The Ethnic Youth Issues Network’s continued work in highlighting young people’s experiences of racism drew not only the attention of the media, but also of an extreme right-wing group who wrote threatening letters to the organisation.

The Autumn 1989 edition of the Youth Issues Forum journal was jointly presented by the Ethnic Youth Issues Network and the Youth Affairs Council of Victoria (YACVic) and was focused on the issue of racism, it’s impact on young people and multicultural and anti-racism youth work. Edited by Carmel Guerra, the edition also contained content developed by Roger Holdsworth, acting Director at YACVic at the time. Carmel and Roger recall, that in response to their anti-racism work, the Ethnic Youth Issues Network had been receiving threatening letters that sought to discredit the organisation from an organised right-wing anti-immigration group. The threat was escalated when staff arrived at the office in Gertrude St Fitzroy to find a death threat spray painted on the wall of the building, with the message ‘Death to Carmel and Roger.’ Having notified police, the staff were rattled but not deterred from their work in exposing and challenging racism.

The year prior to this incident, the National Inquiry into Racist Violence by the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission was announced in response to a ‘widespread community perception that racist attacks, both verbal and physical, were on the increase.’¹ In particular, people of South East Asian and African background as well as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander background were experiencing targeted racism, with young people particularly vulnerable to abuse. EYIN members had noticed an alarming increase in racist violence in the north west region of Melbourne, including racist graffiti, death threats, physical attacks and vandalism.² Carmel Guerra had drawn on EYIN’s work in understanding young people’s experiences of racism and her own experience of this racist attack to give evidence through the public hearings process of the Inquiry.³