Young people reserved their greatest animus and hostility for the media. The mainstream news and current affairs media were seen as a constant source of biased, sensationalist, and inaccurate information about Cabramatta and its youth. The costs of this "campaign against Cabramatta" were felt strongly by young people who had to lie about their addresses when applying for jobs, courses and housing.

tram, 19 year-old vietnamese-australian
you never hear about the good things
like what i like best about cabramatta
is that it's a joint community
a lot of asian-australians like me
trying to keep a sense of their
culture and country
in a little suburb in australia
there's this sense that we all
c-o-n-n-e-c-t
and stick up for each other no matter what

andy, 17 year-old vietnamese-australian
people think
that cabramatta is bad
but it's not
people think
that if they come to cabramatta
they gonna get stabbed
people think
because the newspapers
they overdo it
people think that cabramatta is bad
but it's a pretty safe place
just like any other place
like there's trouble everywhere
not only cabramatta

nav, 20 year-old laotian-australian
they show about cabramatta
all the bad stuff
they didn't film the good place
they don't show the kid play basketball and that
just picture of the station,
people dealing drugs and stuff

vu, 23 year-old vietnamese-australian
some of the little ones, they're like
"look, i'm selling drugs, i'm so hard"
but from my point of view, i don't think i'm hard
i'm not proud of what i do
but the media makes it seem like such a big thing
so the little ones think
"oh yeah, dealers have so much money,
so much cars and all that stuff"
but we don't have nothing
just enough to support out habit
not even that sometimes
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