Manager’s Message

John Petersen, Manager, Migration Heritage Centre

Migrants have journeyed to Australia and settled in the State of New South Wales both willingly and unwillingly, legally and illegally, as convicts, prisoners of war, as free or assisted immigrants or as refugees. Migrants have also been refused entry, deported and detained. Australia’s history of migration can be understood in the context of world history and British colonial and Australian Federal Government policies.

All people in Australia share the legacy of migration. Unless we are Aboriginal people, we are all migrants or descendants of migrants. Today, four out of ten people in New South Wales are either migrants or their children. As former migrants age, it is vital their stories and cultures are recorded.

The NSW Migration Heritage Centre at the Powerhouse Museum is a New South Wales Government initiative supported by the Community Relations Commission for a Multicultural NSW.

We are an innovative heritage centre similar to an online immigration museum. Our website is the primary means by which we present our heritage research – through online exhibitions featuring community collections, family belongings and people’s memories. Our research is also featured in exhibitions at the Powerhouse Museum and other libraries and museums – near where communities of former migrants live – across Sydney and in rural and regional New South Wales.

By sharing our memories, belongings and places, we are helping students of history understand their place in the world.

We are proud to help all communities participate in local heritage studies, bringing together people from diverse backgrounds who share generational experiences across chapters of migration history.

John Petersen
Manager
NSW Migration Heritage Centre