“I grew up in this Asian bubble in Sunnybank (Brisbane). You know you have people who have been here twenty, thirty years and they still don’t speak a lot of English….”
“I never felt a big part of wider Australia because of racism and stuff. But then I moved away from Sunnybank. It takes a while but eventually you find your group and you find your people.
”You feel ok a lot of the time but then on a day like Australia Day someone yells at you aggressively from a balcony. And you’re just walking past.
“And you wonder if you really belong after all.”
(Bemac, Brisbane, March 2016)
Matthew plays trumpet in Ska/Punk/World band The Mouldy Lovers. Here’s their website.