Cirrus@Austlit

'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.' (Introduction)

This chapter is a conversation between sisters Susie and Alice Anderson.  They discuss important aspects of their lives as they were growing up with an emphasis on family and school life. 

'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.' (Introduction)

'I wasn't a nice kid. I'll be the first to admit that. I was loud and smart-arse, scrappy and scabby, and I didn't sleep. I had eyebrows as thick as your thumb and in the front of my mouth were two rotten front teeth, so I smiled like a carnivorous marsupial. Once I ran my sister over with a bike because I was playing cross-eyed. I mostly ate noodles or crab sticks, and I lived on the dreaded silver detention seats. I was never officially expelled, but true god we all knew it was good that I left when I did.' (Introduction)

'I'm the youngest of six children - three from my father's previous relationship, and three from his marriage with my mother. My father is white and my mother is Aboriginal. However, nothing is ever as simple as that. You see, in addition to the journey that I took as a young Indigenous person, my mother was also on a journey when she was younger; we've ended up in different temporary locations, but the lessons learnt and experiences endured took similar shapes and forms.' (Introduction)

'Born in 1989 in Warrnambool, Victoria, on Peek Whurrong-Gunditjmara country, I was my parents' first child and lucky enough to be the first grandchild born on both sides of the family. This meant that I had many significant and close relationships with my extended family, being spoilt by my great-grandmother Ma (Dad's nanna), Nanna (Mum's mum), and my uncles and aunties. During the first five years of my life, my parents bought their first home together in Portland, where my dad was a shift worker at the smelter.' (Introduction)

'Dear Australia

I am a descendant of the Gunggari people of the Maranoa district near Mitchell, Queensland. I am a member of a rich living culture. I grew up with a loving, generous extended family on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland and I have much to be thankful for.' (Introduction)

'I was born in 1947 at Yarrabah mission, an Aboriginal reserve run by the Anglican Church of England near Cairns, north Queensland. This mission was where my grandparents, both paternal and maternal, grew up from around the turn of the twentieth century.' (Introduction)

'The day before my fourth birthday my mother made a magnificent cake. She had found the design in one of her magazines - the witch's cottage from Hansel and Gretel. I watched, entranced, as she carved the vanilla pound cake into section. A fat square for the base, and two triangles for wedged above it for the roof. The layers were glued together with thick butter icing; not ideal for engineering, as by the time my party came around one-half of the roof was listing badly in the Brisbane humidity. The entire production was on the verge of collapse, and a hasty fix with toothpicks would be needed to prevent it from toppling, minutes before our gusts arrived. Family and friends might be impaled by the lurking infrastructure, but the star feature of her party table had been saved.' (Introduction)

'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.' (Introduction)

'Coonabarabran, 1995

'Staring out the window as the flat plains turned to rolling hills, I knew it wouldn't be long before we were pulling up in the driveway of our holiday sanctuary. The plains turned to scrub, and the dirt turned red and sandy; the hills were inviting, and the air crisp and cleansing so that your body relaxes and you can breathe better. I didn't know it then, but I know it now: that's what it feels like when you're on country after and absence.' (Introduction)

'Dear Mum and Dad, 

'Thank you for taking the time and making the effort to encourage what I consider to be the single most influential factor in my formative years: a sense of adventure. Although we weren't rich, through careful household and financial management, you managed to take us on adventures that I - we - still value today.' (Introduction)

'Do I know much about growing up Aboriginal? Nah, I don't. See, I didn't grow up black, I grew up beige. Latte. Occasionally caramel after a long, late summer, with the first school term of the year and Easter holidays spent shirtless and shoeless roaming the streets and shorelines of home after the true baking heat of a South Australian summer had passed.'  (Introduction)

[Yuya Karraburra] is about identity, and it was a really hard thing to write in the beginning because identity is such a big issue. It's a large thing to cover. The poem is about the struggle of being in between black and white.'  (Introduction)

'One of my earliest memories is of eating white bread sandwiches with my dad. Not Vegemite or peanut butter or devon and tomato sauce sandwiches like the other Australian kids in our working-class suburb of south-western Sydney. No, we ate oyster sandwiches with vinegar and pepper and salt. Sydney rock oysters out of a jar smashed onto bread slathered in margarine. Dad would say that we are saltwater people; we love the sea and would eat anything that came out of it. We are D'harawal Guriwal - whale people - and I wondered, who was everyone else? Were they D'harawal too?' (Introduction)

'I am a Gunditjmara man from my mother's side. I am Irish from my father's side. I was born in Sydney at a time when my biological parents (my 'bios') were living there, however, the rest of my family were born and have lived and been raised in and around Melbourne and throughout Victoria, including Lake Condah, where a mission was located.' (Introduction)

'I grew up in a lot of different places. My family moved around a fair bit when I was a kid, moving closer and then further away from the extended family. Being the eldest was tough growing up. I was supposed to know better, and I was always punished for the mistakes my brothers made. It was nice to be the man of the house but it came with high expectations.' (Introduction)

'You're not a real Aborigine.' 'You don't look Aboriginal.' 'How much Aboriginal is in you?' These are the consistent comments I have listened to throughout my childhood. The judgement and questioning of my identity became engrained into my young pysche and created loads of confusion about who I was growing up. I knew I was Aboriginal, but ignorant people and institutions around me continually questioned me.'  (Introduction)