A WORLD REPORT SPECIAL EDITION ON THE PACIFIC RIM : THE SOUTH RIM : Australia’s CHANGING FACE

From the appearance of its people, Australia may once have seemed a huge chunk of Europe that had somehow made its way to the South Pacific. No longer. The island continent is becoming in its populace what it has always been in location--a part of Asia. Sections of the largest city, Sydney, are blossoming with immigrant communities from the Asian mainland.

Until late in this century the Australians were primarily descendants of European settlers and a small population of Aborigines, the continent’s original inhabitants. The European community kept it that way with restrictive immigration laws.

Now, finding a place in Asia or, as some would say, the Asia Pacific region, Australia is becoming multicultural, a country where rice mixes with wheat, chicken with mutton. Fifty percent of the new immigrants are Asian. They still constitute a small minority, less than 5% of the population, but they have changed Australia.