While the policy of multiculturalism replaced the White Australia policy (in the 1970s) in official discourses, Khoo argues that Australian society is still divided by “racially discriminatory structures and institutionalised inequality” with regards to Asian-Australian, as well as Indigenous Australian, people that “invoke questions of dispossession and colonisation” (4). Australian cultural studies researcher Tseen Khoo relates the “new dynamics of exclusion in contemporary Australia in the wake of the ‘re-territorialising’ of Australian boundaries and ongoing global anti-terrorist rhetoric and legislation” that sparked discussions about “who belongs in the nation, imperatives of cultural assimilation, and the constitution of a ‘true’ Australian” (3).

Questions of authenticity, national identity, and whiteness-as-Australianness are still very much relevant in Australian politics today. Technology and popular culture play an important part in how migrants experience and express themselves. Tom Cho uses globally recognised American pop culture references to illustrate issues faced by second-generation Chinese-Australian migrants such as himself. Look Who’s Morphing was supported with funding from the Australia Council for the Arts, and shortlisted for several prizes: the 2010 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book (South East Asia and Pacific), 2009 Age Fiction Book of the Year and Melbourne Prize Trust’s 2009 Best Writing Award.

As he morphs into Godzilla, Suzi Quatro, a member of the Muppets, a robot, characters of the films Dirty Dancing, The Sound of Music or The Bodyguard, or a giant cock rock star, the characters challenge ideas about gender, home, language and adulthood, as well as cultural integration. The stories that revolve around the protagonist’s, Tom’s, resourceful transformations through many identities, roles, sizes, contexts, media and stories. Look Who’s Morphing is Tom Cho’s literary debut short story cycle.

The house of sky and breath