An exhibition of the pre-war history of Japanese immigrants in Australia, a chapter that was once interrupted

The history of Japanese Australians goes back over 100 years. However, it was severely interrupted by the mass deportation in 1946, following the WWII. A photographic exhibition depicting Japanese immigrants from the late 19th to the early 20th century—the period before this break—is currently being held in Cowra, New South Wales, known as the ‘Town of Reconciliation’. It is an attempt to highlight the role and contributions of Japanese immigrants during the period when Australia was beginning to take shape as a nation. We spoke to Dr Tets Kimura, a cultural historian at Flinders University who curated the exhibition, and Dr Peter Prince, a legal historian and Research Affiliate at the University of Sydney Faculty of Law, who talks about his research on Jiro Muramats, an Australian who is buried in Cowra as a Japanese national.

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Dr Tets Kimura giving a talk on his photo exhibition 'Unspoken Contributions' at Koyo festival in the Japanese garden in Cowra, NSW. Credit: Tets Kimura

'Unspoken Contributions' exhibition wall, (Education Centre, Cowra Japanese Garden) Credit: Tets Kimura

'Unspoken contributions' symposium (Education Centre, Cowra Japanese Garden) Credit: Tets Kimura

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