I spent much of my childhood in a north-western suburb of Adelaide that was, for decades, predominantly white and working class. Waves of eastern European migrants formed the foundation of its initial settlement throughout the 1950s and 1960s, before it underwent a significant transformation in the 1980s, when the new influx of migrants and refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia and China settled there in large numbers. Mansfield Park also boasted an extensive collection of public housing, which ensured that underemployed Anglo Australians—like my parents—were well represented.

It was here that I became ashamed of my family’s racist attitudes. Some on the migrant-Greek side felt that anyone who wasn’t Greek was a lowlife, including Anglo Australians (they called me and my father ‘doggas’), while the Anglo side was more selectively racist: for them, it all depended on the context. My father and stepmother used racist language privately, but got along well with our neighbours, all of whom were Vietnamese or Chinese. They referred to these as ‘the good ones’, while unknowns were not to be trusted. Slopes and nips were not taboo words in our household, yet my parents would have denied that they were racist for using them. To their minds, the language you employed did not define you.