Linda's story features on Let Me Tell You, a podcast from SBS Voices. launch on Wednesday July 13. Listen in the , , , or wherever you listen to podcasts.
I have fair skin, am covered in freckles and have strawberry blonde curly hair. I am a Wiradjuri woman, and I am proud to be my Nan’s granddaughter.
I don’t fit the picture of what people expect an Aboriginal person to look like. I am what is known as milky tea. I am often asked the question “how Aboriginal are you?”
When I am feeling my most vulnerable, this has me wondering, ‘Am I Aboriginal enough?’ This combined with discovering about my Aboriginal background later in life, has an impact on my sense of identity. I feel almost inferior as an Aboriginal person, like I don’t fit in. Some people believe that people who discover their culture later in life should not call themselves Aboriginal. They call these people a “JCL” which stands for “Johnny Come Lately”, someone who didn’t really “live” with the culture.
This confuses me as many generations of Aboriginal people had to hide their identity to prevent their children being taken away. We have a dark and hidden history which has resulted in the sad loss of cultural knowledge and identity.
My memories with Nan, take place in her unit on Auburn Road in Sydney’s Yagoona and fill me with a warmth and comfort.
Linda Augusto with her nan on her wedding day. Source: Supplied
I basked in her attention. Her lighter skin meant it was safer for her to deny her Aboriginal culture at 18, when she had my mum’s older sister. At the time of my aunt’s birth, Nan was living with my grandfather’s family. Her sister-in-law, a white, middle class, formidable woman with Scottish heritage, threatened to take her away. I imagine this was when my Nan’s fiercely protective instinct kicked in.
Our time together was filled with baking, sewing and knitting. We baked scones, cooked curry and made pikelets on a giant griddle. Nan‘s balcony was a jungle of plants with a pot of dirt for me to turn into mud and fill the cake tins to make mud pies. I would help Nan with whatever work she could pick up. She only attended school until she was thirteen years old but was an amazing seamstress. She would spend her early days out on the cattle stations of wealthy white women and would sew their ball gowns for them for their country dances.
I wish I had just one more hour, one day with her, to ask her all the things I wish I now knew. To know about that part of herself that she only alluded to, but didn’t directly tell us about, in her stories.
Nan’s proudest journey was her trip to central Australia, to desert country. I heard about the sturts desert pea and the spinifex grass. She told me stories of seeing it roll across the red dirt.
It was during these stories that Nan introduced me to ochre and explained how to mix it with water to make paint. Nan returned with Aboriginal art in brown and orange colours painted from ochre, which she proudly hung on her walls amongst the Albert Namatjira prints.
I used to love to lay on the floor, while imagining the formations I could see in the trees of the Namatjira prints. The tree where I saw an old man with a pot belly and guitar standing up beside him, the scary ghost face looking at me from the ghost gum.
I wish I had just one more hour, one day with her, to ask her all the things I wish I now knew. To know about that part of herself that she only alluded to, but didn’t directly tell us about, in her stories.
Aboriginal culture was deeply embedded in my life growing up, it was just never named.
There was always someone to babysit me, pick me up as a baby, to play and put me down somewhere different. Everyone always knew what I was up to. My family kept me on the straight and narrow. I was answerable to not only my parents, but my grandparents, aunts, uncles and older cousins.
Aboriginal culture was deeply embedded in my life growing up, it was just never named.
Nan had a verandah out the back of Mum’s childhood home in Dubbo with many beds to accommodate whoever turned up in the night. Nan was the Aunty that took the nieces or nephews when they were mucking up. They would stay for a while, and she sorted them out. The official term for this is “kinship care”. This was our way.
My Nan hid her Aboriginality due to fear and shame. She passed away in 2008, aged 95. She lived in a time where being Aboriginal meant loss of basic human rights and an inability to live freely and safely. In doing this her freedom of culture, belonging and identity was stolen. This stops with me. I will carry on the silent but very visible culture my Nan lived and shared with me. I am so proud of the strong women who came before me. I will continue the ways of my nan, great aunts and great granny by caring for and educating children, protecting and appreciating our Country and leading with love and strength. I will continue to fight injustice, live wholeheartedly, practice forgiveness and be courageous.
My hope is to heal the secrets of my family’s past, by proudly identifying with my Aboriginal culture. For my Nan.
Linda Augusto is a Wiradjuri Woman living on Dhurug country. She is teacher of children and adults and loves to write. You can follow Linda on Twitte
