Special Mention, Centre for Australian Cultural Studies National Awards 1997

In 1947 Australia began implementing a social policy which was to have profound and irrevocable effects on its history. One of the greatest, but generally unacknowledged, Australian achievements of this century resulted - the harmonious absorption by 1975 of over three million migrants and their children, from an increasingly diverse range of cultures.

How was this accomplished? Ann-Mari Jordens has set out to find the answer, combing the Australian Archives to document the work of the federal agency responsible for this massive undertaking. Her findings challenge the conventional view that little was done during these years by the Commonwealth governments to assist non-British migrants to settle in Australia. Alien To Citizen demonstrates that the considerable help the government provided to new-arrivals was often crucial to their successful social absorption. It also reveals that the Department of Immigration was neither a bureaucratic monolith nor a passive implementer of government policies. This is the previously hidden story of its successes and failures as an agent of profoun