Victoria 11,600 Western Australia 3,932 | New South Wales 5,752 Queensland 1,476 | |
Mauritian Australians are Australians of Mauritian descent, or who were born on Mauritius. According to the 2011 Census, there were 28,045 people of Mauritian descent in Australia and 23,280 Mauritius-born people residing in the country at the moment of the census the numer total is 51,325 Mauritians in Australia, having an increase of 28.1 per cent compared to the 2006 Census. The largest Mauritius-born community in Australia is in the state of Victoria, with 11,600 people.
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Mauritians are a rapidly growing migrant group having increased steadily over the past 30 years.
History
Migrants from Mauritius have a very long history in Australia. They have been arriving in Australia since before federation in 1901. They came as prospectors to Victoria's goldfields, convicts, or skilled sugar workers who significantly helped to develop Queensland's sugar industry.
Cultural background
As Mauritius is a country with a multicultural and multiethnic society, Mauritians have different and diverse ethnic backgrounds. However, in the 2011 Census most Mauritius-born people living in Australia reported being of Mauritian descent (13,651), followed by those of French (4,536) and Chinese descent (2,057).
Base on ethnic lines, roughly whites or gens de couleur (mixed-race creoles) represent 60-65% of the community in Australia, as they were the largest numbers leaving Mauritius after independence and the only ones that could pass the white or near white test under the white Australian policy during the 60's till 1970. Chinese-Mauritians make up 10%, arriving mostly during the 80's and 90's, those of Indian ancestry are 10-15% and Creoles of African ancestry 15-20%. Most of the Afro-Mauritians and Indians have arrived after the 2000's, and are the fastest growing part of the community. The figures for the 2016 Australian census is yet to be release, the ethnic composition would more than likely have changed with higher number of new arrivals from Afro and Indo-Mauritian segment of the community. Mauritian Australians have a small presence in Australian popular culture, including in television. Aisha in The Slap is a notable example, identified in the TV series adaptation as 'Mauritian-Australian'. Havana Brown is a significant Australian musician of Mauritian background.
Language
The main languages spoken by Mauritius-born people in Australia were French (12,545), English (5,665) and Mauritian (2,654). Note that Australia has the largest French-speaking Mauritian community in relation to percentage of the overall Mauritian community, they represent 53% of the Mauritian community, although numbers would be much higher, but since most of the second generation speaks English. The French speakers represents the White-Mauritians or gens de couleur (mixed-race Creoles) ethnic groups, making up at least 65% of the Mauritian community in Australia. In comparison to Mauritius only 4.1% of the population speaks French as a first language (mother tongue), the low numbers of French speakers in Mauritius is due to the large exodus of the gens de couleur and pooer or middle-class whites.