Nicolas was born in a small majority Christian town in Palestine, but when he was 2 his family left for Chile, where they had long-standing family connections. In fact, migration from Palestine to Chile has a history going back to the 1920s.    

Although the family settled in Santiago,  Nicolas never felt like it was quite home, and as an adult returned to Palestine to reunite with family and to work.   But it didn't quite work out as expected and Nicolas headed back to Chile to work in the family's restaurant business.   From talking to an uncle who lived there, Nicolas decided to try his luck in Australia, eventually studying engineering in Tasmania. 

When Boyd arrived in Australia with his family at 18 years old, his father's first act, perhaps a symbolic one, was to take the family out for a seafood lunch and told his children that Zimbabwe was where they were brought up, but if anyone asked to say "Australia is my home now".   Advice Boyd credits with helping him settle down in the new country much quicker.  

Years later he returned to Zimbabwe with his father and heard for the first time about some of his father's experiences as a soldier in the war leading up to independence in 1980, experiences which had long-term impacts on his father ( as with many veterans of armed conflicts). 

Dona grew up in small village in the Philippines where just getting to school required  deep commitment - literally, as kids had to cross a river with no bridge to get to their primary school.   Dona had a strict religious upbringing, but broke family traditions and expectations by not marrying a pastor, rather she found love online with a man in Tasmania. In 2005, she came to Tasmania knowing nothing about life here, in fact before she came she had confused it with Tanzania !  Despite a disappointing lack of big shopping malls, Dona has learnt to love bushwalking  and nature and does volunteer work helping to support new arrivals through food,  and has initiated a charity to help young footballers in the Philippines with the help of local Tasmanian soccer clubs.

When Paola left Argentina for the first time having just finished uni studies, she never expected she would have ended up at the bottom of the world in southern Tasmania.   The plan had actually been to backpack around Europe and go back to Argentina,  but a 500 km walk on the Camino in Spain with an Aussie guy she met travelling lead to a kind of spiritual awakening, falling in love and then moving to Australia. 

in 2018, her and her husband made the decision to trade a successful life in Sydney and move the family to a country property just outside the township of Cygnet, a 50 minute drive south of Hobart, a decision which has exceeded her expectations in many ways.    

Elaine arrived in Tasmania in 2013, when her husband got a position in the Philosophy Department at the University of Tasmania. Originating from a small town in the "Rust Belt" state of  Ohio, she came via Melbourne ( 19 years ) and London, looking for a change and a place to concentrate on her writing.

Americans now make up Tasmania's 7th largest migrant group,  and it's a group that has been growing,  according to the last census.

As a long-term resident of Australia/Tasmania , Elaine has some interesting reflections on some of the cultural differences between Australia and the US and also about how living abroad so long has changed the outlook she has of her country of birth.   Also, despite not being a particularly sporty person, she has developed a passion for Aussie Rules football ( You'll have to listen to find out what team she supports), particularly the women's pro league.

Like many other recent migrants, Carlos was drawn to Tasmania by the regional migration programme, after spending a year in Melbourne.  He and his wife had decided to leave Colombia 4 years ago to seek a safer and more secure life in Australia.    Carlos bought with him much experience working in social projects in Bogota,  but with few employment opportunities in Tasmania, he ended up working in an apple orchard and doing cleaning at the university.  However, through persistence he managed to get an opportunity work in a job that he now loves with the Red Cross.

Although Tasmania seemed a bit too quiet for him at first and the lack of variety you might get in a large city is something he misses,  coming from Colombia he appreciates living in a safe and secure environment above all. 

Grace Nguyen, or to give her her Vietnamese name, Ngoc Thanh Tu Nguyen, is not perhaps your typical Vietnamese accounting graduate.  She came to Tasmania 8 years ago with some music and business studies in Ho Chi Minh City behind her.   In her time in Tasmania she's been a volunteer for the Wilderness Society, sang with the Southern Gospel Choir, played a role in a music with a local theatre company and even tried her hand at pole dancing classes , and that's on top of having studied a three-year degree in a language that she really struggled with on first arrival.

Grace also offers some great advice on one of the toughest issues facing new migrants to Tasmania - how to tap into the "hidden" jobs market.

When Kalana came to Tasmania in October 2019, he was 110kg and feeling a bit lost  after four not-entirely-happy years studying and working in Melbourne.  But in his short time in Hobart he has experienced some dramatic improvements in his physical and mental well-being, mainly through small things that many of us locals would take for granted, such as free music events and many places to relax.  

Kalana grew up in Colombo with his mother and two sisters and the family struggled in his young years, moving house many times.  But everyone around them struggled too, so he did not feel it so much.   When he moved to study in Melbourne it was the first time he'd lived a way from his family, a big step for a young man.   In Melbourne he got a job at a motel and eventually he realised that he preferred hospitality to accountancy...a choice that was costly in the short term but contributed to his choice of Tasmania as a destination.