In the 1980s the reality of racism in Australia, in both a historical and contemporary sense, was being increasingly exposed and challenged.

In the 1980s the reality of racism in Australia, in both a historical and contemporary sense, was being increasingly exposed and challenged. Advocates, researchers and community leaders came to the defence of multiculturalism in public debate spurred in 1984 by historian Geoffrey Blainey’s assertion that the rate of migration from Asia was threatening ‘social cohesion.’ The establishment in 1987 of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody marked the acknowledgement that systemic racism was having a devastating impact on the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and causing their dramatic over-representation in the justice system.

In releasing the report ‘Young People and Racism – the views of young people of non-English speaking backgrounds’ in 1987 the WWEYP network were bringing young people’s experiences and perspectives into the realm of public debate and understanding about racism in Australia. This was WWEYP’s first participatory research report and drew on a funding grant from the International Year of Youth State Steering Committee. Drawing on interviews with 131 young people, the report shone a light on the racism young people encountered in school, through services, in the media, in interactions with police, in employment and in recreation settings.¹ The Director of the Youth Affairs Council of Victoria, Leslie Podesta observed in an article in The Age newspaper about the report that inclusion of young people’s voices ‘in their own matter-of-fact language’ was an important component of the report’s impact.²