Kay Crabbe's The Pearl-Shell Diver

Describe and explain Australian Indigenous people’s historical and contemporary connections to land and sea and the resources derived from them. How have settler discourses associated with colonization affected these connections to country?

‘The Sapphires’ by Wayne Blair was the trigger that led my research into the effects of the Stolen Generation on Aboriginals in Australia. This film is about an Aboriginal singing group who want to make a name for themselves, but find it difficult because of the racism against them. This film also tells the stories of their cousin Kay, who was a half-caste and was stolen from her Aboriginal family at a young age to be taught the ways of white people, and forget her culture. This film made me realise that I am lucky to live in a country where racism of such an extent in which children are stolen from their indigenous families, isn’t part of our history, and has not affected me personally. From my research, I have found six main sources that have helped me to understand how large this problem was and continues to be. My sources: ‘The Sapphires’ by Wayne Blair; a film about a group of Aboriginal singers who are affected by racism which is based on a real life singing group; ‘The Sorry Speech’, by Kevin Rudd who was the Prime Minister of Australia in 2008 who explains the damage and apologises for the way that the actions of past governments tore apart the lives of their indigenous people. Then there is ‘Blind Eye,’ the documentary in which people who were stolen are interviewed and tell their stories. The film, ‘Rabbit Proof Fence’ this tells the story of two girls who were stolen and gives us insight into how brutally that they were treated after being ripped apart from

The play the dreamers is about the impact on modern Aboriginals since the settlement of the “white” community it focuses on the

How each character’s relationship relates to native Australians grows for better or worse throughout the novel. The novel also shows how Grenville has incorporated each personal lifestyle and how it co-exists with the other. The novel incorporates past and modern views about each society and brings to attention controversial issues about Australia’s convict past and how Aborigines are being ostracized for their way of life and skin pigmentation.

This narrative text is based off the film The Sapphires set in Australia in the 1960s. In The Sapphires we see a flashback of Kay’s childhood and how she is part of the Stolen Generation. I will use this storyline as the starting point for my diary entries. The film gave me background knowledge on Stolen Generation and their experiences they faced. However, I need to know extra information so I will do further research about the Stolen Generation, in order to give an accurate description of their experiences. This narrative is targeted towards everyone. It is designed to inform them about the Stolen Generation and how they changed when forcibly moved to an Aborigines White Institution. This piece of text will be written in a diary entry form. I will use informal and conversational language. I will also use descriptive language when describing objects and sceneries throughout the text.

In 1965 a group of students from Sydney University formed a group, called Student Action for Aborigines, that’s purpose was to draw attention to the inequality between white and indigenous Australia based in New South Wales. It also hoped to decrease the social discrimination between white Australia and indigenous Australia as well as give support to aboriginals to withstand the discrimination they face daily.

Monkey Beach by Eden Robinson gave me incredible insight into the world of Aboriginal people. While you often hear stereotypes about these people, it is often difficult to really understand what their lives are truly like. I believe that because the aboriginal communities have had such a large impact on the history of Canada, especially in the northern communities, we should receive more information and education in our schools about their history. Many textbooks do include brief stories about residential schools, but they do not allow us to see what the impact of those schools has had on their communities as a whole, and how it effects many generations. Adding stories like Monkey Beach into high school curriculum would allow a broader understanding

Gary Disher’s socially provocative Australian historical drama novel The Divine Wind (1998) set in the Australian pearling town of Broome, provides a thought-provoking and contemporary outlook on racial prejudice, isolation and the loss of rights to adulthood during the onset of World War11. Disher establishes this through a range of characters of differing ages and cultural backgrounds, evoking a war-devastated Australia and its effects on young adults forced to leave their childhood behind. Written as a series of melancholic recollections, the seemingly simple novel conveys the messages of a violent history, as it explores the complexity of the relationships between racially diverse characters during the onset of WW11. The novel follows a young and ambitious Hartley Penrose who faces challenges with discovering his maturity/identity, serving as a transition from his past to his future. The Divine Wind utilizes the characters’ ideas, experiences, beliefs, and values to explore the central themes, the racial prejudice between the white race and other ethnicities, the regional and urban divide and the growing up and loss of rights to adulthood. The Divine Wind utilizes conventions and ideas from the drama genre to communicate these central themes which are still prevalent in today’s modern society.

Indigenous populations have been the carers and custodians of Australia and the Torres Strait for a period in excess of 60,000 years before being

Embedding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives in the curriculum has now become a high priority amoungst schools across the nation. The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) (2013), recognises “that the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures cross-curriculum priority is designed for all students to engage in reconciliation, respect and recognition of the world’s oldest continuous living cultures”. By including this, the curriculum will continue to see Indigenous culture throughout school become part of the norm. Furthermore Indigenous Australian perspectives can and should be included in the classroom and any barriers that arise can be overcome.

As a future educator, it will be my job to continue acknowledging, valuing and teaching Indigenous origins, histories and cultures using the Australian Institute for Teaching and School (AITSL) standard 2.4 and the Australian Curriculum. This will give my future students a better understanding that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were the first custodians of our Australian land and of their origins. They lived in Australia 60,000 years before the British settled in 1788. I will teach an Australian historical time line prior to 1788.

Canada has been well regarded with its attitude towards multiculturalism, establishing an Act that protects the rights of people who have different beliefs and the encouragement for all cultures to work together. While being the only country to have a policy such as the Multiculturalism Act, racism has been a part of Canadian history, including but not limited to the colonialism of Indigenous Peoples and the internment of Japanese Canadians. The effects of colonialism on indigenous culture and the treatment of Japanese Canadians are reflected in the novels Monkey Beach by Eden Robinson and Obasan by Joy Kogawa. The main characters of the novels, Lisamarie in Monkey Beach and Naomi in Obasan, both come to terms with the effects of growing up in minority communities in British Columbia, as well as discovering their own identities, by reflecting on their pasts during a time of family tragedies. Lisamarie struggles with accepting and understanding her spirituality in a family that mostly ignores and denies their connections to the spirituality of their ancestors, due to the effects of colonialism and residential schools. Naomi reflects on her family being removed from their homes and the racism that the Japanese faced after the Pearl Harbour attack. Robinson and Kogawa use their protagonists to look back to the past and reflect on the events that have shaped their families. Lisamarie discovers how spirituality and relationships have been molded due to the colonialism and the

History has unveiled the early contacts of colonization from the Europeans that set motion to cultural oppression and exclusion of the Aboriginal communities (Kirmayer, Tait, Simpson & Simpson, 2009). The introduction of the residential school system was meant to eliminate the indigenous people’s cultural heritage and way of life, creating a historical trauma. As a result, survivors of the residential school system left the majority of the Aboriginal population without a sense of cultural heritage, lack of self-esteem, and depression (Gone, 2010). Aboriginal culture was suppressed, breaking the connection of traditional knowledge from parent to child (Kirmayer, Tait, Simpson & Simpson, 2009). Trans-generational trauma of the Aboriginal people has left psychologically and physically damage towards their own heritage (Gray & Nye, 2001).

A courageous promoter and supporter of her Aboriginal background and culture, Cathy Freeman frequently proves and demonstrates to the human race worldwide, with her outrageous determination and willpower, and her extreme talent that natural skill and affection tied with personal cleverness will, and certainly can astound and overcome any amount of prejudgment and preconception towards Australian Aboriginals. Facts and realities like these positively play and carries a big part and fragment, on why Cathy has been chosen and selected to be written in detail about. In this factual essay, features and concepts such as her background information and why she is an inspiring individual will be identified, analyzed and evaluated in this thesis and composition.

The book “Melal “by Robert Barclay takes place in 1981 in The Marshall Islands of the South Pacific. The people known as the Marshallese are the natives to these islands. Overtime other cultures began to settle on these islands also, such as the Spanish, Japanese, and Americans. Out of these three cultures the Americans were the most domineering and devastating to the Marshallese people. The Americans took over the Marshallese native land and forced all of them to live on one island in deplorable conditions. The Marshallese had their freedom revoked from them; they then had to live under the Americans rules. Two of the Marshallese characters in this story who believes strongly in withholding many of the native