Born Into This Page 6

  ~

  Dorothy was a proud blackfella from a well-known family. Within her community, she was a somebody. She attended all the community events that she could make it to and had done so for as long as she could remember. Two years ago, she’d been picked to attend the Aboriginal Students Congress in Canberra, as the Tassie representative. The rest of the congress selected her to make a media announcement following their sitting. The whole thing made the national news and Dorothy enjoyed small-town celebrity status for the best part of a month. The following year, she won ‘Aboriginal student of the year’, an award given out by her local Aboriginal centre as part of their NAIDOC Week celebrations.

  She might be a somebody at home and within her community, but at school she was a nobody – unpopular and a loner.

  The other students made fun of her appearance. She wasn’t a polished Instagram model, like the popular girls in her class. Her hair was usually greasy and hung in strings over her eyes. Her face was sprayed with freckles and her eyes, emerald green, had an intensity of someone beyond her years. And while most of the girls in her grade were now looking more like adult women, Dorothy remained stick thin and childlike. Her PE teacher remarked in front of the class one day that she looked like the girl who played Carrie in the original movie. The other students taunted her about this, even though Sissy Spacek was well before their time.

  Dorothy made certain everyone knew she was Aboriginal. From the day she started high school she ensured she wore the colours of the Aboriginal flag every single day – whether it be a ribbon in her hair or badges on her jersey or her schoolbag. On plain clothes days she wore Aboriginal campaign t-shirts bearing slogans like Tasmania has a black history or Justice and Rights. Every paper, poem or story she wrote, every project or assignment she worked on, had an Aboriginal theme. She steered class discussions back to Aboriginal issues and took every opportunity to correct teachers who used the words ‘discovered’ and ‘settled’ to describe the European invasion of Tasmania.

  Dorothy’s frequent trips to the principal’s office were met with frowns and sighs from Principal White. Dorothy was a high-achieving student who didn’t smoke, bully other kids, steal, fight or commit any of the other common school offences. Her boldness in class was born from her unshakable passion for her heritage and her determination to set the record straight. At first, the school sent letters home to her parents, detailing her disruptive behaviour. But her parents supported Dorothy’s willingness to stand up for her beliefs, and so did nothing about it. Principal White could find no suitable punishment for Dorothy and resigned herself to just putting up with it.

  ~

  ‘Looks like Dorothy’s the only one then,’ said Ms McGregor now, turning to the blackboard after surveying the class. Taking up a piece of chalk from the ledge below, she wrote PALAWA in large letters, and underlined it with a dusty swipe.

  Dorothy put her hand down. Ms McGregor’s words echoed what she already knew. She was the only Aboriginal. She glanced briefly at the rest of the class and then sat back in her chair, satisfied.

  Until a voice from the back of the room said, ‘I am too.’

  ‘Well, well,’ said Ms McGregor, smiling. She lowered her head and peered over the top of her glasses in the direction of the voice. Dorothy swung around in her seat, mouth agape. She recognised the voice. It was Amelia Davis.

  When Dorothy was setting up the ASPA committee, she’d requested – or rather, demanded – that Principal White instruct the administrative staff to go through all the enrolment forms to retrieve the names of students whose parents had ticked the Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander box. It turned out that there was a total of nine Aboriginal students enrolled at the school. Dorothy knew all but two of them through the Aboriginal community. She conducted a background check on the unknown two and both turned out to be legitimate. Of the nine Aboriginal students enrolled, Dorothy was the only one in her grade – a status that she took enormous pride in.

  ‘Would you like to tell us about your Aboriginal connection, Amelia?’ asked Ms McGregor. She shot Dorothy a smug smile and a raised eyebrow before directing her attention back to Amelia.

  Amelia was one of the ‘Princesses’. This was Dorothy’s secret name for a group of attractive and mostly privileged students in her grade who hung around together and all wore a different shade of bright eye shadow in open contravention of school rules. Amelia was supercool and the group’s unofficial leader. The colour of her eye shadow was ‘Tangerine Shimmer’.

  ‘Well, I’m an Aboriginal … descendant,’ said Amelia, turning to her friends and giving them a resigned shrug. ‘I have Aboriginal ancestors apparently, which my father says makes me a descendant.’

  The rest of the Princesses nodded their heads in support, their faces showing just the right degree of sympathy.

  ‘A “descendant”? What is that supposed to mean?’ snapped Dorothy. She’d pivoted in her chair so forcefully that she’d spun completely around and was now facing the back of the class, where Amelia Davis and the other Princesses’ desks were lined up. The sincerity in Amelia’s face was slightly betrayed by a faint smirk, and Dorothy knew that smirk was for her.

  ‘It means you’re not the only Aboriginal in the class, Dorothy, so please turn back around and face the front,’ said Ms McGregor. Her eyes were sparkling.

  Inside, Dorothy was screaming. As she turned back around, she gripped the base of her plastic chair so hard she felt one of her knuckles pop.

  ‘P-A-L-A-W-A,’ spelled out Ms McGregor, as she tapped each letter on the board with the metre ruler, ‘is the word for Tasmanian Aborig—’

  The lunchtime bell crackled through the PA system, cutting Ms McGregor off mid-sentence.

  ‘Tasmanian Aborigines,’ she continued, after the bell had rung out. ‘Aboriginal studies are going to be taking us through to the end of term. See you all tomorrow.’

  Dorothy was the first to leave the classroom, but she waited in the corridor and bailed Amelia up as soon as she came out of class.

  ‘So, who is your family then?’ she said, ignoring the other kids.

  ‘Umm, why are you even talking to me, weirdo?’ replied Amelia, looking to her friends with amusement.

  ‘I want to know what your Aboriginal connection is,’ said Dorothy. ‘Who is your mob?’

  ‘My mob? Oh. My. God,’ said Amelia. ‘My family is from Smithton. Like I said, Dad says we have Aboriginal ancestors or something and that’s all I know.’ Amelia lowered her voice. ‘So why don’t you run off to the library or wherever it is you go, you stupid … ugly … bitch, and mind your own business.’

  Amelia and the other Princesses walked off, laughing to themselves.

  ‘You’re not one of us, you’re an imposter!’ Dorothy called out after her. She retreated to the ASPA room and threw her schoolbag onto the desk. It slid further than she expected and knocked over her mug, left from earlier that morning. Cold Milo splashed across the desk. The mug was her prized possession, made by her grandmother in her university art class. It was an imperfect black and emblazoned with an outline of Tasmania, filled in with the Aboriginal colours.

  ‘Shit,’ she said. ‘Shit, shit, shit.’

  ‘Language, Dorothy.’ Cooper Jeffries, the librarian, entered the room.

  ‘Sorry, Cooper,’ said Dorothy, truly meaning it.

  Despite Cooper being the librarian, Dorothy considered him a friend – her only real friend at the school, truth be told. He didn’t fit the mould of most male librarians: he wasn’t soft-spoken, nor did he have a beard. And he wasn’t like the other adults at the school, either, who seemed to relish their authority over the students. Cooper was cool, she thought. He was a man who kept up with the times, unlike the other staff, who seemed so old-fashioned. He was tall and thin and had two full-sleeve arm tattoos – Japanese style. He kept his long, black hair up in a bun and always underneath a black St
etson hat. The only thing about Cooper that wasn’t modern was his taste in music.

  Dorothy’s first demand, upon getting the ASPA grant, was for the Aboriginal students to have their own meeting room. Principal White denied her request, saying they could use the school meeting room, but Dorothy wanted a room they could use all the time. It was Cooper who volunteered to share the library staff’s common room with them. The room was rarely used by anyone anyway, he said, other than him. He took his breaks in there, listening to vinyls by King Crimson and Hawkwind. The rest of the library staff chose to use the main staffroom. Cooper’s room had a small kitchenette and a large table, which, when Dorothy first moved in, was covered in piles of dusty boxes and books. There were no windows in the room and the lighting was dim. Dorothy had recruited some of the younger Aboriginal students to help her clean it up, and Cooper found another place for all the boxes. She’d tidied the room and put up some pictures and campaign posters on the wall. One of the pictures, taken by her father as a young man, was of a large group of Aborigines marching down a city street, carrying banners and placards and looking pretty rowdy.

  Dorothy found herself another smaller desk, which she set up at the back of the room. The ASPA grant included money for a student computer, so one was purchased. It was on her desk and, although she allowed the other Aboriginal students to use it, they rarely did, so she quietly considered it her own. This was the place Dorothy came before school started, at lunchtime, and any other chance she could get. It was her sanctuary, where she was free from the bullying, the taunts and the childish pecking order. But more than a sanctuary, it was her office, where she conducted the business of the ASPA committee – and Dorothy took her role of chairperson very seriously.

  She cleaned up the spilled drink, went to her filing cabinet and opened the second drawer, marked Genealogy. She removed all the files and spread them out across the desk.

  ‘Some light reading?’ Cooper glanced over Dorothy’s shoulder at the assortment of folders.

  ‘Yep,’ said Dorothy, without looking up. She didn’t have time for his small talk today. She only had forty-five minutes left of her lunchbreak to sort out this business with Amelia Davis.

  The folders contained an assortment of family trees, genealogical reports, articles, legal papers and historical documents – all relating to Tasmanian and, in some cases, Australian Aborigines. Dorothy opened a folder labelled Unsubstantiated claims. Inside were documents on families and individuals who had claimed Aboriginality based on evidence that, as her mum would say, was flimsier than a silk diving board. She flicked through the folder and rolled her eyes at the ridiculous stories. There was one lady who based her Aboriginality solely on her belief that she could sense when blue-tongue lizards were close by. There were people who could find no ancestry whatsoever but just ‘believed’ themselves to be Aboriginal. There were a few families who based their Aboriginal identity on old family photos where one of the people ‘looked a bit dark’. To them, that proved they were Aboriginal; forget about the various dark-skinned races known to have immigrated to Tasmania in the early days.

  Dorothy felt herself getting distracted. She had already lost ten minutes. Smithton. Smithton was where Amelia said she was from: the north-west coast of Tasmania. Dorothy’s experience guided her to two smaller folders. Within the first was a list of people who claimed to come from one of the daughters of a known Aboriginal woman who lived in the north-west and founded a large family. But the daughter in question didn’t have any children. This group, many of whom originated from Smithton, had never been able to provide evidence of their Aboriginal ancestry, yet they continued to identify. Dorothy scoured the names for ‘Davis’ but couldn’t find a link.

  Inside the second folder were records relating to another dubious Aboriginality claim – also from the north-west region. It was based on a word-of-mouth story of unknown origins, involving a white woman who supposedly had a child to an unidentified Aboriginal merchant seaman in the 1890s. There were no archival records whatsoever corroborating the story – in fact, there were records proving this claim was false, but these families claimed to be Aboriginal regardless. Dorothy read through the material, careful not to miss anything.

  ‘Ha!’ exclaimed Dorothy, banging the table hard with her fist.

  ‘Christ!’ said Cooper, startled. He flopped into the nearest chair and put his hand over his heart.

  ‘I’ve found it!’ she said, triumphant.

  ‘Found what?’

  ‘Amelia Davis claimed in class today she was an Aboriginal descendant. And look here: a record of her family. An unsubstantiated claim, which means they are not Aboriginal at all. They are imposters, fakes – like I fucking knew they were.’

  Cooper frowned at Dorothy’s language. ‘So what will you do now, Dorothy? Does it really matter?’

  She shot Cooper a look of incredulity. ‘Of course it matters. Does it matter if someone gives false details about their family tree in relation to a deceased will or trust? Yes. Does it matter to the police if someone gives them a false name or address? Yes. But everyone thinks it’s fine to be sloppy about a heritage claim. With everyone wanting to be Aboriginal these days, that’s a bad mix.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ Cooper put his hands in the air in mock resignation. ‘Do you mind if I put some tunes on?’

  ‘Knock yourself out,’ said Dorothy. She was already packing up her documents. ‘My work here is done.’

  ~

  Dorothy turned up to social science class the next day with a spring in her step. She eyeballed Amelia Davis and the other Princesses as they walked in. Ms McGregor started the class by talking about the first European settlement in Hobart – at Risdon Cove – but Dorothy soon interrupted her.

  ‘Excuse me, miss? Could we please continue our conversation from yesterday? I feel it was unresolved.’

  ‘What conversation, Dorothy?’ asked Ms McGregor, annoyed.

  Dorothy turned around to look at Amelia. ‘Yesterday, Amelia stated that she was Aboriginal. It is my understanding that she is not.’

  ‘Oh, it is your understanding, is it?’ said Ms McGregor. ‘Face the front, please, and tell us how, exactly, you came to that conclusion.’

  Dorothy smiled to herself. Things were going perfectly. ‘I found Amelia’s family tree,’ she said, then turned again to Amelia. ‘Is your father Gary Brian Davis?’ she asked. ‘And is your grandfather Brian Godfrey Davis, both of Smithton?’

  Amelia hesitated. ‘Ahh, he was. My grandfather died three years ago,’ she said, glancing questioningly at Ms McGregor, who nodded back at her, as if to say ‘wait’.

  ‘Yes, I thought so,’ said Dorothy. ‘Your family is one of many that trace their Aboriginality back to a Mrs Eileen Waters, a white lady from the north-west who, as the story goes, supposedly had a child with an Aboriginal merchant seaman in the 1890s.’

  The class was silent. Even Amelia had nothing to say.

  Dorothy continued. ‘Unfortunately, Amelia, the story doesn’t hold up. You see, the fathers listed on the birth certificates of Eileen’s children were all known white men.’

  ‘What are you, the Aboriginality police?’ accused Amelia.

  The other Princesses giggled nervously.

  ‘Enough, Dorothy,’ said Ms McGregor.

  ‘I haven’t finished,’ said Dorothy.

  ‘I said enough!’ yelled Ms McGregor.

  The class went quiet. Ms McGregor walked to her desk, opened the second drawer and took out some papers. She flicked through them and pulled one out. She held it out to Dorothy and a crooked smile appeared on her face. ‘You will like this,’ she said, glancing at Amelia with a wink. ‘This, class, is the school’s Aboriginality policy.’ She held it aloft. ‘I asked the principal for a copy because I thought it might come in handy during our studies. It states here, class, that: Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander status is determined by
self-identification by either the student, their parents or their guardian. That is school policy. That means, everyone – and, in particular, you, Dorothy – that if Amelia, or anyone else for that matter, chooses to identify as Aboriginal, then that is enough for the school. We do not require any further clarification, and we certainly don’t need students prying into the background of other students.’

  ‘It takes more than school policy to make someone Aboriginal,’ spat Dorothy. ‘Aboriginal is something that you are. It is something you are born as. It isn’t just something you can choose to be, such as a … teacher. Or an idiot.’ With her last words, Dorothy made a dismissive gesture towards the Princesses at the back of the class.

  ‘Dorothy—’ began Ms McGregor warningly, but Dorothy continued, speaking over her.

  ‘Besides. The school’s ASPA constitution says students must have Aboriginal ancestry and be recognised by the Aboriginal community before they are accepted as being Aboriginal.’ She pulled the constitution from her own folio and waved it around herself, as Ms McGregor had done.

  ‘And who wrote the ASPA constitution?’ asked Ms McGregor, through gritted teeth. Her face was now red as a plum.

  ‘I did,’ said Dorothy. ‘But—’

  ‘To the principal’s office, Dorothy.’ Ms McGregor went to her desk and scribbled on a piece of paper. ‘Take this with you. Go now.’

  Dorothy’s mind was racing. How could it have gone like this? She gathered her belongings, snatched the note from the teacher’s hand and almost ran from the classroom.

  She arrived at Principal White’s office to find that she had already left for the day. Dorothy went, instead, to the library, to her office. She sat back in her chair and took a few deep breaths until her anger receded, allowing her to think more clearly. Then she fired up her computer and drafted an email to the Department of Education, highlighting the inadequacies of the school’s Aboriginality policy. She cc’ed Principal White into the email. Dorothy read over the email a few times until she was satisfied. With a smile, she hit ‘send’ and left for home.