The Australian Women's Register

16 sound files (ca. 943 min.) Disks 1-4: Marion Le, born in New Zealand (NZ) on 29 January 1947 discusses her childhood and her early life; her family; her education in NZ; attending teachers’ college and the University of Canterbury in Christchurch; emigrating to Australia in 1971; teaching in Sydney and Brisbane; travelling around Australia until 1974; her beginning a Bachelor of Theology at the Alliance College and a Bachelor of Arts at the Australian National University, completing both in 1998; in 1979 marrying Tong Le, a chef and former Vietnamese soldier who arrived on the Song Be in 1977; their three children, caring for four stepchildren, a foster son and several other children from camps and detention centres; in 1980 opening the Vung Tau Vietnamese restaurant in O’Connor, Australian Capital Territory (ACT) and another in Belconnen ten years later; working in both of these, as well as teaching in Canberra for 19 years. Le talks about the reasons behind her becoming active in 1977 in the Indo-China Refugee Association (ICRA) of the ACT, which was later used by the government as a model for its Community Refugee Settlement Service (CRSS); her time speaking on the radio and to church groups about the needs of refugees; about the 30 community groups in the ACT which were later transformed into CRSS groups by the Department of Immigration; her views on the impact of government funding on CRSS groups; ICRA being groups funded by churches; the bridging visas for people from detention centres; the burden placed on sponsor families; her husband becoming a citizen in 1980; explains how the ICRA organizations worked; the division among Canberra Catholics about the allocation of public housing to refugees; ICRA including people who had supported the Vietnam war; the current detention centre regime; the Comprehensive Plan of Action in 1989; the end of Australia’s commitment to Vietnamese refugees.