After hearing horror stories, Drishti was always aware she could face racism if she moved to Australia but she left her home in India behind and took a chance anyway.
"A lot of people warned me and said: 'Australia, that's not some place we would recommend you go'," she told the ABC.
"I was like, "No, blatant racism does not exist anymore. I'm pretty sure I'll be fine'."
As a bright-eyed international student with hopes of starting a career in the media industry, Drishti — who only wants to be known by her first name for fear of repercussions — said she had to take a job she was "way over-qualified for" to help support herself.
She said she believed she faced discrimination and isolation due to being the only woman of colour in her workplace.
"I realised that my experiences — or what I bring to the table — weren't valued, only because of where I come from," she said.
She also had to deal with "toxic managers" who, she said, made her feel inadequate and different from her other, "white" colleagues.
Drishti said one manager "harassed" her and logged into her email account without her knowledge.
"He would keep calling me and he was like, 'You have so many emails that are still unread'," she said.
Drishti's experience is not uncommon among many migrants living in Australia.
According to new research by Melbourne's Scanlon Foundation Research Institute, mapping social cohesion, prejudice towards groups from different immigrant backgrounds remains a challenge.
Its research found about one-in-six people reported experiences of discrimination, based on their skin colour, ethnic origin or religion, with the results similar to surveys last year and in 2019.
Almost one-in-four people born overseas — and more than one-in-three people who speak a language other than English — also reported discrimination in 2022.
Drishti now takes a strong stance against racism.
"It's not enough to just not be racist. You have to be actively anti-racist," she said.
She added that it was the responsibility of employers to run cultural sensitivity training to ensure international students and migrants were able to feel like they belonged.
Microaggressions 'normalised' in workplaces
Australian National University (ANU) demographer James O'Donnell — who was the primary researcher on the project — said the reasons why discrimination remained an issue were not entirely clear.
"Our evidence suggests that prejudice is declining at the same time that support for diversity and multiculturalism is increasing," Dr O'Donnell said.
"People are more likely to think multiculturalism has been good for Australia and that immigrants benefit Australian society and the economy."
Anti-racism group All Together Now's chief executive, Stijn Denayer, said he was not surprised by the results of the research.
"A lot of people don't want to hear this, but racism is deeply entrenched in Australian society," Mr Denayer said.
He said microaggressions and casual forms of racism were often normalised in workplaces.
"There has to be more of an awareness that racism is mainly systemic and not only direct racism and prejudice between individuals," he said.
'Why is your rice yellow?'
Yatha Jain's family migrated to Australia from the Netherlands when she was six months old.
They had hoped to find a sense of belonging while also maintaining their Indian culture but, Ms Jain said, they were quickly disappointed.
While some experiences were great, she said, the discrimination they felt for being different stayed with them.
"It only took until kindergarten for me to experience racism and realise that, perhaps, Australia isn't the cohesive multicultural community that my parents heard about," she said.
Ms Jain said she remembered many experiences of racism at a young age, ranging from comments about the type of food she would bring to lunch, to her friend's parents making racist jokes.
"People would always be like, 'Oh, what is that? Why does it smell so weird? Why is your rice yellow?' It was a lot of those kinds of comments that stay with you," she said.
"Even adults would be saying things like, 'Where's your red dot? Does your mum wear a red dot?'
"I remember there was this particular joke, which was actually one of my friend's father … the joke was: How do you make an Indian woman blow up? And the answer is to press the red button.'"
It was only when Ms Jain stood up for herself at school and called out the racism that she felt she saw a change.
Now she is chair of Prosper, a non-profit organisation that helps children and families from marginalised backgrounds.
"I realised — if I take control and I start defining my own narratives and shaping what it means to be a person of colour or what it means to be a young Indian woman — that people do respond and would support me," she said.
Having open conversations about racism was what was needed to combat discrimination, she said.
"A lot of the time, when you bring up racism, people get really uncomfortable and defensive, because no-one wants to be called a racist," she said.
"We're not going to change anything until we start talking about that openly."
Discrimination reduces sense of belonging
Zara Libao — who asked to be referred to by an alias — worked for a public relations firm but said she decided to resign because of the treatment she faced.
She said the racism and microaggressions she endured in her workplace were never addressed, despite being escalated to her manager.
On one occasion, at a large work event, she said she witnessed her colleagues make fun of one of the waiters serving them food.
"While being served by East Asian waiters, [they] pulled the corners of their eyes back and spoke in a racist Asian accent similar to the character of I Y Yunioshi from the film Breakfast at Tiffany's," she said.
She also faced racism from clients.
"Clients I meet for the first time, commenting on my status of 'belonging' in Australia by saying things like: 'It must be hard being an international student' and brushing it off when I correct their assumption by explaining that I was born and raised here," she said.
"Ultimately, it was a culture where I knew that, even though I had been hired as part of a diversity program they paid for, I would never truly belong."
Dr O'Donnell said the social cohesion research found that a sense of belonging was also significantly lower among people who had experienced discrimination.
He said that addressing social and economic inequalities was an important part of creating a better sense of belonging.
"Other priorities include better public messaging that tackles rather than exacerbates stereotypes and prejudiced attitudes towards different groups and supporting social and community events," he said.
