Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia

238 Pages·2018·2.13 MB·English

by  Anita Heiss (ed.)

DR ANITA HEISS is the author of non-fiction, historical fiction, commercial women’s fiction,
poetry, social commentary and travel articles. Her books include Tiddas, Am I Black Enough
for You? and Barbed Wire and Cherry Blossoms. She is a regular guest at writers’ festivals
and travels internationally performing her work and lecturing on Aboriginal literature. She is a
proud member of the Wiradjuri nation of central NSW, a Lifetime Ambassador of the
Indigenous Literacy Foundation and manages the Epic Good Foundation. Anita was a finalist in
the 2012 Human Rights Awards and the 2013 Australian of the Year Awards.

Published by Black Inc.,
an imprint of Schwartz Publishing Pty Ltd
Level 1, 221 Drummond Street
Carlton VIC 3053, Australia
[email protected]
www.blackincbooks.com
Introduction and selection © Anita Heiss and Black Inc. 2018
Anita Heiss asserts her moral rights in the collection.
Individual stories © retained by the authors, who assert their rights to be known as the author of their work.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior consent of the publishers.
9781863959810 (paperback)
9781743820421 (ebook)
Cover, text design and typesetting by Tristan Main
In memory of Alice Eather (1988–2017) and so many others who were lost too soon
Contents
Anita Heiss Introduction
Susie and Alice Anderson Two tiddas
Evelyn Araluen Finding ways home
Bebe Backhouse It’s not over
Alicia Bates My story
Don Bemrose Dear Australia
Tony Birch My father has a story
Norleen Brinkworth Murri + Migloo = Meeks Mob
Katie Bryan Easter, 1969
Deborah Cheetham So much still pending
Natalie Cromb ‘This is Nat, she’s Abo’
Karen Davis Thanks for the childhood travels
Ian Dudley Growing up beige
Alice Eather Yúya Karrabúrra
Shannon Foster White bread dreaming
Jason Goninan There are no halves
Adam Goodes The sporting life
Jodi Haines A Tasmanian Toomelah tiger
John Hartley I remember
Terri Janke The streets of my youth
Keira Jenkins What it’s like
Patrick Johnson My life’s voyage
Scott Kennedy Red dust kids
Sharon Kingaby December 21
Ambelin Kwaymullina Growing up, grow up, grown-ups
Jack Latimore Far enough away to be on my way back home
Celeste Liddle Black bum
Mathew Lillyst Recognised
Taryn Little Just a young girl
Amy McQuire Stranger danger
Melanie Mununggurr-Williams Grey
Doreen Nelson Different times
Sharon Payne When did you first realise you were Aboriginal?
Zachary Penrith-Puchalski ‘Abo Nose’
Carol Pettersen Too white to be black, too black to be white …
Todd Phillips Living between two knowledge systems
Kerry Reed-Gilbert The little town on the railway track
William Russell A story from my life
Marlee Silva Cronulla to Papunya
Liza-Mare Syron Letterbox-gate
Frank Szekely From Marree to the city
Miranda Tapsell Nobody puts Baby Spice in a corner
Jared Thomas Daredevil days
Ceane G. Towers Finding my belonging
Aileen Walsh My childhood
Shahni Wellington Life lessons, or something like them
Alexis West It’s too hot
Alison Whittaker Aboriginemo
John Williams-Mozley Split affinity
Tara June Winch First, second, third, fourth
Tamika Worrell The Aboriginal equation
Notes on Contributors
Introduction
Anita Heiss
There is no single or simple way to define what it means to grow up Aboriginal in Australia,
but this anthology is an attempt to showcase as many of the diverse voices, experiences and
stories together as possible.
We received more than 120 original submissions from Aboriginal people nationally as a
result of the callout for contributions, each with an important story to tell, proving that many
want mainstream Australia to understand what it’s like to ‘grow up Aboriginal’.
Each account reveals, to some degree, the impacts of invasion and colonisation – on
language, on country, on ways of life, on how people are treated daily in the community, the
education system, the workplace and in friendship groups.
The stories cover country from Nukunu to Noongar, Wiradjuri to Western Arrernte, Ku Ku
Yalinji to Kunibídji, Gunditjamara to Gumbaynggirr and many places in between.
Experiences span coastal and desert regions, cities and remote communities, and all of
them speak to the heart – sometimes calling for empathy, oftentimes challenging stereotypes,
always demanding respect.
We did not place any boundaries on the collection, other than that the pieces had to be non-
fiction and so we have life stories written from all around the country, including from boarding
schools and even from inside prison; and from schoolchildren, university students and
grandparents. We also have recollections of growing up Aboriginal in Australia by opera
singers, actors, journalists, academics and activists. In many ways, this anthology will also
serve to demonstrate how we contribute to, and participate in, many varied aspects of society
every day.
While lives have been lived and expressed individually, there are numerous communal
connections and shared experiences that frame common themes, including the importance and
influence of identity, the stolen generations, family and kinship, education, concepts of country
and place, and sport.
This collection mirrors the society that Aboriginal people live in and engage with every
day, so there are motivational and uplifting stories alongside those on suicide; words on
feminism and sexuality, as well as football and theatre. Role models and religion and road
trips. We are diverse peoples and that’s exactly what growing up Aboriginal means today in
Australia.
Many contributors are being published for the first time. All have generously and
courageously bared their personal and family histories, their pain and heartache, their
experiences of racism so that others can learn about what it means to grow up as a First
Nations person in a country where they are often viewed and treated as second-class citizens,
and sometimes even worse than that.
But this anthology is not one of victimhood: it is one of strength and resilience, of pride and
inspiration, demonstrating the will to survive and the capacity to thrive against the odds.
Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia paints a landscape of a country that has created leaders
who form strong communities, with a generous heart and passion for change. That is why this
anthology matters. The goal is to break down stereotypes – many of which are identified within
these pages – and to create a new dialogue with and about Aboriginal Australians.
There are over fifty contributors to this collection. One deserves special mention, not only
for her work as a poet and community role model, but because during the process of compiling
this book she took her own life at the age of twenty-eight. Alice Eather was a devoted and
passionate bilingual primary school teacher, and in recent years she was widely recognised for
her performance poetry, her work as an activist, and a dynamic member of her community.
Alice had an unswerving commitment to sustaining her language, people and homeland. Alice’s
family and all those involved in the production of the anthology hope her work and messages
will remain as a legacy to inspire others.
Reading through the submissions for Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia, I saw elements
of myself as a child and as an adult, still on a journey of learning and discovery. I felt the same
sting of racism as described by some contributors, as well as the strength and resilience
expressed by others. I was fortunate as a child growing up Aboriginal in Australia: although I
wasn’t surrounded by my extended Wiradjuri family in the Sydney suburb of Matraville, my
close-knit immediate family provided all the support, guidance and the protection I sometimes
needed to become a strong, proud, urban Koori who knows how to assert her rightful place in
this country, and the world. Here’s hoping this collection proves that many Aboriginal
Australians feel similarly, that it goes some way to enabling those who don’t to do so, and
inspires all Australians to allow that to happen.
Two tiddas
Susie (27) and Alice (21) Anderson
S: What did it mean to you, when we were younger, that we’re Aboriginal?
A: Well, I don’t ever really remember being sat down and told, ‘Hey, Alice, guess what,
you’re Aboriginal.’ For some reason it was an unspoken understanding. It was as much of an
understanding to me that I had ten fingers and ten toes or the fact that I only had one parent. I
guess when you’re a kid you just don’t question the why so much. Things just are.
In primary school things were simpler. Not so much in my world around me, but in my
mind at the time. Those were my glory days in terms of sport, and I wanted to be the next Cathy
Freeman. Life was confusing, but in the way that it can be for kids.
Now I’m twenty-two and somewhat of an ‘adult’, I like to reflect on the things that were
said or happened around me and think about how they affected me and what seeped into my
sponge-like child brain.
S: Yeah, to me it honestly didn’t mean something: it was just a lived experience. I didn’t
second-guess it until I became a teenager, I think. It wasn’t a conspicuous part of my identity,
just normal, as most things seem when you’re a kid. Our second cousins called us Aunty as a
joke. We had to respect our elders; we had to call distant relatives Aunty and if we didn’t the
consequences were dire. There was one time at someone’s birthday party that I didn’t hug
Aunty Trudy hello (frankly because she scared me, but I was also being a terrible preteen) and
there was much disapproval. Needless to say, I learnt my lesson: I went to hug Aunty when we
were leaving and it was a tacit apology. She still brings it up every time I see her, and another
time she said she’d always known I had something about me. Basically, I take this to mean that
Aunty Trudy is in tune with the ancestors and blak magic is real.
A: Firstly, blak magic is totally real. And I always remember that. Around family I knew and
understood who I was, I think. Especially looking to our aunties as idols. But at school it was
like all of that was taken away from me. No one really knew I was Aboriginal. In fact, a lot of