Journey of a Lifetime: From the Sticks to the State Library—An Aboriginal Editor’s Story
This paper is a multi-layered sharing of personal, cultural and professional journeys that has led me to becoming an Aboriginal Editor with the blackw 'I've got no friends,' 'I won't have any money because you won't let me go and get a job,' 'I'll be the only blackfella there' and so on. But they stood their ground, both united and unbreakable, so I reluctantly raised the red, black and yellow flag of surrender and accepted my parents' decision. I got with the program.I was terrified on my first day when I walked into a classroom full of white students. My Aboriginal friends had left school at grade ten and the initial feeling of isolation and being so alone was reflected by my heart racing like Phar Lap and my head lowered looking at the dusty floor of the classroom, not daring to glance up at the sea of unfamiliar white faces.As I had deliberately dawdled to my homeroom, when I arrived all the seats were taken. I mumbled my arrival to the home teacher and then she did something outrageous. …