Australia is a nation of migrants. Half of us are born overseas or are the children of immigrant parents, so being an “Aussie” means many different things for many different people.

At TransferWise, we believe being Australian is more about recognising where and who we are now and where we hope to go, as much as where we've come from.

We believe lives and ideas shouldn't be held back by borders. We wanted to put a spotlight on what Australia looks like today and the contributions migrants make to our community.

These are the Faces of Australia and their stories.

We lived in Sutherland Shire. There weren’t many other Indian families at the time so it was confusing being so Indian at home and Australian at school. Even my name sounded strange to my classmates. I didn’t feel confident enough to be Indian or openly celebrate Indian festivals because I spent my younger years trying so hard to be Australian. No one knew I could speak a second language until I was past Year 12.

Now in my 30s, I’m embracing both cultures because I am comfortable with being different, being who I am and the diverse background that I come from.

Read Dharmica's Story

The Chai Room came about because I craved a connection with the home I’d left behind after my husband and I moved to Sydney ten years ago. Australia was somewhere I never thought I would end up. It sounded like a faraway land, very different from the rest of the world while I was living in London. I felt like I’d left a part of myself behind in England.

Growing up in the UK, I had a strong sense of identity within peers, my surroundings, and myself with a real cultural grounding. Everything was new in Sydney – the climate, the people and the work culture.

Read Fatema's Story

We left Ukraine because we were quite restricted in the way we lived and the food shortages. We arrived in Sydney with only $50 to our name. I became an actor because of my dad. I was a shy kid and he told me to give it a go. That had always been his dream, for himself.

Whilst we’re living in the most digitally connected time in our history, we’re more socially disconnected than ever. Through The Human Connection Movement, I want to draw attention to themes like loneliness, poor mental health, physical and socio-economic outcomes like self-esteem, suicide and heart disease.

Read Igor's Story

I came to Melbourne from Shenzhen in 1988. I was an only child, so I left my parents behind and a well-paid government job as a translator in the Department of Foreign Trade in China.

Australia was a different place back then. I couldn’t speak English, and the Chinese community was small. The majority were poor, working students and hardworking migrant families. I had to start from nothing - learning English and finding a job, becoming used to a new culture and environment.

As a woman and a migrant, it was challenging and from time to time, I did wonder if I’d made the right decision.

Read Monika's Story

I still remember my first day in Sydney. My brother had hired a food stall at the Easter Show. He asked me to take charge of heating and selling samosas. In one day, I went from being a salaried professional in India to sweeping and mopping floors in Sydney. I felt I had taken a huge step backwards that day.

One thing I liked in Australia was the dignity of labour - I began working in the kitchen with mum, learning how to cook. Exactly 6 months after we arrived, I felt confident when someone approached me to buy a restaurant in Potts Point.

Read Manjit's Story

I come from a long line of politically active family members who were active socialists in Chile in the 1970s. When the coup led by Augusto Pinochet occurred, it was inevitable my family was going to be targeted.

Growing up gay in the Western suburbs of Sydney in the 1990s with refugee parents who were noticeably different and had suffered a lot through torture and dispossession made life difficult. I was an angry teenager, and then when I got to university, I felt I was moving through a privileged world that wasn’t for me.

Read Pablo's Story

My last memory is of a big water tank explosion and it’s the only memory I have that is actually quite serious because I thought that our family was going to die. I was really scared – our whole building shook, there was dust everywhere. When my dad opened up the door of the apartment, we could only faintly see people through the dust and they were just running around and screaming.

Shortly after that, we left. At first, I didn’t really know what I was going to do here. But interestingly, the fact that nobody knew me really pushed me to find out who I was, and I eventually realised I had a chance to live a life of influence.

Read Sharon's Story

Karachi has a ridiculous problem with water, as many parts of the city still have to get their water delivered by water tanker, instead of through pipes, basically because of mismanagement. It has been that way since I was born, but I had never noticed it until I came back from a more developed country.

I started to realise that I had all the skills and qualifications to solve this problem, and I also started to think about that quote, ‘If not you, then who? If not now, then when?’ Eventually, I decided I had to take some steps to develop my own start-up.

Read Syed's Story

Of about 70 people in our family, nearly everyone was killed by the Khmer Rouge. They targeted anyone who could be a threat, who didn’t conform to their ideals, who wasn’t full blooded Cambodian, or who had any education beyond high school, as they believed everyone should be farmers living off the land.

When I was around 11, we moved to Cabramatta. Dad started a medical practice, and for a long time he was the only doctor who spoke Cambodian in Australia. We lived in a tiny house, where the medical practice was in the master bedroom, the lounge room was the waiting room and we all shared the second bedroom!

Read Veronica's Story

When I was 17, I met my mum face to face for the first time, in Australia. It was crazy. It was good when I met her, but I was also so heavy because I had never seen her, and it was a lot of learning to get to know each other. For example, when you grow up with your mum, you know what makes her unhappy or happy, and what it means when she acts a certain way. But we had to learn all that about each other.

At the same time, it all felt very unreal because I had never seen this day coming. My US visa was declined for around 15 years so I thought there was no hope we would be together. Sometimes now I still look at her and think, ‘Is this even real?’

Read Zandile's Story