Philippino and Chinese Diasporic Communities in Australia and Dis/Connections in Merlinda Bobis’ Fruit Stall and Tom Cho’s Dinner with my Brother.

Abstract

In their short stories, Merlinda Bobis and Tom Cho depict the characters living in Australia who have a different cultural background. They are depicted as characters seemingly confirming their traditional diasporic status but, at the same time, rejecting it by accepting their host country as their new homeland. This paper analyses a depiction of the main characters in both stories arguing that their cultural identity is close to Bill Aschroft´s concept of the transnation. At the same time, the paper points out a role of popular culture in a construction of a non-diasporic character of the young generation of the Chinese Australians in Cho´s story and a rejection of both negative aspects of traditional patriarchal society and colonial attitudes of the new host country in Bobis´ story.