An Asian Australian can be generally defined as a person of Asian ancestry who was born in or is an immigrant to Australia.

There is no agreed definition of who an Asian Australian is, although for the purposes of aggregating data, the Australian Bureau of Statistics in its Australian Standard Classification of Cultural and Ethnic Groups (ASCCEG) has grouped certain ethnic groups into certain categories, including Northeast Asian e.g. Chinese Australian, Southeast Asian e.g. Vietnamese Australian, South Asian e.g. Indian Australian and Central Asian e.g. Afghan Australian. For the purpose of this article an Asian Australian is considered to be an Australian resident falling into one of these four groups.

At the 2006 Census 1,696,568 Australian residents declared that they had ancestral background to one of these three groupings, either alone or in combination with one other ancestry. This represents about 6% of all responses.

In 1788, a small group of Chinese settled in New South Wales. But the first wave of Asian immigration to Australia did not begin until the late-1800's, almost 100 years after the first wave of European immigration. One major reason that Asians did not leave their homelands was that their societies were relatively stable. Asia did not experience the revolutions that brought political, economic, and social changes to Europe. The people had little reason to leave in search of a better life. But by the mid-1900's, the traditional Asian systems began to prove ineffective in the face of increasing social problems. The first major social crises erupted in China. The government began to weaken under repeated foreign invasions, domestic revolts, and problems caused by overpopulation. The rulers could no longer control people who wanted to leave the country.

Alice Pung is a writer, editor and lawyer. She wrote the memoir Unpolished Gem and edited Growing Up Asian in Australia.

She is a practicing solicitor, and has worked as an art instructor, independent school teacher at primary and secondary schools and is Artist in Residence at at Janet Clarke Hall, the University of Melbourne.

Pung was born in Footscray and grew up in Braybrook, attending local schools including Christ the King College, a Catholic school for girls. Alice's parents are Chinese who immigrated to Cambodia then fled to Australia as asylum seekers.

Pung's first book, Unpolished Gem, won the 2007 Newcomer of the Year Award in the Australian Book Industry Awards. Her follow-up memoir, Her Father's Daughter, was published in 2011.

Alice has attended the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa.