Key points
- Tony Paradies is Filipino, while his wife Sharon is Indigenous Australian.
- Because Sharon is 'white passing', a darker-skinned Tony had a harder time 'socialising'.
- To know the importance they place on their cultural identities is to also know the value they place on family.
(Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island readers are advised that the following article may contain images of people who have died.)
"A lot of my identity as an Aboriginal person is about family." — Shari Sebbens
Listen to the episode
Indiginoy Episode 1: An interracial marriage
SBS Filipino
16/05/202314:27
She was a young “striking blonde”, a spirited woman who viewed independence as virtue. He was a fair-skinned Filipino mestizo working at a radio station who became tongue-tied in her presence.
Indigenous Australian Sharon and Filipino Tony Paradies found each other in the 1970s and have since built a love, a life and a family together.
Sharon and Tony Paradies Source: Terri Hanlon
Overcoming prejudice
When the two first met, Tony was instantly enamoured. Sharon was unsure.
“I went with [Tony] and his mate to the movies…and after that, his mate soon disappeared. We stayed up talking until 4 am. Every coffee shop in Townsville then was closed,” Sharon shares, laughing, “He took me home and asked me to marry him that night.”
The petrified 15-year old Sharon replied to the quick proposal by jumping out of the car.
In between that night’s proposal and the eventual ‘yes’ in a simple civil ceremony were years of challenging society’s ideal of couplehood then.
“We [Filipinos] were unusual in Townsville, Queensland, at that time. All of Sharon’s girl friends stopped talking with her because she was going out with me,” Tony shares.
Like Tony, Sharon is a Black, Indigenous and Person of Colour (BIPOC), but could admittedly pass off as white.
A younger Tony [seated, left] and Sharon [standing, left] with Sharon’s mother [seated, right] and niece Flora [standing, right] Source: Tony and Sharon Paradies
Sharon grew up with a white foster family after her mother died and her father was forced to give her up for adoption due to enforced at that time.
“Sharon’s biological mother [who died when she was four] was an Indigenous Australian, but she passed herself off as Mediterranean. Her biological father was a white [Englishman] and his marriage to her was against his family’s wishes,” he shares.
[L-R] Sharon’s mother with her full-sister, Mona; full-brother, Eric and; half-sister, Flora Source: Tony and Sharon Paradies
Tony shares, “When he first met me, his first words to me were ‘I went to war to keep you slant-eyes out of my country.’”
Despite the racial prejudices, Tony says that his relationship with Sharon developed easily because he was well-acquainted with the nuances of mixed unions.
“I really had not met anyone with Sharon’s empathy.
“My parents were pretty much like [us] but switched.
“My dad was very fair, had hazel eyes and stood about 5”10. My mum was 5”5 and had brown skin. Sharon was like my dad and I was like my mum,” he says, adding that his dark-skinned mum had “an incredibly hard time socialising [in Australia].”
Tony's father with Sharon and their two sons at Mooloolaba beach in Queensland. Source: Tony and Sharon Paradies
Roots and acceptance
While Sharon helped facilitate Tony’s own socialising, Tony championed her need to reconnect with the Indigenous roots she was forced away from.
“It was not until [Sharon, our two sons and I] moved to Darwin in 1987 that she was able to discover and explore her Aboriginal identity. She finally felt at home and relaxed about who she was in a very accepting community,” Tony shares.
Tony too felt an acceptance in the community that he didn’t feel in Townsville.
“There were a lot of Filipino and Indigenous families in Darwin because of the pearl diving industry in the late 19th and early 20th century.
“Filipino divers known as Manila men [settled there], but they could not marry white women. Some ended up with Indigenous Australians, so large Indiginoy families sprung up and spread across Darwin and the NT.”
Tony and Sharon's sons with Flora, the daughter of Sharon's half-sister. Source: Tony and Sharon Paradies
“I’m an only child,” Sharon shares, adding, “But if I had brothers and sisters, they would have been mothers and fathers to my children. That’s how they would be addressed as well.”
She continues, “I have nephews who are my cultural nephews. They are my cousin’s children and they are my nephews. The whole clan and kinship thing is incredibly complex and hardly anyone can understand it.”
Although the concept of kinship and clan is something Sharon feels hardly anyone could understand, she shares that Tony does.
“He is very family-oriented. [When we first met], he spoke a lot about his mother. I thought that was a good sign. He also spoke about his grandparents and the family he left behind in the Philippines.
Sharon, their sons and Tony's mother Source: Tony and Sharon Paradies
‘I don’t shrink into a shell’
The Paradies family respects and understands the differences of the cultures they belong to, with Tony sharing, “One of the things about being married to Sharon is I’m very aware of her cultural background. Our children acknowledge that [they are both] Aboriginal and Filipino.”
Tony admits that his half-white side of the family “[doesn’t] acknowledge their Filipino background…and just want to melt into the white population.”
Tony with sons, Niall [L] and Yin [R] Source: Terri Hanlon
According to Kerri-Lee Harding, an emerging elder and the Indigenous Lead in SBS, “There are a lot of labels put upon Indigenous people. Generally speaking, they are quite negative stereotypes. A negative stereotype might be that Indigenous people are lazy in some ways, shape or form, which is completely untrue.”
Sharon, along with her family, fights against these negative stereotypes.
“Someone could be talking derogatorily about Aboriginal people. I’m bigger than most men and my boys are over six-feet-tall…so I don’t get fearful. I don’t shrink into my shell,” Sharon shares.
Sharon and sons, Niall [L] and Yin [R] Source: Terri Hanlon
To know the importance the Paradies family places on their cultural identities is to also know the value they place on family.
The Paradies family Source: Terri Hanlon
“Our two sons imbibe the importance of family and how we support each other in achieving our individual goals. It’s not a solo flight!
“The two have different skill sets and have gone down different pathways in developing these. They now live together with their families in an intentional community in Moora Moora, Victoria, set up in 1974 with members working together to achieve a self-sustaining community, helping each other.”
"Maaaring mayroon tayong mga pagkakaiba, ngunit wala nang mas mahalaga pa kaysa sa pamilya."["We may have our differences, but there is nothing more important than family."]
