Indian immigrants in the Victorian city of Ballarat are calling for the Punjabi language to be taught in government schools so their children feel more accepted.
Raman Preet Kaur told ABC News said she has felt forced to change her daughter Guribadat’s Punjabi name to Ebu after she started kindergarten because no-one could pronounce it, making her feel “lost”.
“It was hard – she didn’t know if people were talking to her, so we had to change her name to something easy to pronounce,” Ms Kaur said, adding that if Punjabi was being taught in schools then teachers may have been able to pronounce her original name.
Ramman Marupur, who moved to regional centre in 2018, has since launched a free school teaching Punjabi to 20 students, called The Rootz Punjabi School, which now has a branch in Geelong.
One of her Geelong teachers, Preet Khinda, said public schools should teach children to “respect each and every culture’s languages”.
“Our kids feel awkward when they speak our language in a shopping centre,” Ms Khinda said.
“I think people should accept all those things, like cultural identity.”
Ms Marupur previously told The Courier that her language should be taught in schools across the state.
“My daughter is learning Japanese in school at the moment so if she goes to Japan she’ll be able to speak with the locals there,” she said.
“It’s the same with Punjabi, if someone wants to learn the language, and learning any new language is always good, it will help them lots if they go to Punjab.”
At the time of the 2021 Census there were 764 Punjabi speakers in Ballarat out of a population of 113,763 – making it the second most common language used at home other than English. 968 residents spoke Mandarin, 466 spoke Malayalam, 387 spoke Hindi, and 233 spoke Urdu.
Header image: State Labor MP Juliana Addison at a Sikh temple in Ballarat (Facebook).
