This documentary captures a 40-year journey of passion and scholarship, tracing the creation of a richly illustrated and deeply researched book about Australia’s Milk Bars and Cafés by photojournalist Effy Alexakis and historian Leonard Janiszewski.
Australia’s Greek Cafés and Milk Bars are a unique and global phenomenon. Early Greek migrants came to Australia with little more than an intense work ethic and an enterprising eye. A few saw a future trend in America, imported it and gave it an Australian flavour. In the early 1930s, Australia was a relatively homogenous and rigid society. Those few entrepreneurial Greeks took the associated cultural and financial risks, and succeeded. Greek cafés and milk bars helped to sow the seeds of modern-day multiculturalism but true social acceptance in many conservative communities was hard-won.
Greeks Anglicised their names and hired Australian staff while relying on family labour. They endured unrelenting daily toil, some in slave-like conditions and cultural “othering” in a ‘White Australia’. For decades, they had to eat their own food in the privacy of their homes and withstand the myriad spoken and unspoken rules of Anglo-Australia. Families, especially women, could experience significant social and cultural isolation, particularly in regional areas. Racism was a persistent issue, with Greeks copping derogatory terms (“greasy dago”, “wogs”) and sometimes exclusion or even violence.
Throughout it all, the diaspora held together and helped each other in an ongoing show of national pride and an enduring sense of cultural identity. AUSTRALIA’s GREEK CAFÉS & MILK BARS taps deeper into the well of Australia’s recent rich migrant history. Through the experiences of the Greek diaspora who left their ancient land to escape poverty and war in search of every migrant’s dream of a better life, AUSTRALIA’s GREEK CAFÉS & MILK BARS is a compelling story not just about Greeks but about all of us and our share in the making of modern Australia.
