Chinese-Australian history predates the first fleet – and my family helped me find out how | Benjamin Law

When you're the child of migrants, your forebears may as well have come from the moon. So I set out to rediscover mine

Growing up in Queensland as ABCs (Australian-born Chinese), my siblings and I would get our backs up whenever strangers complimented us on our English - which was often. "Why wouldn't I be fluent?" I'd think, fuming. "I was born in Nambour." It didn't matter: white Australians around us seemed as impressed by our English, as much as our Hong Kong relatives pitied our butchered Cantonese.

Yet I have an admission. Whenever I saw or encountered other Chinese-Australians speaking fluent English myself, my jaw would hang in disbelief. Seeing Chinese-Australians - or any Asian-Australians, really - on TV was rare in the 1980s and 1990s. But when people like Annette Shun Wah presented on SBS, Elizabeth Chong showed Bert Newton how to stuff a chicken with spring onions, or Dr Cindy Pan discussed prophylactics on Sex/Life - and with Australian accents, like mine! - my brain couldn't process it. Weren't my family the only ones?