*3.3. Not Belonging and Being Torn between Two Places*

Some respondents also noted conditions where opportunities could not be used in meaningful ways, making it difficult for individuals to find the means to enact their desired role within Australian society. The inability to fulfil personal ambitions resulted not only in a feeling of being trapped within Australian society, but also the experience of becoming marginalised from others because of barriers to engaging in meaningful education and employment.

Most youths are happy from outside, but inside they are not happy because they don't have jobs. (Respondent 1)

Because you wake up every day and then, you know, you do the same thing, and you see the same people and the same things happening over and over again . . . You know you try to get—a job, trying to get to know people. Some of them tend to, you know, disengage from you and all that stuff. (Respondent 21)

The above quotations reveal the role employment opportunities and social relationships play in forming a meaningful self-concept of belonging. The inability to engage in employment or develop bonds with others led to the marginalisation and the experience of 'not belonging' by respondents. The experience of 'not belonging' can have a profound impact on an individual, as one of the participants demonstrated when narrating the experience of another youth in the community.

So, I know one of the persons who has committed suicide. Two weeks before he died there was kind of—he said 'I want to go back to Africa', you know? He told family 'I want to go back. I don't want to live here. This place is no good'. (Respondent 7)

Although it is not clear what the phrase 'this place is no good' means, other respondents made it clear that settling in Australia came with a feeling of being torn between two places, their country of origin and Australia. This is not to say that belonging is simply associated with connection to place, but also recognises that family and social ties may still exist within Africa and that there is a constant need to accommodate cultural beliefs from both African and Australian societies.

Yeah if you see—I have some people here you see—if you look at that you seem happy but inside you are not happy because I know—I have some cousins and my sister is here, but our mum is in Africa. (Respondent 1)

Let's say if you want to marry now, you want a woman, you've got to have at least forty to sixty grands to marry the woman. You have to give them to the girl's family and if you don't have those you're not going to get any girl. So that's our—you know, it's just our culture sometimes, it's just different. Yeah, difficult. (Respondent 9)

Previously, it was mentioned that the inability to make use of educational and employment opportunities resulted in the experience of being trapped. Likewise, the experience of being trapped tended to emphasise the subjective feeling of not belonging, related to the perceived difference between African and Australian societies and a loss of family and social support networks.

Am I happy? I can say I am but like in the sense that I've got everything around me but in terms of that I'm not really—like I'm not really happy. Like back at home I was happy. Like we didn't have food and all this stuff, but I still was happy. It's just like maybe you can put it this way, here like you've been just surrounded by a fence around you, and you just want to escape, you know what I mean? (Respondent 21)
