This year will be 20 years since the death of Dr Victor Chang - a Chinese-born Australian heart surgeon. He was murdered in a botched robbery in morning traffic on a July day in 1991, he had become one of the country's great immigrant success stories, and, at that time at least, a rare Asian face in Australian public life.

How different is Australia today - twenty years on?

Your thoughts please.

Yes Lexi, Dr. Chang's murder was a very sad day in Australia's history.

I do believe that most modern Australians have the same attitude towards Asian migrants as they do to European migrants now.

They are welcome here because most of them are hard workers and assimilate well to our Australian society, while continuing to practice their own culture and religions.

I believe Australians have finally embraced the Asian immigrants, and their descendants, because they recognise that these people really have made significant contributions to their new country.
Victor Chang was only one of many great success stories.

Not only have they contributed much to the business, medical and research worlds, but also to the culinary world... and we all love Asian food!

Lexi we have grown, we needed to.
We have as in any cultural group,problems still but far more very good contributing people.

Lexi- no different, maybe more rightwing than usual and still just as anti-Asian as ever it has been.

Do you think this murder marked a watershed in national views?

I hear parents moaning about schools where 'Asian kids' sit at the top of the class and school and feel it is 'unfair'.

That Australians do not value schools-for-education is not an issue for them, so it seems. They'd be very upset if the uniform changed but really don't care that the maths teacher is a twit who can't teach, and so on.

In our town we still have White Pride, League of Rights, anti-immigration supporters, and all are supported by the Christian community here.

Why should they change, when everything makes them feel good?

Dear Suze,

Twenty years on, Australia is a different nation. Chinese languages rank among the most spoken in the country. A quarter of all Australians are foreign-born, and approx. 6% of all
Australians consider themselves ethnically Asian. I think that Victor Chang would have been amazed by this rapid reinvention. And, as you point out Asian immigration has had a major impact in business, economics, politics, the arts, science and of course food.
As someone said, "Vietnamese is the new meat pie."

Dear Belly,

I agree we do have problems however Australia's Asian influx is reshaping the look of the country. A report a few years ago on mixed race marriages by the Australian National University and Monash University academics found a striking rise in intermarriage between third generation Asian Australians and White Australians. Their growing number of mixed race children are the most visible symbols of a new country.

Dear TBC,

The nation does continue to grapple with its cultural identity. Australia is "caught between geography and history, and it continues to be uncomfortable," says Professor of Sociology at the University of Technology, Sydney, Andrew Jakubowicz. "We are (no longer) I think, a forlorn outpost of empire, but we are not either an Asian-Pacific nation."

Yet even this judgement is changing. Australia's cities have long boasted statues of British monarchs and English explorers. Today, a bronze statue of Victor Chang, dressed in surgical scrubs and clasping a stethoscope, stands sentinel in front of the new $71 million building that houses the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute in Sydney. The statue smiles at office workers and doctors scurrying down streets with countless Thai restaurants.

Prominent Asian Australians include Federal Minister Penny Wong, John So, the former Lord Mayor of Melbourne, Henry Tsang, the former Deputy Lord Mayor of Sydney, fashion designers Akira Isogawa, Jenny Kee and Lisa Ho, Chefs Kylie Kwong and Tim Pak Poy, filmaker and 2005
Young Australian of the Year Khoa Do, comedians Lawrence Leung and Anh Do, neurosurgeon Charles Teo, violinist Susie Park and of course artist Shen Jiawei, just to mention a few

Lexi
My sense is attitudes towards Asians has vastly improved but is not perfect given there are some remnants of racist sentiment. Most of the vitriole and suspicion now seems reserved primarily for Muslims. Sometimes the vitriole and suspicion comes equally from some of those newer migrant groups too - a tolerant nation can only be formed when all cultural groups display tolerance and goodwill, showing a willingness to live side by side with each other.

However, to gauge a reality check on that perception maybe some Asian contributors could throw some light on the question ie. do Asian people experience less discrimination than in previous years. Maybe there are some on OLO who could share their experiences.

In 100 years time people will be saying what was all the fuss about when generations of Muslims will have integrated and live and work side by side with others in a secular environment.