ANZ LitLovers Indigenous Literature Week
Late to the (ILW) party! Growing up Aboriginal got lots of rave reviews a year or so ago when it came out. I seem to remember I put my hand up for a giveaway and so received my copy, autographed by the author!, from Lisa. So a belated thank you Lisa and thank you too for Indig.Lit.Week which doesn’t seem to be replicated anywhere else in the blogosphere.
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. [Anita Heiss]
The anthology consists of 50 autobiographical pieces, each about 5 pages, by people including some writers and sports people that I recognise and lots that I don’t. I enjoyed reading them but I struggled reading them, struggled with the lack of continuity. The standard was good, not uniformly good of course, but ranging from strings of ‘I did .. and I did’s to quite beautiful prose (and poetry).
My favourite piece might be the first, “Two tiddas” by sisters Susie and Alice Anderson who interview each other – on the difficulty of being Aboriginal and pale skinned, which a lot of the contributors discuss – and then start reviewing what they’ve written
S. Hey, I actually think this is a really strong arc but that could be because I’m tired as.
A. Well, I’m reading it back and I got really emotional. maybe I’m just really tired too. I feel like this is a conversation that could go on forever. This is literally a conversation that will go on forever.
But then there’s the rush of Evelyn Araluen’s writing in ‘Finding ways home’
In high school, Aboriginal didn’t mean time immemorial as much as it meant the boys calling me shit-skin and abo. Aboriginal meant I was always angry in History class, and fridge magnets and beaded bracelets at NAIDOC, and the digging stick in the study and nangarra above our door.
These two stuck with me over the ten days or so as I made my way through the rest. The standard by which all the others were judged. Dom Bemrose writes a letter to Australia –
Please forgive me for being unsuccessful with my suicide attempt at the age of twenty-three ..
Please forgive me for identifying as gay ..
Please forgive me for not being lazy: I know how you want your natives to want nothing but a free handout ..
Please forgive me for being a success! ..
The saddest, to contemplate if not to read, is Yúya Karrabúrra by Alice Eather who committed suicide between writing and publication. On the completion of her schooling in the city she returned to her mother’s community in Maningrida –
A lot of my friends I grew up with had had babies. There were so many different stories. The stories you don’t tell kids. The stories you hear when you’re an adult. That really shook me up. All I did was write … Why are all of our families in this state? What has happened? … Why was my brother in jail?
Eather trains as a teacher. She has put depression, suicide attempts behind her. “I can actually help. I can sit with kids and family members and say ‘I can feel your pain.'”
That’s a tough one to follow, but I read on. Adam Goodes, an absolute champion Australian rules footballer who was booed into early retirement by racist supporters writes a straightforward account of his childhood. I think he wishes he’d chosen soccer.
Most of these stories are by young people, in their twenties or thirties, so Doreen Nelson’s story, ‘Different Times’ is important for the contrast it provides and for the link back to the old days. Dooreen was born in the WA wheatbelt town of Kellerberrin (200 km east of Perth) in 1947 and she grew up on reserves outside Kellerberrin and the neighbouring township of Doodlakine. Limited schooling, her parents had none, a mother at 15, problems with alcohol, a child in care, slowly growing into responsibility and ordinary middle class prosperity.
Carol Pettersen is another older woman, though she doesn’t give her age, brought up in a mission and segregated from her siblings because her skin was paler, to protect her from the ‘natives’, like her bother, who were darker. Dragged away by the missionaries’ daughter from the fence keeping out her mother.
Western Australian writer Ambelin Kwaymullina provides the perfect summation –
People ask me sometimes if I experienced any racism when I was a kid. Questions like that always make me wonder where the other person was living. They seem to be speaking from some kind of magical Australia where it’s possible for an Indigenous person to escape the effects of racism in a colonised land..
Yes, of course I experienced racism. It’s like standing in the sea and having waves crash over you; it’s regular and relentless and you forget what it’s like to be able to properly breathe.
Like most of you I was brought up in an Australia that believed it didn’t have a race problem. Even now I am surrounded by people who are offended when it is pointed out, yes we do. Those people are probably beyond educating, but hopefully schoolkids everywhere are reading and discussing this book.
Anita Heiss ed., Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia, Black Inc., Melbourne, 2018
see also:
Anita Heiss, Dhuuluu Yala: To Talk Straight (here)
ANZLitLovers Indigenous Lit. Read List (here)