Immigrants Can't Read

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I walk into my local library the other day. There’s a public book club being held by the library, run by a library volunteer. I’m new to the area, but not to this country. 

I walk into the library. It’s August in Melbourne, and the warm air soothes my cold cheeks.  The library is a cosy little space, with a limited amount of books but still a few tables for studying and a few couches for lounging.

I smile briefly at the reception librarian as I walk in. She’s got short, cropped hair and a soothing, classically bookish demeanour. She gives me a nod, one that indicates we may have known each other beyond this instant. And we do. But I think she mostly recognises my own thickly framed glasses and oversized sweater, acknowledging that I’m a seamless addition to the library space.

I walk down the bookshelves, fingers running along the laminated book spines to the group sitting in a circle. There’s spare chairs amongst them, and a sign which reads ‘LIBRARY BOOK CLUB 1.30PM – 3PM.’ 

There is a certain demographic who attends a midday book club in the suburbs of Melbourne.

But my hair is dark, black in the shade and brown in the sun. My skin is tinted closer to the colours of the Australian dust than theirs ever will be. In Australia, that means something. 

Not a single one of them looks like me. 

I’ve stopped at the end of the bookshelf.

“Hi! I was just passing by, and saw there was a book club here today. I’m wondering if I can join?”

The lady with the Manningham Library name pin murmurs. 

“We don’t really have enough space…”

“You really must book online for this…”

“We might not be able to get through everyone’s books at this rate…”

She doesn’t look at me as she speaks. None of them do. 

“Oh! That’s okay, I’d love to just sit and listen in?” 

I gesture to the empty chairs. And I’ve been smiling throughout the interaction, as it’s a lovely day and this library smells sweetly of nostalgia and paper.

But the murmurs start again. They blur together, a constant hum which pervades. 

“I don’t know if you’ll really enjoy it…”

“We do read literature after all…It’s a bit more niche…”

“We’ve just got too many for today…”

“Look darl, why don’t you go speak to reception?”

I blink. 

The group echoes the sentence. Yes, yes, speak to reception.

“There should be enough interest to start a second book group. Reception can help you out.”

She smiles thinly. 

And I wish I could be surprised, because it’s 2025. 

It’s 2025, 237 years since the first convicts landed on Australian shores to settle. 

It’s 2025, 52 years since the official abolishment of the White Australia policy.

But it’s 2025, and this country had just held an anti-immigration protest. 

It’s 2025, and I’ve been denied from a public book club at the local library.

And I consider just sitting with them anyway. There are empty chairs, and it is a public library. My education had always told me to stand for myself, after all.

But my education was at a private girls’ school who told girls to speak up for themselves, to understand their agency and their potential. But only if you have the same ideals, the same identity as them. Only if you were a specific type of girl. Only if you looked like them, spoke like them. Only if you were one of the approved. Only if you were them.

Anyone else? Don’t even think of it. 

And I could just sit there. I could make them as uncomfortable as they have made me. I could sit there, technically innocent and technically unassuming. Just like their comments, technically innocent and technically unassuming. In the same way they didn’t do anything malicious, I could do the same. 

I could just sit there.

So, I look at her. At her wrinkled, crushed-paper skin with marks of sun damage. At her wispy blonde hair, her lips which mirrored those dying strands. 

And I decide to forgive her. With my gentlest smile, hands clasped at my chest.

“Oh! What a wonderful suggestion. I shall do so, thank you very much. I hope you have a lovely day.”

And her eyes still have never managed to meet mine. 

So I leave their little circle, with the empty chairs. A browse along the books until I spot something familiar. I sink into an armchair, refuge within the comfort of ink like I have done so many times before.

The book club ends early.

Australia is an immigrant country.

I was born here.