’s refuge, that had been growing around Sydney since the 1970s. From this moment, Jeanne started talking to other women and realised that most were escaping domestic violence. Noticing this pattern, Jeanne founded WAGEC 44 years ago to ensure both the material and psychological support of women and children who suffered the consequences of violence and trauma at home. 

Although WAGEC has grown over the years, the non-for-profit remains grassroot and feminist in essence. WAGEC supports women and children impacted by domestic violence while advocating for social change in the community. The organisation ensures the material support by providing families with crisis and transitional accommodations. Simultaneously, they facilitate women and children’s psychological care through three holistic programs. SEED identifies the Social, Emotional, Educational and Development of children and includes activities such as tutoring and playgroups. ACCESS is a program focusing on women’s wellbeing helping them with economic safety, health and self-esteem. Finally, WAGEC provides in-house counselling in each of its crisis and transitional accommodation to ensure a continuing support of women.   

As I researched organisations focusing on women and domestic violence, WAGEC appeared to be a local, grassroot, feminist non-for-profit prioritising women as the primary source of truth. As a feminist since my youngest age, my source of inspiration has always been my grandmother, who, as a young gynaecologist, was at the forefront of Second Wave Feminism in France, helping women with illegal abortions and protesting for birth control. Reading about WAGEC made me want to be part of their history, participating in showcasing their feminist roots to the community. Hence, the history project that I am undertaking with WAGEC is two-folded. On the one hand, I will be creating a small exhibition, inspired by the exhibition Know My Name: Australia Women Artists from 1900 to Now currently showing at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra. The other part of the project is a written one. I will be transcribing some of the research I have done for the exhibition, analysing how WAGEC stemmed from the feminist movement in the 1970s. 

WAGEC is currently based in Redfern, NSW. You can support WAGEC via https://www.wagec.org.au

“To forget one’s ancestors is to be a brook without a source, a tree without a root.”

Chinese Proverb

I believe that for many, there exists an innate human desire to know our own histories. It is not only where we come from, but more interestingly, the question of who we come from. The ancestors we have are much like us – we share inseparable hereditary links to them through our blood, DNA, and very existence.

But who were they as people? What were their personalities like? Would life in such a distant time within history have shaped them to hold vastly different values to ours? Would we have liked them if we had met them? Would we have enjoyed their company? The questions presented here are difficult to find answers to, and some are almost impossible to answer, especially without submitting oneself to a deep historical inquiry of someone’s entire lifetime. These questions have always compelled me to find answers, though the comparisons I can make between myself and my distant historical relatives only extends to our blood. This is of course, except for the food.

The Revelation that Food is History

My dad found tins of ‘fried dace’ – a small fish preserved in oil and salted black beans – when he was shopping for dinner. The origin story begins in the late 1800s where there was widespread immigration for new opportunities in foreign lands. As the differences in food were a significant culture shock to the newly arrived immigrants, it was difficult to become accustomed to the food of their new countries. The dace from Guangzhou, China, were fried, preserved in salted black beans and oil, and taken to foreign countries for immigrants, such as the U.S. and Australia. It was a popular food for early gold rush settlers for its affordability and how its strong flavour allowed it to become a meal when combined with plain white rice. My dad described how it was a food that had been eaten for generations in our family and how the ingredients had not changed throughout time. For this seemingly mundane meal to the outside eye, it allowed me the opportunity for a profound experience running parallel to those of my distant historical relatives. It is through the oral histories and experiences told by my dad, from my grandfather, and from his father, and so on, that I found myself feeling my experiences were more intertwined with my ancestors than ever before.

Project Cookbook

The revelation that food is a fantastic way to have myself and others engaging with history and our immigrant ancestors, only came through while I was in talks with the Chinese Heritage Association of Australia (CHAA), a fantastic organisation that delves mostly into oral histories to tell the stories of the Chinese community in Australia. The search for a major project idea led to talks about making changes for the CHAA’s website. This helped us envision a general update (modernisation and revitalisation) to the website as well as the inclusion of a new webpage, featuring an interactive, digitised cookbook made in tandem with the community, that includes recipes of dishes and snacks that have either cultural and historical significance to Chinese-Australians.

Your garden might not speak to you, but that doesn’t mean it can’t tell a story. When strawberries pop up on the first of October, your garden lets you in on its story of secret conversations the sun. And when weeds come up? It tells the age-old epic story of survival in the face of a murderous invading army.

Gardens are the main characters in countless stories of community, friendship, activism, and change. And what’s the setting of Adam and Eve’s ill-fated bite?

Gardens have stories, and make stories — and not just horticultural ones. Their stories go back as long as history, and I’m pleased to say that not much has changed today!

The Randwick Community Organic Garden (RCOG) is a not-for-profit, incorporated community garden in Sydney’s southeast, that provides local members with the opportunity to take part in their own stories of sustainability, community, and growth.

They have been planting together since the garden’s foundation in 1993. They have moved locations and members have come and gone, but the heart of the garden has not changed. The garden is made up of individual and community plots which ensures everyone has access to gardens to plant herbs, vegetables and flowers.

In addition to the planter plots themselves, RCOG features regular working bees, talks and other educational workshops on environmentally-sustainable growing, and other social activities for locals. As such, it’s not hard to see the crucial role the garden plays in developing strong senses of community and cohesion in the local Randwick area.

So what story is the garden telling? And has it changed over time? Working in partnership with the committee at RCOG, that’s what I want to find out.

I have proposed an oral history project that speaks to current and former members of the Randwick Community Organic Garden (at any point during its near three-decade history) to better understand the stories that made it tick, drove change, and supported the community.

We already know that it does a lot in the community — from working with school-aged students and the elderly and more. We also know that knowing a community’s history, and being proud of it, plays a key role in developing a sense of belonging and connection for members within it.

A lot is still uncertain — the form, for instance — but it is my hope that, by speaking to people whose lives have been touched, in big or small ways, by the garden in Randwick, we’ll be able to develop a story of the garden afresh, to see how it’s changed, and support the garden in sustaining its community.

And maybe uncovering its story will help us see our own more clearly.