Japan is top of the travel bucket list for many Australians, but many of us are unaware of the unacknowledged history of Japanese who have moved to live here since the late 1800s.
A special NSW exhibition called Unspoken Contributions, curated by Flinders University cultural historian Dr Tets Kimura - an expert in Japanese culture and international relations - aims to tell some of these untold stories of Japanese migrants and diaspora who contributed to Australia's nation building between 1867 and post-world wars 1946.
"The photo collection encourages visitors to see these 'foreign' or exotic Japanese people as 'us' rather than 'them'," says Dr Kimura, an interdisciplinary researcher in art-cultural history, fashion and Asian studies.
"Like other migrant and refugee groups, they contributed to the communities that have built a shared Australian story."
Dr Kimura says the earliest arrivals from Japan to Australia were performers, or immigrants willing to do difficult jobs no-one else wanted such as heavy labouring, harvesting, laundering, or dangerous marine pearl diving, fishing and sugarcane cutting. They brought their unique customs, cuisine and clothing - including kimonos and men's traditional attire.
Many Japanese migrants born in the first half of the twentieth century were automatically British subjects, thus Australians, but were still treated as foreigners, he says.
During the Second World War, the majority of civilians of Japanese heritage were interned in enemy alien camps across Australia - including the Woolenook Wood Camp in South Australia, a satellite camp of Loveday in the Riverland. The exhibition has a photo of a cricket pitch used by Japanese and other internees at the camp.
The Unspoken Contributions: Engaging Public Dialogue with Japanese-Australian Photo Exhibition (1867-1946) will run at the Cowra Japanese Garden and Cultural Centre (Ken Nakajima Place, Cowra) from 1 May to 28 June 2026.
The Flinders University exhibition, funded by the Australia-Japan Foundation (AJF), Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, has elected archival photos from special collections around Australia, including the National Library of Australia and State Libraries of WA and Queensland.
Dr Kimura, who completed a PhD in International Relations at Flinders University, will give a talk at the opening symposium on Saturday 2 May.
"I think it is important to rediscover the histories that connect us and celebrate all of the people who helped build the Australia we know today," he says.
Acknowledgements: This project is funded by the Australia-Japan Foundation (AJF), Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to advance people-to-people and institutional links between Australia and Japan. This year, Australia and Japan are commemorating 50 years since the signing of the Basic Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation as well as the establishment of the AJF.
