When first arriving in Australia, neither Elena nor I knew much about the Aboriginal culture. We understood that they were the native people of Australia and have fought oppression since the Europeans began settling the country, but our only reference point was our knowledge of the Native Americans in the United States. However, now that we have been in Melbourne for one week, our understanding has grown exponentially.
The first age
ncy we visited was VACCA where we learned all about the Aboriginal history, culture, and issues they still face today. Both of us were struck by how recent most of the history was – the Stolen Generation, which lasted through the 1970s, was a period of time where Aboriginal children were taken from their families because the government determined that their families could not properly care for them. At this same point in American history, we were moving forward with our human rights in that all American citizens, including all minorities, had the right to vote. While minority populations in the U.S. still face discrimination today, they seem to have made much more progress when it comes to human rights than the Aboriginal population has here is Australia.
Since our newfound knowledge from the women at VACCA, our awareness of Aboriginal culture in Australia has grown, and we now can easily recognize their presence in the country among the rest of the population. We’ve seen the Aboriginal flag flying at multiple locations we have visited and we noticed that people at the Royal Children’s Hospital and at Phillip’s Island gave respect to the elders and the land as is custom to do in Aboriginal culture. We were also able to use what we learned from Helena at VACCA about Aboriginal languages to better understand the language map at the Melbourne Museum. Within the Aboriginal countries, people spoke different dialects of the same languages but had shared suffixes. We noticed this on the language map which helped us better understand the communication between different Aboriginal populations throughout history.
This past week has been full of fun and educational experiences which m
akes us excited for the rest of the trip, especially so we can continue to learn about the Aboriginal population here in Australia and make connections to the minority populations in the U.S.