Most young people have two families. While each was born into a biological family, some are estranged or otherwise separated from their birth families. Many belong to pseudo or surrogate families formed on the street and nurtured by need. In the eyes of the media, these fictive kin groups are often portrayed as gangs. Rarely are they perceived as informal social institutions whereby young people provide each other with familial resources — love, loyalty, respect and physical protection.

katty, 21 year-old laotian-australian
my family came to australia to get a better life
so that my sister and i could get an education
and not have such a hard life
but it was still hard for us
my father's qualifications weren't recognised here
he could only get work in factory

then my mother got sick
she died in 1992
i was 15
she was sick for a long time
i was looking after her and all that
as well as my dad and my little sister

i had to come home after school
within half an hour and cook and clean,
get dinner ready and get changed
i couldn't go out
i couldn't have friends
i couldn't even touch the telephone

after my mother died it was just us
my father used to always say
"i don't want you to work in a factory like me"
he always wanted me to be a doctor
"study hard, i want you to be a doctor,
i want you to go to uni to be a doctor"
not for nothing else but to be a doctor

i was ok at school
but i didn't want to be a doctor
i wanted to go to uni
but not to be doctor

but that's what he was expecting for me
he was having high expectations for me
i was looking at that expectation but um
i just didn't want to be a doctor
i wanted to be something else  [top]

tran, 19 year-old vietnamese-australian
we're a family but our parent are different
a family from the heart, not from the blood
there's no blood, just love

huong, 22 year-old vietnamese-australian
we are a family
everything a normal family does we do
we eat together
sleep together
play together
laugh and fight together
whatever we've got we share
that's how we survive

vu, 23 year-old vietnamese-australian
living this life
you stay in a group
the group is like your family
you look out for them and they look out for you
like our group, we've been through a lot together
like getting into fights
being on the run from police
getting locked up
mainly bad things
so we try and make a family
make something good for us
[top]