Beloning Essay, Immigrant Dreams and Feliks Skrzynecki

"You can't build a society purely on interests, you need a sense of belonging”. This famous quote spoken by former French president Valery Giscard d'Estaing , defines how important belonging is to people living amongst different groups, communities and societies all over the world. Belonging is central to how we define ourselves: our connections with places, people or groups enables one to develop a unique identity characterised by affiliation, acceptance and association.


Through literary techniques, Peter Skrzynecki poem, “Feliks Skrzynecki” explores concepts about cultural belonging and the difficulties for immigrants to assimilate within the Australian community. A similar concept is explored in the Related text, “Immigrant Dreams”, Written by Maureen Chesoni. The struggles and hardships faced attempting to belong in a new country, are depicted throughout the text. A complementary visual too these two texts is the image used in the news article, titled “assimilation Tomorrow”. The text represents a group of American Immigrants gathered at a ceremony pledging their oath to their adopted homeland. The three texts all portray the concept of assimilating into a new country and the difficulties immigrants face belonging in their new society.


In the poem, “Feliks Skrzynecki”, the sense of belonging conflicts with the feelings of attempting to assimilate into the Australian society through use of a metaphor. “Kept pace only with the joneses’ of his own minds making”. Feliks, following the trends of others that belong within the Australian society, attempts to assimilate and become accepted within the community, by copying what they do. Feliks’s endeavour to assimilate within a new country, conveys his desperation to belong however difficult this undertaking may be. In “Feliks Skrzynecki”, we see the conflicting feelings of belonging caused by migration and how constant tension between cultural identities challenges one’s sense of belonging.


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