Irene was born in Australia — then she had to prove she belonged

At Steven Law's home in Northcote, Melbourne, family albums are strewn across the dining room table, offering glimpses into a past that was rarely discussed.

A large sepia photograph catches Steven's eye and he lifts a magnifying glass to look more closely.

It features a woman — Steven's grandmother Irene Law — wearing a large hat and a scarf draped around her shoulders. It is just the way Steven remembers her.

"Irene was an elegant woman; she was well spoken, well dressed. That was how we knew her," Steven told SBS Chinese.

Decades after her death, her image has appeared on walls across Australia, as part of artist Peter Drew’s Aussie poster series — bringing a little-known chapter of her life into view and raising questions about who gets to be called Australian.

The Aussie 'paradox'

When Steven's sister Christina Law discovered that her grandmother would feature in Drew's poster collection, she was moved to tears.

"I was really overwhelmed and quite teary when I saw that nanna had been included in this series," Christina told SBS Chinese.

The posters feature archival photographs, sourced from the National Archives of Australia (NAA) of people who applied for certificates exempting them from the dictation test.

Under the Immigration Restriction Act 1901, one of the laws that formed part of what is now known as the White Australia policy, the dictation test could be administered at an officer's discretion to people seeking entry to Australia.

It required a person to write a 50-word passage in a European language dictated by an immigration officer. After 1905, the officer could choose "any prescribed language", making it possible to administer the test in a language the person did not understand.

People who failed were declared a "prohibited immigrant" and refused entry or , in some circumstances, deported.

The exemption certificates were designed to allow eligible non-European residents who had lived in Australia to leave temporarily and return within a set timeframe without being subjected to the dictation test.

It's been more than a decade since Drew debuted the poster series in 2016.

The posters have since sparked mixed reactions, including graffiti, counter-posters and attempts to tear them down.

In recent months, videos of the artworks being defaced and altered to include different messages about identity have also circulated on social media.

"Someone has vandalised my old posters, so I've got some new ones, and I'm going to fix them up," Drew told SBS Chinese while standing on Morphett Street in Adelaide's central business district.

He's equipped with a canvas rucksack full of supplies and replaces the graffitied artworks with the ease of someone who has installed thousands of posters over the years.

Asked whether the "Aussie" label on his posters is a question or statement, Drew said there's no simple answer.

"In some ways, the posters have a double meaning because the first way to read it is that the person in the poster is Aussie, and that's a celebration of them being Australian," he said.

"But in another way, the poster is also saying that the White Australia policy is Aussie, and that's something that we don't celebrate. So, there is a paradox because those two things are conflicting with each other."

For Steven and Christina, the posters illuminate a chapter of their family's history that remained largely shrouded in secrecy.

'We knew nothing'

In 1900, Irene (then known as Lucy Maud Lem Cue) was born in South Wangaratta in north-east Victoria.

Her biological mother was born in New Zealand and had British ancestry. Her father, Lem Cue, was of Chinese descent and died when Irene was two years old. She was then adopted by another Chinese-European family and raised in Melbourne.

At the age of 18, Irene travelled to Hong Kong with her adoptive father, who hoped to recruit workers for his furniture manufacturing business and expand his commercial interests in China.

In March 1921, she returned to Australia and obtained a Certificate Exemption from Dictation Test (CEDT) before travelling back to Hong Kong.

Irene would eventually marry and raise children — mostly on her own, after her husband's death.

In the 1970s, Irene returned permanently to Melbourne, where she remained until she died at age 80.

Despite her overseas travels, Irene was born in Australia and therefore considered a British subject by birth (Australian citizenship was later introduced in 1949). That legal status, however, did not necessarily protect people of Chinese and other non-European backgrounds from immigration restrictions.

But historian Michael Williams believes people of Chinese ancestry were "overwhelmingly" targeted by Australian immigration officials during this period.

"Legally, yes, they were definitely Australians. But socially, it was a bit more problematic," Williams told SBS Chinese.

"If they grew up looking Chinese, then they would not have been considered Australian. The White Australia policy pretty much identified an Australian as being a white person."

When Steven discovered that his grandmother's records had been preserved by the NAA, he felt a "stronger" connection to his family's past but admits he also felt angry.

"Irene never spoke to us about the difficulties she had. We knew nothing about that until after she passed away.

"We were a bit angry in a way, that these people were Australians; they were Australian-born, yet they needed these documents in order to return to the country."

The White Australia policy and its legacy

According to the NAA, only a "small number" of people were granted CEDTs. Those exemptions could allow non-European residents to travel overseas and return to Australia, while those who were not exempted could face exclusion.

The dictation test was administered 1,359 times before 1909, with only 52 people granted entry, according to the NAA. After 1909, no migrants required to sit the test passed.

Williams said he has seen examples of dictation tests in which immigration officers targeted people from multicultural backgrounds who understood English.

"If you happened to speak English, they would test you in Greek or Estonian at one stage ... and as a result of failing the test ... you were [considered living] illegally in Australia and could be put in jail."

The dictation test was abolished in 1958, but elements of the White Australia policy remained in place for years afterwards. The final remnants of the policy were removed in 1973, while the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 subsequently made racial discrimination unlawful in areas covered by the legislation.

Christina said she learnt about the mechanisms of the White Australia policy at school, but for a long time, did not realise how this history personally impacted her.

"I see now that it relates to me. I mean that was why we were the only Asian family in the school because no other Asians were allowed into the country at the time."

Steven also remembers questioning his Australian identity at a young age.

"People called us names, we were teased, and we often felt isolated," he said.

Now 66, Steven said he feels "richer" because of his Chinese ancestry and cultural traditions passed down through generations.

His experience reflects a broader shift in the makeup of Australian society. About 731,500 people born in China lived in Australia in June 2025, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

The 2021 Census recorded more than 1.39 million people with Chinese ancestry, making it one of the largest overseas-born ancestry communities in the country.

When people from multicultural backgrounds walk the streets and spot Drew's brightly coloured posters, he hopes they are reminded that Australian identity "has room for them".

"It's not such a rigid thing that is set in the past and static, not evolving. It's actually ... much stronger ... than that."

Steven also believes the artworks continue to send a powerful reminder that people, no matter their background, are "welcome here, no matter where they're from".

"[Irene] was Aussie, just as much as we are. Just as much as the other people in the posters."

This story was produced in collaboration with SBS Chinese.

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