Highlights
- Mona moved to Australia with the intention of living here for a few years but made it her home
- She migrated here with her American-born husband who worked in Singapore
- The family believes Australia needs to embrace migrants without underlying racism
“In the iconic movie Walkabout, I saw an Aboriginal person for the first time over the beautiful landscape of the Great Southern Land,” Mamoona Hussain aka Mona told SBS Urdu.
“I never ever thought I would live here, but how lucky am I to be in Australia,” says Mona excitedly.
I feel blessed to be a part of successful migrant stories and am looking forward to a future for my family and myself here in Australia, my home
Mona was born and brought up in London.
After she completed her education and became a solicitor working in the fields of criminal and human rights laws in a busy London law firm.
“I was a career-oriented person and avoided the idea of marriage. But I loved children and wanted some of my own, and along came Dexter Duncan,” she added.
Mona told SBS Urdu that after some correspondence with Dexter and a meeting, she jumped into marriage, moved to Australia and left her career to start a family.
“I was homesick as I had left my parents behind in London to whom I was close, especially my father, and my friends, some of whom I had known for decades at that point,” she added.
Dexter, who was born and raised in the dusty plains of Texas, had a desire to live overseas from a young age.
He told SBS Urdu that after working in the Silicon Valley, he jumped at an opportunity to work in Singapore which required him to travel to Australia often. In Singapore, he says he “learned much about business, cultures and Islam”.
“After getting burned out with too much work and desiring more open spaces, I became a Muslim and moved to Australia. A few years later, I met and married Mamoona Hussain in the UK and started a family,” he added.
Besides the arts and theatre, Mona said that she missed the cultural diversity that makes Britain the melting pot it is.
Dexter and Mona married 20 years back and raised their family in Australia. Source: Aisha D Duncan
“But the beauty of Australia, its weather, and many kind people, balance that out,” she added. Mona said that everyone is not the same and as a Hijab-wearing woman, she still has to face some staring eyes, that's why she believes that Australia needs to embrace migrants without underlying racism.
Talking about her personal struggle with raising the children on her own, she says that the first four being close in age, while Dexter was busy with work and I didn’t want them in daycare so I “brought it upon herself”.
My children are lucky to have three passports each, that is fairly unique
Mona with daughter Ayesha Source: Mona Hussain
Mona says since the children are now mostly grown up, she has been toying with the idea of going back to her legal career.
“While I was the second-in-charge at Salvo's, I thought about it but COVID-19 had other plans for the world. I happened to be at an International Women’s Day function in 2020 where I met an executive who worked at the Australian National Museum and proposed I consider applying for work there. Now, I am working in multiple roles at the museum," she added.
Mona says she balances her motherhood and career while trying to participate in some voluntary work to help the less fortunate of society.
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