Being an immigrant child is challenging, but rewarding

My uncle collected us at Sydney Airport. There were no motorways then, just the Hume Highway that snaked its way through the inner city and the mostly migrant suburbs in the south-west where we took a two-bedroom flat in Fairfield, a week after staying with my uncle.

As we left the inner city behind, the old red brick cottages and the manicured gardens gave way to fibro houses and barren front yards. The aluminium roller doors in the shopfronts gave the streetscape a run-down, derelict feel. Milk bars and fish-and-chip shops popped up in every suburb. This was a period of transition, before Asians like us moved there in number in the '80s after Australia dismantled the White Australia Policy.

Fairfield was one of the many suburbs people then disparagingly referred to as "the west", its residents referred to as "westies". No one of means would consider living there, unless like us they were new migrants looking for affordable accommodation.

Where I attended university, most of the students in my year were from the wealthy northern suburbs, and had not heard of Fairfield. Whenever they asked where I was from, I tried to pass over the topic quickly, noticing their puzzled looks and sometimes their contempt. Later, with more maturity, I was proud of where I grew up, and was thankful to have heard the stories of the struggles of other migrants, their resilience and determination, their hard work and ingenuity.

As young as I was, I could see how the south-west was the refuge of new migrants trying to make their way. It had that feeling of desperation and optimism in equal measure.

Every Saturday morning before going to the TAB to place a small bet on the horses, Dad knelt over the bathtub to scrub and wring our clothes, like the dhobi wallahs back home and in neighbouring India. Mum hung them out on the communal Hills Hoist at the back of the flat.

My parents furnished the house with a few borrowed items, and later a refrigerator and a television they purchased with a loan. As new migrants, they had no credit history and no security. No bank would lend them any money. Dad turned to a finance company at high interest rates, long before the days of mandatory pre-disclosure laws. On Saturday mornings, I accompanied him to the finance office to make a payment and to have them stamp another entry on the instalment card he carried in his wallet.

It was like starting life again with a blank canvas. For my parents the separation from the old country must have been more distressing, having left everything that was familiar to them, remaining family and friends, a nice house and a good job to come to a new country, not knowing if or when they would get a job, whether they would settle into their life here. They were still youngsters themselves, embarking on a journey to a country they barely knew, to an uncertain future with two children to support.

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Every generation of migrants raises families and educates children. Over time, with greater opportunities, some vacate the suburb to the next round of migrants. And so the cycle continues.

Mum once told me that in those early years Dad was so homesick he pleaded with her to return home. But they persevered, until they settled into a new life here. As fondly as they sometimes speak of the old country, they never express a desire to return. Sometimes my sister and I encourage them to spend winter in Sri Lanka. Dad will run through a list of serviced apartments and calculate aloud how they could manage it on their pension. However, the initial excitement invariably quickly subsides. The truth is they are enormously grateful for what Australia has provided us. They have embraced every aspect of Australian life, work, sports, and clubs, and volunteer with the St Vincent de Paul society.

Most migrants, like my parents, come here well-intentioned, looking to find a job and to create a better life for themselves and their children. Why would you endure the trauma of leaving your country of birth, everything which is familiar to you, to do anything less? The evidence is there, plain to see across our extended family - professionals, tradespeople, small-business owners, people holding public office and volunteer coaches at the local school. In their unique way, each is making a valuable contribution to the country and fostering the next generation of bright and committed Australians. The rewards are usually swift, within one or two generations, as in our case.

Migrants like my parents instil in their children such a hunger to succeed that failure is a missed opportunity. It is not surprising children from migrant parents often feature in the highest rankings at school and university. For them it is not simply an education, it is payback for their parent's sacrifices - and failure is a lost inheritance. That's what it is like to be a migrant kid.