KEY POINTS:
Marrickville is a microcosm of Australia's recent immigration past. The modest Sydney suburb, a few kilometres from the city centre, is a kaleidoscope of different cultures. Along its main street there are Greek bakers, halal butchers, Lebanese tax agents and an African restaurant.
But it is Asian businesses
which predominate, mostly Vietnamese and Chinese, and they are now under attack for the way they advertise their wares.
The local council says there are too many shop front signs in Chinese and Vietnamese, and not enough in English.
Councillors will debate a proposal on Tuesday to force business owners to provide English translations to all their signage.
They will also discuss limiting the amount of advertising shops can display to half their window space - a response to complaints that shop fronts plastered with flyers and leaflets make the district look tatty.
The proposals have divided the community and the council, with one councillor, Saeed Khan, branding them "outright racist" and "bordering on paranoia".
But older residents, many of them Greek and Italian migrants who first settled the area 30 or 40 years ago, say the new law is long overdue.
"There should be more signs in English," said Ferruco Visintan, 85, who emigrated from Italy in 1960. "This is an English speaking country, you have to use English."
Vietnamese-owned businesses appear to be particularly reluctant to provide English translations of their signage.
The Quoc Thuy Super Fast Pty Ltd, for example, on busy Illawarra Rd, offers no clue to non-Vietnamese speakers as to what sort of product or service it provides.
But pharmacist Nghi Nguyen, 54, an ethnic Chinese immigrant from Saigon, said 80 per cent of her customers were Vietnamese and of those about half spoke no English.
"So we have to have a lot of Vietnamese signs," she said. "Why does the council want to make trouble over this?"
Tobacconist Xu Wen Juan, 56, from Shanghai, said she would be unhappy with any crackdown on the multi-coloured flyers and posters advertising cheap overseas phone calls and cut-price cigarettes on the front of her shop.
"The posters attract people's eye and bring us more business. They're important for our livelihood."
But the mayor of Marrickville, Morris Hanna, said: "Some shops cover their whole window with advertising and it creates a very bad look for the area.
"They should be limited to no more than 50 per cent of the window."
The controversy comes at a time of intense debate about how well some immigrant groups integrate into Australian society.
Much of the scrutiny has been directed at Muslims. Recent revelations of home-grown terrorism plots and incendiary remarks by an Islamic leader comparing immodestly dressed women to "uncovered meat" who invited rape have infuriated many Australians.
But immigrants of all backgrounds have been told by the Government that they should learn English as quickly as possible and embrace "Australian values" such as freedom of speech, equal opportunity and respect for women.
The Prime Minister, John Howard, is considering introducing a tougher citizenship test under which immigrants would have to take an exam assessing their English skills and knowledge of Australian history and culture.
Almost one in four Australians was born overseas, the highest proportion in more than 100 years, but multiculturalism is being seen in an increasingly negative light.
Mr Howard has spoken of moving away from "zealous multiculturalism" towards a reassertion of Australia's national identity.
His deputy, Treasurer Peter Costello, attacked "confused, mushy, misguided multiculturalism" earlier this year.
"Multiculturalism and what it means has been caught up in the uncertain environment we live in and the perception that the world out there is a big, scary place," said Sharon Ride, director of the Federation of Ethnic Communities Councils of Australia.
"People have a fear of terrorism, and multiculturalism has got mixed up in all that. It connects into the debate about who we are as a nation."
Back on the streets of Marrickville, local resident Melinda Leves, 36, says people should live and let live.
"Marrickville has always been very mixed. The Asian influence means we have great diversity and some fantastic restaurants. Frankly I think there's more of a problem with graffiti than shop signage."
Backlash
Chinese immigrants are often deeply resented when they move into parts of Sydney previously dominated by other immigrant groups, an academic study found.
The 2004 study focused on Ashfield, an inner Sydney suburb where many Chinese people settled in the 1990s. Chinese now account for 11 per cent of the population but run 85 per cent of businesses on the main street.
Chinese business acumen and cultural influence was seen as threatening by longer established Greek, Italian and Polish immigrants, social researcher Dr Amanda Wise found.
The prevalence of Chinese language signs was the most prominent area of discomfort, particularly the fact that no translations were offered and the signs were often poorly designed.
One older resident told Wise: "Today my shops have been replaced by other shops where I'm not welcome. Mostly you go into shops as a non-Chinese and the attention is curt, off-hand, unhelpful."
Residents of Anglo-Celtic and Mediterranean background felt "significant discomfort" with the scale of change. There were "overwhelming feelings of resentment, disorientation and exclusion," said Wise, from the Centre for Research on Social Inclusion at Macquarie University, Sydney. Cultural differences over "shopping practices, manners and bodily distance" had bred anxiety and racism among Ashfield's more established inhabitants.
