The typical Australia migration story is one of hardship overcome. Poor, working class people leave their home-country behind to find a better life in Australia: Greeks, Italians, Maltese share a similar storyline. The first years were difficult, but with hard-work, the situation got better, and now the children call Australia home, and can assert their position in society, thanks to the labours of their elders. Refugees, though their stories at home is more tragic, are not drastically different: Sudanese, Vietnamese, Sri Lankans, Serbians, Croatians, left conflict and war behind. Even the better off among them often lost their assets back home, and started from scratch. Minus the language barrier, cultural differences and various forms of racism, the ten-pound poms, Victorian gold-diggers, Irish settlers and original convicts share a similar narrative.

I don’t, and neither do most of my migrant friends in Melbourne today. We’re middle-class migrants, lifestyle migrants, love migrants, cosmopolitan migrants. Whether we came from Europe, China, Malaysia, Singapore or the US, we did not flee. There is always a reason to leave – we came for freedom, for love, or what we think will be a better life. But this is not a story of leaving hardship. If we want migrants to find a proper place in our imaginary fabric, those stories need to come together, and be heard.