Related Material: Screen Australia Video Clips

In 2008 Screen Australia commissioned English teachers to write resources for a range of video clips relating to the concept of Belonging. You can view the video clips and the Classroom Activities at:
http://dl.screenaustralia.gov.au/tag/belonging/

A favourite of mine is a story about Cuc Lam's suitcase, and is from the 'National Treasure's' series. I believe it would be an especially good piece of related material to study with The Joy Luck Club.

Related Material: Fox

The picture book Fox by Margaret Wild and illustrated by Ron Brooks is a haunting story about Dog (who is blind in one eye) and Magpie (who has lost one wing), who become friends and help each other. The story deals with issues of identity and relationships, and how these effect a characters sense of Belonging. When the lonely outsider, Fox, challenges Dog and Magpie's relationship, reader's are shown that 'the grass is not always greener on the other side', and it is useful to explore how this concept relates to notions of Belonging.

The visual language in this book is striking - the scrawled, scratchy, sprawling text combined with the bold and textured colours and illustrations provide many examples for deep analysis. I am especially drawn to this book because I also think it allows audiences to reflect on the concept of Belonging to landscape.

Related Material: The Boat by Name Le

Any one from this collection of short stories by Australian author Nam Le would make an ideal related text for the Belonging AOS. My favourite is the first story, Love and honour and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice, which is about a young writer receiving a visit from his elderly Vietnamese father. Together with the final story of a harrowing journey from Vietnam to Australia on a refugee boat it is used to frame the entire collection, in which stories are drawn from a variety of cultures and contexts, and feature unrelated protagonists.

Related Material: Belonging exhibition

What sort of country do you want to belong to? What ties us together as Australians? What tears us apart?

Since Federation in 1901, people have felt that they belonged or did not belong in Australia for many different reasons. The exhibition Belonging explores some of the ways people experienced 'belonging' in Australia in the twentieth century.

Drawing on the extensive collections of the State Library of New South Wales, the State Library of Victoria, the National Archives of Australia and the National Library of Australia, this exhibition challenges viewers to consider the question: Where do I belong?

Many ideas and materials from the exhibit have been captured online, here:
http://www.belonging.org/misc-pages/people_place.html

Related Material: NSW Migration Heritage Centre

Sharing stories about "our memories, belongings and places", the NSW Migration Heritage Centre contains many excellent resources and texts for use in the HSC Area of Study: Belonging. In particular I thought the mini-documentaries in the series Packing to leave: Saris, suits and spices would be good to study in relation to Heat and Dust, as well as The Joy Luck Club and The China Coin.

Migrants to Australia from South Asia originate from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. This South Asian diaspora has also spread over several generations to countries including Fiji, Malaysia, Singapore, the Middle East and southern and eastern Africa. The interviews for 'Packing to Leave' were filmed in people's homes. Participants describe their stories of migration to Australia and settlement in Sydney and share their photos and memorabilia.