Growing Up Aboriginal In Australia - Wikipedia

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Growing Up Aboriginal In Australia

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Growing Up Aboriginal In Australia

Editor	Anita Heiss
Authors	various
Country	Australia
Language	English
Genre	Anthology, memoir
Publisher	Black Inc
Publication date	April 16, 2018
Pages	320
ISBN	9781863959810

Growing Up Aboriginal In Australia is a 2018 biographical anthology compiled and edited by Anita Heiss and published by Black Inc.^[1] It includes 52 short written pieces by Aboriginal Australians from many walks of life and discusses issues like Australian history of colonisation and assimilation, activism, significance of country, culture and language, identity and intersectionality, family, and racism. Notable contributors include poet Tony Birch, singer Deborah Cheetham, Australian rules footballer Adam Goodes, and actress Miranda Tapsell. The book won the 2019 Small Publishers' Adult Book of the Year award at the Australian Book Industry Awards.^[2]

Contents

• 1Background
• 2Contents
• 3Reception
• 4See also
• 5References

Background[edit]

Heiss in 2017

Anita Heiss is an Aboriginal Australian author of non-fiction, historical fiction, poetry, and social commentary and is of Wiradjuri heritage. She is a longtime advocate for Indigenous Australian literature and a Lifetime Ambassador of the Indigenous Literacy Foundation. Heiss was inspired to create an anthology of true stories by her desire to "showcase as many of the diverse voices, experiences and stories together as possible."^[3]

Black Inc, an imprint of Carlton-based Schwartz Publishing, took on the Growing Up Aboriginal In Australia project and sent a callout for non-fiction contributions. Heiss and publisher Aviva Tuffield received over 120 submissions from people of varying ages and geographical locations, with those chosen for the project expressing "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." The large number of submissions showed Heiss that "many want[ed] mainstream Australia to understand what it's like to 'grow up Aboriginal'."

Some authors were published for the first time in Growing Up Aboriginal In Australia, whilst others – like Tony Birch, Ambelin Kwaymullina, and Tara June Winch – were experienced writers. Some Aboriginal Australian celebrities also authored chapters in the book, namely film and television stars Deborah Cheetham and Miranda Tapsell, and sportsmen Adam Goodes and Patrick Johnson.

Contents[edit]

The authors and their contributed chapters for Growing Up Aboriginal In Australia are listed below.^[2]

Chapter No.	Title	Author(s)	No. of pages
–	Introduction	Anita Heiss	3
1 [scribd]	'Two Twiddas'	Susie and Alice Anderson	7
2	'Finding Ways Home'	Evelyn Araluen	4
3	'It's Not Over'	Bebe Backhouse	5
4	'My Story'	Alicia Bates	5
5	'Dear Australia'	Don Bemrose	5
6	'My Father Has a Story'	Tony Birch	7
7	Poem: 'Scenes of Domestic Life (A Saturday Night Middleweight)'		1
8	Poem: 'Away (The Warmed Hollow)'		2
9	'Murri + Migloo = Meeks Mob'	Norleen Brinkworth	7
10	'Easter, 1969'	Katie Bryan	10
11 [9]	'So Much Still Pending'	Deborah Cheetham	7
12	'This Is Nat, She's Abo'	Natalie Cromb	5
13	'Thanks for the Childhood Travels'	Karen Davis	4
14	'Growing Up Beige'	Ian Dudley	5
15 [13]	'Yuya Karrabura'	Alice Eather	10
16	'White Bread Dreaming'	Shannon Foster	7
17	'There Are No Halves'	Jason Goninan	7
18	'The Sporting Life'	Adam Goodes	4
19	'A Tasmanian Toomelah Tiger'	Jodie Haines	5
20	'I Remember'	Karranjal John Hartley	6
21	'The Streets of My Youth'	Terri Janke	4
22	'What It's Like'	Keira Jenkins	6
23	'My Life's Voyage'	Patrick Johnson	3
24	'Red Dust Kids'	Scott Kennedy	4
25	'December 21'	Sharon Kingaby	4
26	'Growing up, Grow up, Grown-Ups'	Ambelin Kwaymullina	2
27 [25]	'Far Enough Away to Be on My Way Back Home'	Jack Latimore	9
28	'Black Bum'	Celeste Liddle	7
29	'Recognised'	Matthew Lillyst	4
30	'Just a Young Girl'	Taryn Little	2
31	'Stranger Danger'	Amy McQuire	4
32	'Grey'	Melanie Mununggurr-Williams	5
33 [31]	'Different Times'	Doreen Nelson	9
34	'When Did You First Realise You Were Aboriginal?'	Sharon Payne	3
35	'Abo Nose'	Zachary Penrith-Puchalski	5
36	'Too White to Be Black, Too Black to Be White'	Carol Pettersen	5
37	'Living Between Two Knowledge Systems'	Todd Phillips	6
38	'The Little Town on the Railway Track'	Kerry Reed-Gilbert	6
39	'A Story From My Life'	W. Les Russell	8
40	'Cronulla to Papunya'	Marlee Silva	8
41	'Letterbox-Gate'	Liza-Mare Syron	7
42	'From Marree to the City'	Frank Szekely	3
43	'Nobody Puts Baby Spice in a Corner'	Miranda Tapsell	7
44 [22]	'Daredevil Days'	Jared Thomas	8
45	'Finding My Belonging'	Ceane G. Towers	5
46	'My Childhood'	Aileen Walsh	5
47 [45]	'Life Lessons, or Something Like Them'	Shahni Wellington	8
48	'It's Too Hot'	Alexis West	2
49	'Aboriginemo'	Alison Whittaker	7
50	'Split Affinity'	John Williams-Mozley	7
51	'First, Second, Third, Fourth'	Tara June Winch	4
52	'The Aboriginal Equation'	Tamika Worrell	3

Brisbane-born slam poet, environmental campaigner and teacher Alice Eather, who wrote Chapter 15 entitled 'Yuya Karrabura", committed suicide on June 4, 2017 at age 28, whilst the book was still being compiled. In the introduction, Anita Heiss pays tribute to Eather's contribution to the anthology and "her work as a poet and a community role model."^[3]

On August 8, 2019 Natalie Cromb – author of Chapter 12, 'This Is Nat, She's Abo' – appeared on the ABC current affairs program The Drum and shared her story.^[4]

Reception[edit]

The website for Australian bookstore Booktopia gives Growing Up Aboriginal In Australia a rating of 4.7 stars out of 5, based on 18 reviews.^[1] Google Books gives the book a rating of 4.5 stars out of 5, aggregated from 3 reviews.^[5] On the Amazon website it also received the rating of 4.5 stars out of 5 from 92 reviews.^[6] Goodreads holds the book's score at 4.33 stars out of 5, based on 2,210 ratings.^[7]

Writing for The Conversation on September 5, 2018, Jacinta Elston noted the multiple backgrounds of the book's many contributors and the depth of its content, stating that Growing Up Aboriginal In Australia is "a collection of stories that speaks to the strength of Aboriginal identity in Australia today, as well as the diversity of voices in the long marginalised Aboriginal literary community."^[8]

George Delaney, writing for Australian retailer and review site Readings, agreed with Elston's sentiment about authorial variety, stating Growing Up Aboriginal In Australia "highlights the enormous diversity in the life stories of Aboriginal people in Australia, from those who grew up in middle-class suburbia to those in self-determined communities, to missions and reserves, to small communities in remote areas."^[9] Delaney continued, explaining that "Each story is full of nuance and answers all sorts of questions, in beautifully complex ways, about Aboriginal experiences in contemporary Australia that often go unasked."

An article on the ACT Government website praised Growing Up Aboriginal In Australia, stating that "the diverse voices, experiences and stories" in the anthology "will enlighten, inspire and educate us all about the lives of Aboriginal people in Australia today."^[10] The article held particular acclaim for the contribution of Canberra-native Don Bemrose, an epistolary memoir entitled 'Dear Australia' which is "a powerful piece, beautifully written that will give the reader goosebumps as [Bemrose] shares commentary of his many achievements and challenges."

See also[edit]

• Growing Up Asian in Australia

References[edit]

1. ^ Jump up to:^a b "Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia by Anita Heiss | 9781863959810 | Booktopia". www.booktopia.com.au. Retrieved 2021-08-10.
2. ^ Jump up to:^a b Austlit. "Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia | AustLit: Discover Australian Stories". www.austlit.edu.au. Retrieved 2021-08-10.
3. ^ Jump up to:^a b Isl, Torres Strait (2020-07-27). "Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia – An Introduction". ANTaR. Retrieved 2021-08-10.
4. ^ Growing up Aboriginal: "I'm proud of who I am and where I come from"| The Drum, retrieved 2021-08-10
5. ^ Heiss, Anita (2018-04-16). Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia. Black Inc. ISBN 978-1-74382-042-1.
6. ^ Anderson, Susie and Alice; Araluen, Evelyn; Backhouse, Bebe; Bates, Alicia; Bemrose, Don; Birch, Tony; Brinkworth, Norleen; Bryan, Katie; Cheetham, Deborah (2018-04-16). Heiss, Anita (ed.). Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia. Black.
7. ^ "Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia". www.goodreads.com. Retrieved 2021-08-10.
8. ^ Elston, Jacinta. "Speaking with: Author Anita Heiss on Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia". The Conversation. Retrieved 2021-08-10.
9. ^ "Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia by Anita Heiss". www.readings.com.au. Retrieved 2021-08-10.
10. ^ Treasury, ACT Government; PositionTitle=Director; SectionName=Corporate Management; Corporate=Chief Minister and (2018-04-30). "Growing up Aboriginal in Australia". Our Canberra. Retrieved 2021-08-10.

===

Currently Reading: Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia

So much still pending 

Deborah Cheetham 

 

It’s not a question you hear very often: ‘When did you grow up?’ But it is one I have asked myself many times. Yes, 

you read it right the first time and, no, I didn’t mean ‘when’, I meant when. 

I’m certainly a child of the 1970s – one look at my ABBA collection and that is plain enough to see. But that’s not 

when I grew up. At least not when I grew up Aboriginal. No, that happened much later. If I am really honest with you, 

I’m probably still getting there. 

If you were here with me now I would probably sing you a song about it. That wouldn’t necessarily establish my 

authenticity in your mind. I just like to sing. I always have. Not many opera singers in our community. I’m happy to 

say there are a few more now than there used to be, and I am proud to have had a little bit to do with that. But I di- 

gress – you’ll get used to it. In the end the upper word limit for this account of my life will corral my wandering 

thoughts into a story that I hope will shed light on how it is I managed to grow up at all, and if it makes sense to you 

– well, even better. 

My earliest memory is of me leaning up against my mother in church. It is the evening service and so I am prob- 

ably dressed in my pyjamas. Fortunately I’m only three years old, so I’m young enough to get away with such an 

outrageous fashion statement. My mother is singing a hymn and, if I close my eyes, I can still hear her voice: 

 

Jesus is calling the wanderers yet, why do they roam? 

Love only waits to forgive and forget. 

Home weary wanderers, home. 

 

I always wanted to be a singer. I gave my very first audition when I was just seven years old. It was 1971, and I 

was in the first class at Mortdale Public School, in the southern suburbs of Sydney. 1971 was the year Greenpeace 

was founded, women in Switzerland won the right to vote, and late-night shopping was introduced in Australia. It 

was also the year Mortdale Public School decided to record an album – well, more like a 7-inch single to be perfectly 

honest. 

The song to be featured was ‘Little Sir Echo’. You know the one … 

 

Little Sir Echo, how do you do? 

Hello! (Hello!) Hello! (Hello!) etc. 

 

The infants department had been rehearsing this song for what seemed like weeks. I had the words off by heart 

long before anyone else in my class, and I was quietly confident of making it into the choir. 

Finally the audition day arrived, when only the very best would be selected for the recording session. In typical 

infants department fashion, we were lined up in the playground and instructed to sing ‘Little Sir Echo’ over and over 

while the choir mistress – a rather imperious and formidable Mrs Brown – made her way up and down the lines, tap- 

ping those who were successful on the shoulder. 

Those who did not make the cut were not offered a lucrative recording contract like some of the Australian Idol 

runners-up. No. Those who were rejected were sent to the sewing mistress for lessons in elementary needle thread- 

ing. I knew I just had to make it into that choir! 

As Mrs Brown approached our line I began to sing louder and louder. I’d also noticed during my time at school 

that those who managed to sit or stand the straightest were often chosen for the prized activities, like cleaning the 

blackboard or collating the worksheets – and so I had worked this strategy into my audition in order to give myself 

an edge. Closer and closer Mrs Brown came until she was almost in front of me, tapping my friend Diane Moore on 

the shoulder. I took this as a very good sign: as Diane hardly even knew the words, so surely I would have no trouble 

getting in. 

The moment had arrived. 

 

Little Sir Echo, you’re very shy. 

Hello! (Hello!) Hello! (Hello!) 

 

To my amazement and horror Mrs Brown passed me by. I felt no tap on the shoulder. Surely this was some ter- 

rible mistake! Before I knew what was happening I found myself being marched towards the sewing rooms. This was 

a disaster! Something had to be done. Seeing no alternative, I decided that I would be so naughty for the sewing 

mistress that she would be forced to send me to the deputy for disciplinary action – the deputy being none other 

than Mrs Brown! 

My tactics worked, up to a point: I still didn’t get to sing ‘Little Sir Echo’, although I was permitted to join in on 

the B-side of the recording, which just happened to be ‘Advance Australia Fair’. I’ve had quite a few chances to sing 

that song since my Mortdale Public schooldays and I’d love to catch up with Mrs Brown sometime and let her know. 

The last time I sang the anthem was in 2009. It was at the memorial service after the terrible bushfires that swept 

through Victorian communities, indiscriminately claiming vegetation, property and lives. I decided to use a fantastic 

orchestral arrangement that I had sung a few years earlier, which included the clap sticks and yidaki (didgeridoo) in 

a powerful combination. I was accompanied by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and the Melbourne Philhar- 

monic Choir: the performance was everything it needed to be for that solemn occasion. Many emails and letters of 

thanks for the performance arrived in the days, weeks and months following. I was proud to have made a contri- 

bution. I still am. 

But then a comment appeared in a newspaper that shook me. Journalist Andrew Bolt called into question the 

need or relevance for clap sticks and didgeridoo and, for that matter, an Aboriginal singer. What did the horror and 

devastation of the worst bushfires in over half a century have to do with Aboriginal people? And there it was. My 

coming of age had arrived. Insensitive and ignorant to the fact that Aboriginal lives were counted amongst those lost 

on that day, Bolt proclaimed that the anthem had nothing to do with my Aboriginal self and, although it pains me to 

credit such a person with a role in my personal growth, he was right. I finally realised that this song had nothing to 

do with me. 

More than that, it has nothing to do with anything. I used to justify the lyrics by saying that Australia was a young 

nation and the many injustices and errors of judgement around the treatment of Aboriginal Australians were a prod- 

uct of youth and inexperience. Like many Australians, I had blindly accepted this premise. Even setting aside 70,000 

years of Indigenous cultures for a moment, it has been more than a century since Federation and we’re over two 

hundred years into colonisation, so, at the very least, you would have to say the anthem’s words lack a certain level 

of accuracy. As Australians, can we aspire to be young for the rest of our lives? If we are ever to mature, we simply 

cannot cling to this desperate premise. 

This was a hugely significant moment in my journey of growing up Aboriginal. Finally I recognised that no 

amount of justification could make those words right. That as a descendant of the longest-continuing culture in the 

world, our national anthem has no business to tell us that we are young. Equally, I would have to say that until the 

day my partner Toni and I can celebrate our relationship (twelve years and counting) with an overpriced, over- 

catered affair for two hundred of our nearest and dearest, I’m not that thrilled with the word free either. So what was 

to be done? 

Within a year the solution presented itself. Later in 2009 I was approached by music legend Judith Durham and 

Mutti Mutti singer-songwriter Kutcha Edwards, with words they had written for a new national anthem. A song with 

the inclusive kind of language that could change the way we think about Australia forever. Honouring the Dreaming, 

our sacred land, and the many and diverse cultures that combine to make Australia what it is today, with a call to live 

in peace and harmony. It was a brilliant anthem, and participating in the launch of those new lyrics was yet another 

rite of passage. 

The chance to test out these new lyrics came in 2015. Sadly, this was a year when Adam Goodes, one of the great 

champions of AFL, had been subjected to the kind of racism that would crush a lesser being. I received a call from 

the event company responsible for staging the AFL grand final preshow, which of course includes a performance of 

the national anthem. The AFL wanted to show support for Aboriginal Australians and somehow make it up to Adam, 

and I guess they thought asking an Aboriginal singer to perform the anthem would make a positive statement. I 

agreed to sing the anthem on the condition that I would be permitted to replace the words for we are young and free 

with peace and harmony. Australians all let us rejoice in peace and harmony Friends were urging me to just do it. Just insert the new words. I could have, but that would have created a dif- ferent conversation to the one we are having today, and no doubt provided the likes of Andrew Bolt with several col- umn inches of vitriol. In the end the AFL said no to my request and they found another singer – who inadvertently got the current lyrics muddled anyway. But through the process of saying no to one of the biggest gigs in the Aus- tralian calendar I had come of age and gained a level of maturity in my understanding of what it truly means to be an Aboriginal Australian. My ancestors come from the rich green land of the Yorta Yorta nation, which embraces both sides of the Murray River. We call this river Dhungala, and the Dhungala has been home to the Yorta Yorta people for more than sixty thousand years. My grandfather James came to Yorta Yorta country from Wallaga Lake in the early 1930s and married a local girl. Her name was Frances McGee, although she was fondly known as Sissy. Together they had seven chil- dren, the youngest of whom was my mother Monica, while Colin, Betty, Freddie, Ernest, Madeline and the eldest, Jimmy, were my uncles and aunties. I am one of nine children myself. It would be fabulous to tell you some hilarious story about growing up with so many brothers and sisters, uncles and aunties and countless cousins, but I can’t. You see, I didn’t grow up with them. For the first thirty years of my life I didn’t know anything about them. At just three weeks of age, I was taken from Monica. I am a member of the Stolen Generations. So, you see, the voice that I can recall from my childhood wasn’t that of Monica, but of my adopted mother, Marjory, singing in church. Still, all my life, the voices of my ancestors have been calling to me from the banks of the Dhungala, even if for more than thirty years I couldn’t hear them. When I finally heard the call- ing, my response was the opera Pecan Summer. Pecan Summer tells the story of the walk-off from Cummeragunja mission station in 1939. This was a moment in history when the women and the men of the Yorta Yorta nation took their destiny into their own hands and walked off the mission in protest at the appalling conditions that had been imposed on them by seventy years of intense colonisation. I chose this story for its obvious dramatic content: the exodus of the Yorta Yorta people from their homeland, and their inevitable and unending search for belonging are themes of an epic scale perfectly suited to and deserving of an opera. Less than a month into researching the history of the walk-off I made an astonishing discovery. The Aboriginal grandparents I had never known – James and Cissy Little – were actually part of the story I was telling. They had car- ried their firstborn son, Jimmy, off the mission, crossing the Dhungala from New South Wales into Victoria. Sud- denly I had a family that stretched beyond the limitations of my knowledge. And people were telling me how much I reminded them of my grandmother Cissy and how she had been a singer with a beautiful voice known to one and all. Suddenly I had a past that linked up with my present and my future and I just happened to be writing an opera about it. Sadly Monica and Cissy did not live to see Pecan Summer come to life in 2010, but their stories are threaded through each page of the libretto and their voices can be heard in every note of the score. Writing, composing, di- recting and performing in Pecan Summer has provided me with an opportunity to connect with my community, fam- ily and history, and has finally given me the chance to grow up Aboriginal. Even more than that, it has set me on the path to helping Australia take that same journey. Just as I have gone from not-knowing to knowing, from youth to maturity, I think it is fair to say that, in Australia, we could all benefit from growing up a little more Aboriginal. Aboriginal, Indigenous, Koori, Yorta Yorta, Australian, adopted, stolen, lesbian, soprano, daughter, mother, sis- ter, partner, wife (still pending marriage equality). These are all facets of my identity and my experience of growing up Aboriginal, and I carry each of these identities in equal measure. I’m happy to say that I am still learning. There is no other way I can or would rather be, and accepting this has made all the difference.

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