This is the first of three posts that are adaptations of essays produced as a part of a cultural competency course. Each represent a different assessment, as well as a critical reconsideration of the world around me. Through each my initial position faltered (as it should) and was subverted through the variety of texts provided by USYD during the 6 weeks of participation.
In each of these I will be referring to ‘interviews’, these are the lecture content of the course, though I cannot provide them I urge you to audit yourselves here, or even consider certifying your self as well.
Copyright Ray Leighton c1940. It Takes Two, Manly Beach || Not the Australia I was looking for…
My family migrated from the US just before I was born, their parents were some of the many European migrants that flooded the US during the early 20th century. Though by genes hail from Armenia to Scotland, and my mannerisms from NY, my foundational years were treading the rough sands of Shelly Beach and hiking through North Head, in what I then knew only as 'Manly'.
I did not properly acknowledge the land, and in honesty its beauty and history, until my adulthood. Looking back, the built forms, the spaces between coasts and the remaining national park jammed between quarantine and defunct military instillation are of little importance. They always felt superficial to me, without culture, little did I know that was a by-product of what was suppressed and forgotten. Though my Father - an American migrant - identified with the beach culture I did not, and I still do not, despite being there many times as a child.
As Djon Mundine remarked during their interview, "...your soul remains like those river patterns, it's just there constantly", I am moreso drawn to the native birds spotted during my hikes and the fish spotted outside the gaze of your typical sunburnt swimmer.
To know now there are Sydney Language names of the places, plants and animals from well before 'Manly', fills in the cultural gap I felt as a child. As Jakelin Troy said during their interview "As the language goes to sleep, so does that knowledge and awareness. So it reduces the capacity of Aboriginal people to assert an identity using language in the way that people do." As I re-contextualise Manly as a country cared for by the Gai-Mariagal people (amongst others), I hope to better understand its original identity.
I feel now much more attached to the place than I had previously, for entirely new reasons;
For Country, rather than nostalgia.