AustLit

The article argues that ethnic and sexual stereotypes and other homogenising factors imposed from the outside constitute one of the most potent factors in diasporic communities. 'Diasporic writers play important roles in the negotiation of ethnic stereotypes, challenging, debating or reinforcing them in their texts and, often beyond their control, becoming objects of further image-production at the hands of publishers, readers and critics' (42-43).Chinese-Australian writer Ouyang Yu and Canadian writer Everlyn Lau are used as examples to illustrate this process.

Elizabeth Macarthur's letter of March 7 1791 to her correspondent and friend Bridget Kindom offers 'a private history of the daily, intimate transactions between black and white.' Bremer's essay examines 'the entanglement of private and public, personal and colonial, points of view ... by first contextualising ... [the letter] in terms of colonial epistolary and women's writing (p.57).

Discusses the ongoing debate regarding Mudrooroo's claim to Aboriginal ancestry, particularly relating to his mother's English/Irish rather than Aboriginal heritage. Includes biographical details about Mudrooroo's life and that of his mother, Elizabeth Johnson (nee Barron), and her ancestry.