The history of Australia has often been surrounded with much stigma that has stemmed from the disdained treatment that the Aboriginal people received from the first English “settlers” in 1788. The vast difference between these two cultures has led to a conflict filled chapter of Australian history that is often over looked. These divided cultures created two very different …show more content…
I was raised in a very contemporary European-Australian manner. Both my parents were born in Australia but they both have strong European histories, my fathers’ side being Italian, and my mothers’ side German.
I grew up in the unique country town called Broome. Broome has a diverse culture of Japanese, Chinese, Malaysian and Indigenous Australian people (Kaino, 2011). It is quite unique in its cultural diversity; as a result I feel that identifying myself as a European Australian has had very little impact on my interaction with people from different cultures. I feel as if my background has had no hindrance or bias on my selection of friend’s or acquaintances. I believe that this attitude of mine has formed from this multicultural environment and that it has given me a sense of appreciation to all cultures and …show more content…
Some now struggle to feel a sense of cultural identity, their ties to their culture being severed by the early government of Australia. For example the story of Sam Dinah, a man who as a result of the stolen generation has felt that he does not belong to English or Aboriginal culture. He was taken at the age of three from his mother and put into the settlement known as Moore River Settlement (Stolen Generations’ TESTIMONIES, n.d.). There he grow up still knowing and seeing his mother, but at the same time being looked after by the carers at the settlement until the passing of his mother at a young age (Stolen Generations’ TESTIMONIES, n.d.). Afterwards he was taken to two other institutions, Carrolup, Marybank near Katanning and Roelands Mission were he stayed until the age of twenty (Stolen Generations’ TESTIMONIES, n.d.). Afterwards he was left feeling disturbed and angry about his removal from his family and culture (Stolen Generations’ TESTIMONIES, n.d.). He feels like “ a white man trapped in a black man’s body” and refers to himself and others in this similar situation as the “in-between kids” (Stolen Generations’ TESTIMONIES, n.d.) Unfortunately this kind of situation is not isolated to just one, a huge number of others feel the same way including people like Rob Riley and Adam