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DescriptionFoolscap sized sheet of paper with typed Christmas Day menu for breakfast, dinner and evening meal
at Villawood Migrant Hostel, 1959.Date made1959
DescriptionFoolscap sized sheet of paper with typed Christmas Day menu for breakfast, dinner and evening mealat Villawood Migrant Hostel, 1959.
Date made1959Details
MaterialPaperMakerVillawood Migrant HostelInscriptionPRINT: 'CHRISTMAS DAY - 1959' Provenance and SignificanceThis Christmas Day menu is historically and socially significant with good research and interpretive potential, documenting the meals served to residents of Villawood Migrant Hostel where thousands of migrants lived after first arriving in Australia.
Fairfield City is one of the most culturally diverse communities in Australia and reflects the spread of cultures that settled in the area after leaving the nearby Cabramatta and Villawood Migrant Hostels over four decades from the 1950s to the 1990s. Commonwealth Hostels Limited operated the Villawood Migrant Hostel, known as the Reception Centre, for the Department of Immigration from the early 1950s. The hostel was to cater for the influx of post-war migrants, refugees and displaced people. Families were issued with serving trays, crockery, cutlery and glassware on arrival at the hostel and food was served in a communal dining hall. The style of this durable hostel tableware changed very little over 40 years. Many migrants remember hostel food as foreign and tasteless but the process of communal dining itself allowed for an interaction between different nationalities that many would not have encountered otherwise. Friendships made at the hostel have been enduring and many reflect on the supportive role that the hostels played in giving direction to their lives.
MakerVillawood Migrant HostelInscriptionPRINT: 'CHRISTMAS DAY - 1959' Provenance and SignificanceThis Christmas Day menu is historically and socially significant with good research and interpretive potential, documenting the meals served to residents of Villawood Migrant Hostel where thousands of migrants lived after first arriving in Australia. Fairfield City is one of the most culturally diverse communities in Australia and reflects the spread of cultures that settled in the area after leaving the nearby Cabramatta and Villawood Migrant Hostels over four decades from the 1950s to the 1990s. Commonwealth Hostels Limited operated the Villawood Migrant Hostel, known as the Reception Centre, for the Department of Immigration from the early 1950s. The hostel was to cater for the influx of post-war migrants, refugees and displaced people. Families were issued with serving trays, crockery, cutlery and glassware on arrival at the hostel and food was served in a communal dining hall. The style of this durable hostel tableware changed very little over 40 years. Many migrants remember hostel food as foreign and tasteless but the process of communal dining itself allowed for an interaction between different nationalities that many would not have encountered otherwise. Friendships made at the hostel have been enduring and many reflect on the supportive role that the hostels played in giving direction to their lives.
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Menu. Fairfield City Heritage Collection, accessed 27/01/2025, https://heritagecollection.fairfieldcity.nsw.gov.au/nodes/view/1100