Sixty years ago, Mari Paz Moreno was a 23-year-old woman working for a Spanish news agency when she saw an unusual ad in the newspaper.
“Rich country, new country, beautiful weather, beautiful salaries, all democracy, opportunities for people of all ages,” she told SBS News.
“And I thought, ‘Why not?'”
Little did she know she would board a plane dubbed ‘El Avion de las Novias’ – or 'The Fiancées Flight' – along with 30 other young Spanish women who were destined to become brides in Australia.
The women had been recruited in a migration agreement called ‘Plan Marta’. Bolstered by the Catholic Church, the scheme was designed to encourage Spanish sugarcane farmers – who were increasingly complaining of homesickness and loneliness – to stay in Australia in the era of ‘populate or perish’.
Mari Paz's passport photo, taken in 1960 before she boarded a one-way flight to Australia. Source: SBS News
If they could find a wife, they would be more likely to settle permanently.
“I don’t think anyone said ‘I’m going to get married in Australia’. We didn’t know where Australia was - we thought the kangaroos were around the city,” Mari Paz said ahead of a reunion for some of those on the flight earlier this month.
“I was anxious to travel, I was anxious to know people, to make new friends, [learn a] new language, new country and then go to India – I wanted to go to India in those years – and then a year in Mexico.”
When she touched down in Australia, she was greeted with a very different reality to the life she had pictured when reading the newspaper ad just a few months earlier in her Madrid office.
Mari Paz's family farewells her at the airport in Madrid before her three-day journey to Melbourne. Source: SBS News
“After three days we arrived in Melbourne and, like little sheep, little lambs – 'they’re coming now, they’re coming now' – they knew we were coming, they knew we didn’t speak English,” she said.
“We come to Australia, you are no one. No one. You’re a migrant, you’re a new Australian, you’re something worse sometimes and you don’t know what to do with your free time. It’s one of the biggest problems.”
Mari Paz boarded a train to Sydney and was given a room at a convent where she says she experienced some of her loneliest days.
“I spent nights there, alone, alone, alone, writing long letters, waiting for a sleep that never came, and never told the truth to my parents - I didn’t want them to suffer, because they suffered enough when I left the house,” she said.
Mari Paz has since written a collection of books about becoming Australian. Source: SBS News
“They said 'the salaries are good and you can learn English for free and then you can have your own choice', but that was absolutely not true - we didn’t have choices. What everyone wanted migrants to do when they came here was dirty jobs.”
Rebelling against the 'plan'
Almost as soon as Mari Paz arrived in Sydney, she started hearing about the Spanish cane farmers she was destined to meet.
“There were talks about those boys coming with money from the sugarcane and buying a house and looking for girls.”
But she had no intention of getting married so young. She had other plans – to travel the world, meet new people, and fulfil her dream of becoming a journalist.
“I met a couple, just occasionally with a group of girls, but no, no, I didn’t like them, no no, just to say hello to them.”
Mari Paz instead stumbled across the man who would become her life partner by accident – seated at the back of her English classroom.
Mari Paz and Bruno on their wedding day. Source: SBS News
“In Spain, I had friends, but no one who was waiting for me, so Cupid with his blindfold went into my life and his life, and what do you do?”
Bruno was a recent migrant from Italy and, together, they learned each other’s languages, got married, started their own building business and built a family for themselves.
Spanish-Australian researcher Dr Natalia Ortiz has been studying Plan Marta.
She has found about 700 Spanish women migrated to Australia on 13 designated 'fiancée flights' between 1960 and 1963.
The agreement came about after an earlier migration plan with Spain created a gender imbalance, she said.
"The first agreement between the two countries bought male labour to work on the sugarcane farms in Queensland, and they realised very quickly that those men needed something else, so they came up with a second agreement."
While Mari Paz took her own path, Dr Ortiz said, overall, the government's plan worked.
All the Martas brought to Australia were Catholic. Source: Supplied
"The idea was just to make the migrants stay because a lot of them came for a couple of years and had the intention to return," she said.
"It was quite successful. Very quickly women came in, there were a lot of applicants, there were a lot of weddings, and 60 years later we have women here and they have children and grandchildren."
While moving to Australia had its ups and downs for Mari Paz, she said she would do it all again if she had her time over.
“I always said for 20 years I was crying for my country when nobody looked and nobody knew, but then I said 'I’m wasting my tears, I’m wasting my time, no more'. And I started going out, dancing and everything.”
Mari Paz, Bruno, and their three children. Source: SBS News
“I can say I’m Australian, but when I go to Spain - I looked back last year when I went and I said ‘don’t forget me, I’m coming back’.”
