Immigrant Stories and Timeline

Immigration is about us all – those who were here and those who came.

Everyone has a story to tell – about ourselves, our families, friends and ancestors. It is in the telling of these stories that we can begin to understand Victoria’s rich histories.

This gallery explores why people have migrated to Victoria, where they settled and how they started a new life here. The stories change annually and represent a diverse array of time periods, motivations and cultural backgrounds. Some feature Museum Victoria collections, others have been developed through partnerships with families and communities.

Stories now showing

• May Vale, a transnational perspective, 1862-1942
• Gung family, Chinese migrants, three generations since 1890
• Edda Azzola, Italian migrant and textile outworker, 1955
• Youssef, Romanos and Tansa Eid, Lebanese migrants and Melbourne taxi drivers, 1960s
• Nickel Mundabi Ngadwa, refugee from Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and artist, 2009

Around the walls of the gallery is an immigration timeline that highlights key events in the history of immigration to Victoria and its impact upon Australia’s Aboriginal communities.