Summary

Digital photograph of Nance Bennett and Plutarco Agaton and their wedding party outside St Peter's church, Eastern Hill, Melbourne, Summer, 1944. From left to right: Conrad Santos (holding 15 months old Geoffrey, Olive Santos (nee Bennett), Plutarco Agaton, Nance Agaton (nee Bennett), William and Elizabeth Bennett (parents of Olive and Nance). The Agatons and Santos' were friends of Agapito and Aileen Castillo and part of a community of men from the Philippines who married local Australian women during World War II.

Philippines-born Agapito Castillo had married Aileen McColl in Melbourne while he was working for the British Phosphate Company and was detained there during World War II.

This item is part of a collection of material relating to the migration and settlement experiences of seamen from the Philippines during the post World War II era in Australia; and the experiences of the local Anglo-Australian women they married.

Physical Description

Black and white digital photograph copied from a photographic print.

Significance

This collection and story represents an important narrative in Australia's migration history, regarding the challenges faced by seamen from the Philippines caught in Melbourne during the outbreak of World War II and unable to return home, trying to settle in Melbourne and marry locally-born women of Anglo-Australian background. It also shows the prejudice these women themselves faced. The collection reveals a community of these men and women and their families, connected through family relationships; and it demonstrates the vagaries of bureaucracy, and the influence of the White Australia policy, still officially in force at that time.

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