Australia Day: Boys proud to pledge their allegiance

When asked why he felt happy about becoming an Australian citizen, eight-year-old Aaryan said: ‘Because Australia is so good.’

Avinash Ponnala and Sumalatha Hazari with Aadvik and Aaryan at the citizenship ceremony in Parramatta Park, Sydney. Picture: John Feder

Eight year-old twins Aadvik and Aaryan Ponnala, who have spent half their lives in Australia, felt a part of this country long before they were officially granted citizenship on Thursday.

Parramatta’s lord mayor presented the boys with their certificates under a big white tent in the middle of Parramatta Park in Sydney’s west.

When asked how they felt becoming Australian citizens, Aaryan, from Marsden Park, said: “I feel good about that. I like to be an Australian because Australia is so good.”

The twins’ father Avinash, a software engineer moved his family out from Warangal in southern India about four years ago, also collected his certificate at the Australian Day ceremony, alongside 80 others.

“We are very proud to be Australian citizens,” he said. “We understand the values of Australia. It’s a very multicultural country and we’re very proud to be here. I feel absolutely Aussie.”

While he didn’t know much about the history of January 26, he said he was proud of the Indigenous heritage and culture of this country.

He and his wife, Sumalatha Hazari, who is still in the process of becoming a citizen, said they picked Australia because they wanted to have a better life for their kids.

That was a sentiment shared by many of the families under the big white tent on Thursday.

Paulina Ortiz Calderon, originally from the city of Pachuca in Mexico, who received her citizenship on Thursday nine years after she had applied, said in Australia she felt free to raise her three children the way she wanted.

“I wouldn’t be able to have a break from my career to look after our children and then return to my marketing job. That’s not an ­option there,” she said.

It’s not an option to go out with your children and be safe, to be able to walk with your children in a stroller from point A to point B.”

Paulina Ortiz Calderon and her husband Peter Tongsum-Rith and their kids, Frida 5, Alexander, 3 and Maxwell, 6 months, at Parramatta Park. Picture: John Feder

Half of her supporters wore traditional Mexican dresses and the other half wore bright blue shirts with surfing platypuses and thong-wearing kangaroos.

“We wanted to represent both sides – Mexi-Australian,” her brother-in-law said.

Fu-Sheng Wang, who also became a citizen on Thursday, and Esayvani Mandiri, who became a citizen two months ago, both emigrated from South Africa and decided before they even arrived that they wanted their child to be ­Australian.

“We wanted her to be an Australian citizen, so we decided to come here first and then have a child. We planned it for many years,” Mr Wang said.

Fu-Sheng Wang, his wife Esayvani Mandiri and their daughter Jasmin. Picture: John Feder

“After she was born, we felt like we fit in here. Even though we didn’t have citizenship yet, because she was born here, we felt like this was home,” Ms Mandiri added.

“Here you feel very safe and very free. You wouldn’t feel that way (in South Africa) … But at the same time, it’s a sacrifice because we left our families.”

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet stopped by with his family and reflected on what the day meant to him.

“Obviously there is a lot of pain and a lot of hurt, but what we should focus on today is how great our people are,” he said.

“To celebrate what we’ve achieved as a country, as a people and be very proud of it.”

When asked whether he would support changing the date, he said: “It’s not a day to talk about that. This is a day to celebrate and reflect on the great values of Australia. We need to be united.”