After years of being involved in Maltese community events for over four decades, there comes a time when you need to stop and scrutinize the things you have postponed for many years in your life, as you go about your day to day living.

While I have been mainly involved in the artistic side of the Maltese community in Melbourne, be it music, radio broadcasts, għana music events or Maltese għana music research as well as general organising of events and general writing and so on, you tend to make certain observations which do not always seem apparent until you stop to reflect. Lately as I slow down from such commitments, I find myself examining the past years with a clearer mind.

Over the last 50 years, I have gone from being a wide-eyed teenage new arrival to Australia to the person who today looks back to contemplate achievements, failures and consequences of decisions made by many thousands of Maltese, including myself, who left the Maltese Islands in search for a better life in Australia in the fifties and sixties. And yes of course, emigration to Australia for Maltese went on beyond these years, but it is these two particular decades – the fifties and sixties – that interest me most. These were the years of the “immediate solution”, both for the Maltese who emigrated then and the governments who encouraged them to do so to ease the pressure on unemployment statistics at that time.

I call these generations, the “X Generations”. It was a time when leaving for Australia meant that you were not just leaving for a short time until your next holiday, but saying goodbye to your parents and extended family who, by the time you came back to visit might not be there, hence the “X” factor. Few generations have known the heartache of saying goodbye to their dear parents and families, wondering whether they would ever see them again as they crossed from one side of the globe to the other. The “X” factor was always present but the decisions needed to be made, and made they were.

In fact, many who left in those years never saw their parents and other family members again and took that sense of loss to their grave. In those days, travelling by ship took weeks and then there was the return journey. The expense was prohibitive and the time away from family and work were not easily afforded. Aviation and cheaper fares have made visiting Malta more possible and less expensive. If there is an emergency, one can be on the islands within 48 hours or less.

In my visits to Malta, I still discuss this point with some friends who lost family members to emigration in those particular decades and sometimes I have even been asked bluntly: “Do you folks know the sadness and heartache you caused by leaving, breaking your parents’ heart and the brothers and sisters you left behind?” How do you answer that? I always felt that the weight has always been more on those who left and not so much those who were left behind – family, relations or friends who did not leave their homeland. And yet it cuts both ways.

* * *

This cluster of Maltese, who emigrated to Australia after WWII, mainly the “1950s” and “1960s”, which I am referring to as the “X Generation” are distinct from the modern term “Gen-X” which has its own modern connotations, but more a group defined by an “X” factor due to the circumstances they found themselves in, in post-war Malta. Their circumstances were unique and hopefully will never occur again.

Once the “X Generation” settled in the new land, they were either doomed to homesickness and a sense of isolation, or blessed with the thought of having discovered new opportunities in a new country they embraced to enhance their lives forever. The new life they discovered many years ago may have proved to be liberating and adventurous but it came at a cost. The level of serenity and contentment of “X Generation” depends on their own state of mind as well as their own evaluation of their lives and circumstances, which they now find themselves in 50 or 60 years later.

The “X Generation” in Australia is now advanced in years. Some in this group may find themselves at the crossroads, as they contemplate the reality of spending the remaining time on earth away from the land of their birth. On one side of the coin, this may lead to some regrets in some cases, but returning to live in their homeland presents its own complications. The other side of the coin is that those who still bless their luck for having had such an opportunity to settle in this continent, which offers so many opportunities in material advancement and personal growth, are reconciled to live out their time in this great southern land.

But whether this land offers the spiritual satisfaction and tranquillity their homeland offers is another point of debate. There are many other religions that co-exist in this country where Catholicism – which most of this group espouse – is merely one of many. Many decry the tyranny of distance and the fact that as children, walking to Mass every day was empowering, while here they are victims of long distances. But 60 years on, the Malta they knew has changed drastically and if they are seeking the country they left years ago, they are condemned to never going back home again.

The common ground of “X Generation” is the attachment to their country of birth. I risk generalization when I say that this is a common thread in all Maltese who left their homeland, even though some Maltese living here never returned to Malta once they left, while others claim their ties have weakened after 50 or 60 years away.

The contradictions attached to “X Generation” can be many in relation to their Malteseness, such as passing on their Maltese heritage to their succeeding generations. Their devotion to their homeland and the love for their mother tongue remains strong and important to them right through their lives, yet in reality a very small percentage of Maltese children born in Australia can read and write Maltese.

The settled Maltese from the “X Generation” in Australia recreate several cultural celebrations such as commemorating the festa of their patron saint of whichever city or village they hailed from. Here in Melbourne, many village festas are recreated in the suburbs. The committees work hard to organise these functions and one must also consider the complications of funding and getting permits to run such semi-public celebrations, which are foreign to the local populace. Once again it is my impression that while these celebrations satisfy the emigrated Maltese, they are not perpetuated by their descendents. It is therefore assumed that these customs will eventually die out as the ‘X Generation” passes on over the years, even though these Maltese activities have left an impression on the way of life and Australian folklore.

The Maltese language however is the greatest cause of concern for local community leaders and local scholars. The Maltese language is what distinguishes us and identifies who we are, whether it is in Australia or wherever we may live. So why did the “X Generation” fail to pass on the very thing that ties them so inexorably to their mother country?

I have looked at this phenomenon not from the view of the community leaders or the academics, but at street level, as my area of work and research took me to the heart of these Maltese who emigrated in the 1950s and 1960s as skilled and unskilled workers due to the dire economic situation in Malta at the time. In fact, while my work was not in the social sector but more in the folklore and culture of Maltese overseas, I found myself making certain discoveries that pertain to culture and language which most reflect the day-to-day life of a big percentage of Maltese who emigrated in the decades I referred to.

So why is the Maltese language not spoken among the new generations of Maltese, as are the other languages by southern European, Asian and Middle Eastern ethnic groups? If the Maltese language is very highly valued and important to the “X Generation” then the obvious question remains, why was it not passed on to the following generations of X? There are two aspects of this phenomenon. The first group – who came here with the barest minimum of education, if any, due to the circumstances of the time, as education was not compulsory in Malta – did manage to pass on the spoken dialect to a degree, but in spite of their noblest of intentions they were not able to teach their children to read and write the Maltese language. The other side of the coin were the educated Maltese who arrived here at that time and might have felt that learning Maltese was not the highest of priorities, as they wanted their children to integrate into Australian society and regarded it as an urgent priority. Inadvertently, very little Maltese was spoken in the home of these new Maltese settlers in Australia.

But this phenomenon in itself bears deeper analysis. Was this lack of regeneration of the Maltese language due to the Maltese new arrivals’ disinterest in their mother tongue? Was it due to the embarrassment of being heard speaking a foreign language in public, in a highly anglicised environment? Was it the intolerance of the Anglo Saxon majority who inhabited this country in those times? Was it a need for the Maltese to show they were more able to communicate in English, having come from a British colony, which might have enabled better acceptance over other Europeans arriving here at that time, who struggled with the English language?

Or was it the Maltese governments of the day, who saw this exodus as a chance to solve their unemployment problems and so encouraged the prospective migrants to forget the Maltese language when they got to Australia because English was the language they needed to survive? And let’s face it, most politicians who managed to push down the unemployed statistics through emigration in those days did not want to see settlers return again after failing to establish themselves because of their limitations when speaking the English language.

That very question might be the most enigmatic among the “X” Generation. Perhaps someday someone from “Z” Generation might come up with an explanation and clarify it once and for all for the sake of history.

After all, that is all we owe history… “The truth”.

Melbourne, Australia –

7 April 2012.

[email protected]

www.manuelcasha.com