It has made me more aware of even having an ethnicity, for better and for worse. It is easy to recognize the problems of other ethnic groups: arranged marriages gone bad, unwanted girl children. It is harder to face the problems that others might see in my own ethnic group — casual divorce, casual sex, casual abandonment of the elderly.

But I’ve also learned to stand up for, and explain, my culture. I remember a conversation about premarital sex. “Excuse me, that is part of my culture,” I said. My mother would have been horrified if I married someone without first having sex with that person.

I have learned to wear such differences lightly, with good humor, to see the good as well as the bad in other ways of doing things. For that is one of the greatest strengths of multiculturalism, that we can learn from each other, change and improve.

I have seen how quickly people who are angry and frustrated can turn to race as an insult. I have comforted colleagues who have been subjected to racial slurs, told to take the next boat back to Africa. I’ve learned what it is like to hear someone talking about your ethnic group, thinking none of you are in the room. “Australia isn’t just dumb white Aussies anymore,” a man says, and then turns and sees me and says, “Oh.”

We are living multiculturalism, muddling through it. It is not perfect, but it is glorious and I would never go back. I have come to believe Anglo-Celtic Australia needs to work harder to integrate into this new mainstream, not expect the job of integration to be the responsibility of those who are not white, or who were born elsewhere.

At the same time I know there are many white Australians who are desperate to do this, but find few opportunities to integrate organically. In the absence of true connections, we eat, using lemongrass, chili peppers and naan as culinary substitutes for integration. Or we ask taxi drivers, “So where are you from?”