The Rise of Chinese Australians’ Box Hill: A Comparative History Review

Shouyue Zhang

Today’s Box Hill in Greater Melbourne is widely recognised as a vibrant Asian community and the most populous Chinese-Australian enclave in Victoria. In 2021, around 30 percent of Box Hill residents were born in China (Whitehorse City Council, 2021). But it wasn’t always that way. In this article I explore how Box Hill transformed from a train town into a suburban Chinatown. Why did Chinese Australians move from the Chinatown on Little Bourke Street in Melbourne’s CBD to Box Hill? What was the demographic landscape of Box Hill in the 1940s? And how did Chinese immigrants reshape the suburb? By examining data in the University of Melbourne Social Survey, conducted by Professor Wilfred Prest in 1942, I compare today’s multicultural community with Box Hill as it was in the years immediately before Arthur Calwell, the Chifley government’s immigration minister from 1945 to 1949, began the long processes of winding back the White Australia policy.

Early History and Development

Box Hill’s early history revolved around its geographical advantages and its status as a transportation hub. The rail network across Melbourne’s north and the construction of the Box Hill and Doncaster tramway in 1889, the first electric tramway in the southern hemisphere, played crucial roles in its early development. By 1927, Box Hill had acquired the status of a municipal city, and by the early 1940s, it was already undergoing urbanisation.

The Pacific War accelerated urbanisation in Box Hill, with many residents engaged in white-collar jobs and a few in train-related industries. However, the survey did not record interviewees’ races, possibly assuming all respondents were white, as Box Hill was not as diverse as it is today.

Demographic Changes and Migration

The final termination of the White Australia policy and China’s internal upheaval in 1989 were turning points for Box Hill’s demographics. Gradual relaxation of restrictions on Asian immigrants in the late 1950s and 1960s, combined with the gentrification of Chinatown on Little Bourke Street, led Chinese newcomers to seek more affordable areas. The 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre further spurred Chinese immigration to Australia.

Chinese immigrants were drawn to Box Hill for its convenient transportation and business facilities. The opening of Whitehorse Plaza Shopping Centre (now Box Hill Central) in 1974 and the relocation of Box Hill Station underground in 1983 facilitated the area’s development into a bustling commercial hub (Finlay and Morgan 1995, 1-2, 5). This attracted Chinese businesspeople and residents, reshaping the city’s demographics.

Community and Cultural Transformation

The Evangelical Chinese Church Melbourne, established in 1978, and other Chinese businesses and services marked the growing Chinese community in Box Hill. Class photos from local schools between 1930 and 1994 illustrate the shift from an almost all-white student body to a more multicultural one, reflecting the suburb’s transformation into a diverse community (see Figure 4). In a photograph from 1994 (Figure 4), which was published in Finlay and Morgan’s history of Box Hill, a Chinese-language sign advertising travel services can be observed in the background, showing how demographic changes began to impact the urban streetscape.

Conclusion

The suburbanisation of Chinese communities in Box Hill mirrors global trends seen in the United States post-World War II. Federal investments in urban renewal led to gentrification in historical Chinatowns, pushing Chinese immigrants to suburban areas with modern facilities (Wilson 2016; Yee 2012; Zhang 2021). In cities like Manhattan, Boston and Philadelphia, just as in Melbourne, newcomers had to find suburban municipalities to rebuild their communities.

Most Chinese immigrants to the United States in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were from Southern China, particularly Guangdong and Fujian provinces. However, the postwar Chinese immigrants had more diverse backgrounds in terms of education and occupation, as well as their cultural origins. They did not adapt to historical Chinatown’s ‘outdated’ lifestyle, preferring more modern facilities in suburban Chinatowns like Flushing and Sunset Park in New York State (Zhao 2010). Could the same be true of the wave Chinese immigrants who made a home for themselves in Box Hill?

The rise of the Chinese Australian community in Box Hill resulted from gentrification and consumerism, consistent with global postwar trends of Chinese immigrant suburbanisation. Future research could explore how white residents took advantage of racial policies during the White Australia era and the subsequent transformation of Little Bourke Street Chinatown to cater to white consumers’ oriental imaginations.

Shouyue Zhang is a PhD student at the University of Melbourne’s School of Historical and Philosophical Studies. His research focuses on immigration and gender history in the early 20th-century United States. He appreciates the generous approval of the Box Hill Historical Society for using the images.

References

Finlay, Eleanor and Morgan, Marjorie. (1995). The Days We Remember: Box Hill in Pictures 1960-1994. Box Hill, Vic.: Box Hill Historical Society.

Whitehorse City Council. (2021). ‘Demographic Snapshot’. https://www.whitehorse.vic.gov.au/about-council/facts-maps/demographic-snapshot. Accessed 8 May 2024.

Wilson, Kathryn. (2016). ‘”Same Struggle, Same Fight”: Yellow Seeds and the Asian American Movement in Philadelphia’s Chinatown’. The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 140(3): 423–25

Yee, Mary. (2012). ‘The Save Chinatown Movement: Surviving against All Odds’. Pennsylvania Legacies 12(1): 24–31

Zhang, Shouyue. (2021). ‘We Won’t Move’. New York Archive 20(3): 30-33

Zhao, Xiaojian. (2010). The New Chinese America: Class, Economy, and Social Hierarchy. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.