Interview with Rhonda Collard-Spratt and Jacki Ferro, Aboriginal Memoirists

Interview with Rhonda Collard-Spratt and Jacki Ferro, Aboriginal Memoirists

With: Anna Faktorovich, Ph.D

Rhonda Collard-Spratt is a voice for the mission children of Australia’s Stolen Generations. Rhonda is an engaging performer, an Aboriginal dancer, singer-songwriter, poet, artist, and storyteller. She has worked in women’s prisons around suicide prevention, helping them reconnect with their Aboriginality. During her childhood at Carnarvon Native Mission in remote Western Australia (run by Churches of Christ), Rhonda experienced neglect and physical abuse. She met her mother for five minutes there when she was 12 years old. They never regained that close mother-daughter bond.

Jacki Ferro is a community development worker, writer and editor based in Brisbane. Since the 1990s, Jacki has run cross-cultural, unifying projects that promote self-determination, community education and social justice. As Community Relations Officer at Ipswich in 2000, Jacki instigated the Link Up! Multicultural Festival and the first Sorry Day March. Qualified in public relations, social planning, and writing, editing and publishing, in 2013 Jacki began co-writing and editing memoirs of inspirational, brave people.

Alice’s Daughter: Lost Mission Child: (Available on Amazon: $34.99, and Kindle: $22.27): Rhonda’s story describes shocking events in her life, while coating them with hope for a brighter future. In 1954, aged three, Rhonda Spratt was taken from her Aboriginal family and placed on Carnarvon Native Mission, Western Australia. At sixteen, Rhonda was sent to Fremantle, where she lived with three white foster families and encountered severe racial violence and sexual assault on the streets. Rhonda’s ex-husband, Senior Sargent Jerry Collard, was one of the first two Aboriginal policemen in Western Australia. Rhonda’s father died in custody in Broome prison in 1983. His case was part of the “National Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody” in 1990. Rhonda met her father in his coffin. Rhonda was terrorized by the Perth police Tactical Response Group in 1991; she was then acting in a play based on police-Aboriginal relations, Munjong, written by Aboriginal playwright, Dr. Richard Walley. The incident drew much media attention and led to a police inquiry. Rhonda suffered post-traumatic stress from this incident and others from her childhood. In 1994, Rhonda’s marriage failed due in large part to her inability to show emotion from a lack of care in childhood. That year, she moved to Queensland, where she still lives in Ipswich. Here she has done much healing: healing camps through Linkup Aboriginal Corporation (an organization for Stolen Generation survivors); and government-funded arts courses led her to do an arts degree at Griffith University, which reconnected her with her Aboriginal spirituality. In February 2008, Rhonda attended the national Apology to Australia’s Indigenous peoples by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in Canberra. In 2015, Rhonda’s sister Debbie’s remote Aboriginal community, Djarindjin, was threatened with closure by the WA government.

• : Other than being separated from your family and community, can you give specific details on how the Churches of Christ Carnarvon Native Mission was a harmful experience for you?

• : Well, it damaged me. Not being with my family. I was disconnected from everything Aboriginal—my language, our own spirituality, my identity, and the Dreaming, which embraces all the teachings and wisdom that the elders hold.

• : You say in the book that the chores were strenuous, and included ironing, floor polishing, and food preparation. You also describe corporal punishment. Perhaps you can elaborate on the worst parts of these types of indignities?

 

• : When you’re a little child you’re meant to be a child, to play games and spend your time having fun. But we spent hours doing this hard labour. We had to boil the clothes in the huge copper; we were just little kids. Each kid had to get up one end and twist the sheets to ring them out. I felt sorry for the little boys, who had to wash their sheets by hand when they wet their beds. They couldn’t reach the trough or the line, so I helped them. We had to clean the toilets using fen oil. When the washing was done, we had to bring it in and spray it with starch and iron it all. It seemed like we worked more than we played. Many times, they used to pull our pants down and flog us in front of everyone, and that was really embarrassing. I didn’t want anyone to see me cry, especially the missionaries, so all this anger and emotional stress was locked up inside me. I had no way of releasing it. They were quick to punish us, to use violence, but they never showed us any affection. They flogged us with a cane or a leather strap around your legs, your back, your bum, your hands. We grew up thinking that violence was the only way to solve things. Even today, most of my mission brothers and sisters use violence because that’s what we learned as little children. And we hold everything inside.

 

• : You have clearly grown up to be a very talented artist and writer, so hasn’t the education you received there been beneficial?

• : Yeah, it made me fit into the white world better. But they haven’t learned from us; it’s just a one-way learning.

• : Do you think you might have achieved more in life if you went to an Aboriginal school, or another school that would have been available without the Mission?

• : I went to an Aboriginal school, but all of our teachers were white. The mission school was just for Aboriginal kids because that’s who lived there. We weren’t allowed to go to town school; it was just for white children. At town school, where I went from age 10 when the Assimilation laws came in, the first week was a culture shock because the white kids called us names, like boongs, niggers, and coons. Because of this, we were in many fights, because of racism. No matter where I went to school, I would have achieved because that’s the sort of spirit I have.

• : From a summary of your life’s events, it seems you started facing serious racism and harassment after you left this school, when you lived with foster families. So, is the chief problem that you were taken from your mother and forced into the foster system, rather than the educational style in the Mission’s program?

• : Racism was with us all through; we weren’t free. We were controlled by the Native Administration Act 1936 (WA). Under the Native Act, Aboriginal people had to apply to the Chief Protector of Aborigines to marry; they couldn’t leave reserves or missions; and they didn’t have property rights or human rights. When we went to the white school, we were the only ones to get the cane; the whites weren’t. There were two rules: one for the blacks and one for the whites. It was so unfair. White kids didn’t have to have a note to leave the school. We had to have a note from the missionaries; they controlled every aspect of our lives. We had no control. We were owned by the government. I carry the burden of both racism throughout my education and childhood as well as the lifelong trauma of being separated from my mother. Even today I still have nightmares about things that happened to me at the mission.

• : Why didn’t you go back to living with your mother after the Native Mission program was finished?

• : I didn’t return to my mother after leaving the mission because I was still under the Native Act. It controlled all Aboriginal children’s lives until they turned 21. I had no choice and neither did my mother. In 1958, when I was seven-years-old, my mother needed maternity allowance for her other children. To get it, she had to become an Australian citizen. At that time, Aboriginal people were seen as part of the flora and fauna, and not human, so we weren’t counted as Australians. It was a condition of citizenship that my mother had to cut ties with her Aboriginal culture and family. That included cutting ties with me and my little sister, Debbie. If I had returned to my mother at that time, I would have been jailed.

• : Can you describe the circumstances under which your father, Ronald Mack Ugle, died in prison in 1983, events that were mentioned in the 1990 “National Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody”?

• : In the submission to the National Royal Commission, they say that my father’s death was “caused or contributed to by injuries suffered while in prison.”

• : Was he beaten?

• : The papers I’ve received say that my father’s medical records have “gone astray in the prison system” and they couldn’t work out if he had any medical checkups there.

• : Was he malnourished?

• : Again, these records are missing.

• : Was he suffering from curable diseases?

• : Yes. The inquiry eventually found that my father, at just 53, died of a heart attack. His father (my grandfather, Henry Ugle) had also died young, just 34, of a heart attack. So, yes, heart disease runs in the family, but my father was on no medication and they had no written record of heart trouble.

• : Were the living conditions in the prison below those accepted by the international community?

• : I don’t know about the conditions in Broome prison at that time. But, the problem is that the prison guards knew that my father was having a heart attack, and they didn’t call an ambulance. They laid him on the bed and turned on a fan. Then they put him in the back of a hot police paddy wagon in the heat of the day and gave him no medical treatment; no oxygen, no resuscitation.

 

• : Why didn’t you meet your father before his death?

 

• : Well, like my mother, my father had also applied and become an Australian citizen, so the rules were the same as my mother’s. He was not allowed to contact me until those laws were repealed in 1967. Also, even though we lived in the same town, Carnarvon, I didn’t know he was there. I had no concept of having a family. I didn’t even think there was any family out there for me. The missionaries told us our families was dead. All mission kids left the mission and went on to work on cattle stations or in the big cities, living with white foster families or in hostels, so that’s what I thought everyone did. That’s how the world ran if you were Aboriginal.

 

• : Did you apply to see him, but face refusal; if so, what was the reason given?

 

Collard-Spratt: No.

 

• : Can you briefly describe, for those who might not have a chance to read your book, the details of how you were terrorized by Perth police’s Tactical Response Group in 1991 (while you were acting in a play based on police-Aboriginal relations, Munjong, written by Aboriginal playwright Dr. Richard Walley)? Some of the details are included in the book in an article titled “Aboriginal Tells of Police Terror” from The West Australian from September 7, 1991. It states that you were “forced to lie spread-eagled on the ground after” your “car was intercepted by armed police in Lord Street, East Perth…” It adds that when you “tried to look at Mr. Nannup... an officer swore at you and another officer trained a pump-action shotgun at you. They let you go only after they were informed by Mr. Nannup, a fellow actor, that your husband Jerry Collard was one of their fellow police officers. Were there other key elements to this encounter that weren’t mentioned in this article?

 

• : The main point was that they pointed a shotgun at my head while they made me lie on the road. They yelled and swore. It was terrifying. When that policeman pumped that shotgun at my head, I thought I was going to die. The TRG were following us for so long before they did this, they would have known that the car belonged to my husband, Jerry Collard, a fellow police officer. The tapes of the police conversations on their radios that night mysteriously went missing before the police inquiry.

 

• : Did your husband face similar harassments on the job?

 

• : The officers would always be blaming the black community for doing all the break-and-entries and other crimes. Jerry would speak up and ask, “How can Aboriginal people be doing all the crime when we’re only two percent of the population?”

 

• : Could they have been intentionally targeting him as well as you?

 

• I don’t know.

 

• : Have you faced similar unjustified arrests or searches aside from this encounter?

 

• : Well, recently I was pulled over once and everyone in the car was breathalyzed. That’s not a normal thing. Only the driver should be breathalyzed, but everyone was made to do it and to give their ID. Racism is alive and well in Australia. Aboriginal kids duck down in the car when they see a police car coming; they’re scared. White children might see police as friendly; Aboriginal children have no trust for them because they can see the injustices that their family experience.

 

• : What is it like for your sister, Debbie, to live on a remote Aboriginal community, Djarindjin, in modern times?

 

• : She loves it there; being surrounded by all Aboriginal people. They are on Country; they can live off the land and the culture is strong, the language is strong, ceremony is strong. They’ve built good houses now where before it was just tin sheds. She feels a deep sense of belonging there.

 

• : Do they have easy access to utilities, including internet?

 

• : I don’t think they have the internet. They don’t even have phone coverage. But that’s not important to them. Just walking on their own Country and feeling that connection is more important than having all of these white things.

 

• : Are the houses and other structures in a good state or in need of major renovations?

 

Collard-Spratt: They look okay.

 

• : Are there jobs?

 

• : There are not that many jobs. Debbie works at a safe house for women and children, but I don’t think there are many jobs in these remote communities.

 

• : If not, how do they get by? Do they fish, hunt, farm or otherwise utilize the land?

 

• : They don’t farm; they live off the land and the sea by hunter-gathering; they catch turtles, crocodile, barramundi, mudcrabs.

 

• : Why was Debbie’s community in danger of closing in 2015?

 

• : Because the State government wanted their land for mining.

 

• : Were there problems with depopulation, unemployment, and the like that made keeping it unsafe for the residents, or was it just a fiscal question for the government?

 

• : The government would rather make money from the land than support people to live on it who have lived there since time began. Money is more important to the government than people.

 

• The WA government did make arguments that the closure of many of its remote communities was in the interests of child safety, but they had de-funded community and health services in these communities, thereby providing no support or care to these families.

 

• : How did you guys go about researching Rhonda’s parents and grandparents with the help of the Freedom of Information act? Did you have to go to an archive to retrieve these files (if so, where)? Were they shipped to you?

 

Collard-Spratt: In 1999, I was studying Indigenous art at Griffith Uni and we were talking a lot about family. The teachers told me who to contact. First, I rang up the FOI Division of the Department of Child Protection in WA. They said that before I could get anything I had to fill in a form and get permission from all of my aunties. So, I did that, and they sent me many records of my mother, grandmother, grandfather, and great-grandmother. Aboriginal people’s lives were controlled so much that every letter and memo was documented. I also wrote away for my own records, but I was told they never had a file for me. When I started working with Jacki in 2013, we wrote an email to this same department. They posted to us a few records from my life at the mission, but many details such as the authorities’ names, and who placed me into the mission and why, were all blanked out.

 

Faktorovich: Rhonda, what was the most surprising thing you learned from these records about your ancestors?

 

Collard-Spratt: The strength of their spirit, and the determination of my mother, my grandmothers, and my grandfather who all survived oppression, dispossession, separation from family, Country and culture, and racism. Their wages, as well as their children were stolen. They had a strong will to survive. If not for them, we wouldn’t be where we are today. That determination is the gift they have passed on to me; the gift to face a new day and not to waste a moment in life.

 

Faktorovich: Did you guys get a grant for this research project?

 

Ferro: No, we have done this entire book voluntarily.

 

Faktorovich: Did the government release these files easily or did they resist the request?

 

Ferro: They provided limited records, which are scanned and in the book, but FOI have deleted a lot of key information and potentially offensive material. We did not disclose to FOI that we wanted the information for Rhonda’s life story, but just for her personal interest.

 

• : What types of strategies have you used to help suicidal prisoners reconnect with their Aboriginal roots?

 

Collard-Spratt: We’ve talked; we go outside when I work in prison. It’s just all Aboriginal people in the circle, so it’s a safe place. We listen to each other without judgement. I’ve introduced Aboriginal games that we play. We reconnect through Dreaming stories, through music, and through art. They get a strong sense of belonging sitting in that circle where we are all equal. No one has more power than anyone else. We come to that circle all equal. Because when you’re in the prisons, all the white people have all the power. When you’re in that circle, you must listen to each person; everyone is important. It strengthens their Aboriginal identity, and it helps give them hope. In those environments you need to know there’s hope for the future for you. Even for me, meeting these girls, I’m honoured to work with these beautiful Aboriginal women.

 

• : Do you engage in activities like dance and art with them? Do you lecture them about traditions? Do you lead discussions, welcoming them to open up about what they know about their ancestors?

 

• Yeah, we talk about culture. I don’t lecture them. We just share.

 

• : What type of assistance do you think helps people who have suicidal thoughts in prison the most?

 

• Just letting them know that people care and that they belong, and to know that they’re loved. I think this is the most important thing because when you think you’re nothing, that’s when people get really down. We need to reinforce that they are important and precious. I share my own experience about when I didn’t want to be around anymore when I was a teenager; that I’ve been there and I’ve survived it. I tell them that they can survive it too. They need to believe in themselves and I tell them to give themselves positive self-talk. With all the negativity out there about our mob, we need to know that this is our country and that we belong here. I’ve seen a difference in the girls after sharing this. Even at high schools, I see this working.

 

• : Can you describe the process you went through to instigate the Link Up! Multicultural Festival and the first Sorry Day March? Did you find funding for these events? Did you organize and plan them? What were the biggest challenges you faced while putting these events together? Rhonda describes meeting you at one of these events, an Aboriginal art course, in 2012, and you proposing to write her life story afterwards. What struck you as particularly interesting about Rhonda? How did you know beforehand that her story could fill a book? What advice would you give to somebody who wants to start a similar event?

 

Ferro: I contacted dozens of bicultural workers in the greater Ipswich region, including those working in primary and high schools, artists, performers, cooks, migrant settlement workers, and invited them to participate in an eight-week program of workshops. Storytellers from different cultural backgrounds visited schools. These stories inspired the creation of eight culturally specific archways, which the students, led by artists of that cultural background, built. Bicultural workers created cross-cultural costumes for children to perform a fashion parade at the festival, cooks from many different backgrounds met each week and shared recipes to create tasting plates for the day, musicians from different backgrounds wrote a new piece of music and stood under the arches on the day performing with the major instrument from their country (this included the didgeridoo played by a local Aboriginal man); importantly too, choreographers taught classrooms of primary school children a traditional cultural dance and the children performed these dances throughout the day together with cultural performance groups who lived locally in Ipswich. I applied for and gained funding from the Queensland State Premier’s department to fund a small payment to each workshop facilitator and to cover the cost of materials. The Link Up! festival day was run by the Ipswich Events Corporation who ran the entire Ipswich Festival. For National Sorry Day in 2000, I collaborated with the Indigenous Community Development Officer at Ipswich City Council, and together we contacted all of the Aboriginal corporations and support agencies in the region, promoting the march and garnering participants. I got a few portraits of Aboriginal leaders donated by a local artist and raffled them off, and I organized an Aboriginal rock band to perform at a park, the final destination of the march. We also provided a free sausage sizzle. Again, I applied for and received funding to cover costs through the Premier’s Department. That was the biggest Sorry Day ever held across Australia. It was two years after the tabling of the 1997 “Bringing Them Home” or “Stolen Children’s” report, which for the first time had highlighted the plight of Australia’s Stolen Generations of Aboriginal children. The year 2000 marked the end of the so-called Reconciliation decade in Australia. Yet our then Prime Minister John Howard refused to apologize to the First People of our country. It took another eight years before PM Kevin Rudd finally said sorry in February 2008.

I don’t find it difficult to organize such events. If a person is difficult, I simply move on and find another person who is willing to help. Often too, you have to accept that people usually don’t give you exactly what you had planned, but you must be grateful for what they do give because sometimes it’s much greater than you imagined!

Re: Rhonda and her story: That day Rhonda came into my office when I was sitting with Aunty Pat King, an elder who was a mentor for the Aboriginal arts program, sticks in my mind. When Rhonda told me about the time she met her mother for five minutes when she was about twelve, I could totally picture the whole scene, and it was incredibly moving. I seriously thought that this was Australia’s The Color Purple. Rhonda is a remarkable storyteller; her words are engaging, entertaining, and wise. I loved her vibrant personality too, so I knew we would also have a lot of fun, but, more importantly, I knew that her story was vital for Australians and indeed the world to know about and I was in a precious position to be able to help her. Rhonda is unique in that although she has diabetes, she is still in very good health for an Aboriginal person in their mid-sixties. And she is a fabulous public speaker who can articulate the issues affecting her people in a way that attracts people. I didn’t know that her story could become a full book at first, but when she brought over boxes of documentation and photos from her family’s past, and, with her clear, vibrant memories of so many events from her childhood and later life that she told me during our weekly sessions, combined with what I was learning at uni in writing, editing and publishing, I realized that, including her powerful poetry and artwork, this book would be truly special.

Advice: Follow your heart. The most rewarding work I’ve ever done has come from throwing the security of a nine-to-five job to the wind and doing something because it feels right because you are helping someone else. By the same token, if your gut says those you are working with are motivated by disrespect, you have to weigh up if you can continue and still sleep at night.

 

• : You wrote the Multicultural Client Communication Plan for the Liquor Licensing Division of the Qld Department of Tourism, Racing & Trade in 2001. Did this plan address the problem of high alcohol consumption rates on Aboriginal territories? What were your findings? How was this plan used to help problems related to multiculturalism or racism? Did you enjoy writing these types of reports, or did you always prefer more creative types of writing, like memoires?

 

Ferro: In Australia, Multiculturalism refers to working with migrants and refugees, not our Indigenous peoples. That Plan was to help regulatory government staff better work with restaurant and bar owners in our State who were from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. From data provided by Liquor Licensing, I calculated the numbers of CALD restaurateurs and devised strategies to improve communication by government regulators. Recommendations included employing bilingual/bicultural staff from a number of different backgrounds, translating materials, and employing interpreters for certain aspects of their work.

For over six years I ran the multicultural HIV/AIDS education/prevention for Queensland. I enjoyed this work immensely because it combined both working directly with incredible people from diverse cultural backgrounds, together with writing educational and training materials, and devising strategies that were always flexible and uniquely tailored for each group. So, yes, I enjoy the creative side of community development work, but I equally enjoy the more solitary and logical aspect of writing reports and plans. For me, co-writing memoirs combines both of these joys in a much less stressful package. When you work in community centres, you deal with crisis management every day. Working from home, I’m dealing with one person’s issues only and in a peaceful environment. The thrill of watching someone like Rhonda heal through expressing herself, growing in confidence and self-worth, has been priceless.

 

• : There is no equivalent that I know of to the title “Aboriginal Elder” that you have at the Bremer State High School, in addition to being the Cultural & Art Teacher. What does this title mean? Is it similar to a Native American tribal Chief? Is it common for women to hold this position in Australia? Do you primarily teach Aboriginal arts and crafts or standard/ classical art techniques?

 

Collard-Spratt: To be an Aboriginal Elder for a school you have to be respected; it’s a gift our Aboriginal community gives to you. As an Elder to a school, you are called to special functions, and you are called in if there are any issues between students and teachers. You sit in on the discussion when an Aboriginal student is meeting with a teacher or principal. If I’m not there they will just sit there in silence. It helps the students to speak out. I also talk one-on-one with students who have issues at home. So, I’m just there as an ear to listen if they’re struggling, and also if they want to share good news with me, I’m available. It’s different to being a Native American Chief; we’re not above anyone, but we’re respected by the children and their families. Yes, it is common for women to be in these positions at schools in Australia. I teach Aboriginal painting, share Dreaming stories, Aboriginal dance, and we sing songs. Some schools also have Pacific Islander Elders come in.

 

• : In the first chapter, you describe needing to write a “letter to the government to ask…” to “buy a dress or shoes or stockings.” You also say a permit was needed to move or get married. Have most of these laws been outlawed since you were young (if so, when)? These restrictions seem very foreign, even with America’s pre-civil rights laws that discriminated against African Americans. What was the purpose of these restrictions? How were they legitimized?

 

Collard-Spratt: Please see my answer to the question about the Native Administration Act 1936 (WA). These laws were repealed in 1967 after a national Referendum, which finally recognized Aboriginal people as Australian citizens. Until then, the government believed that Aboriginal people were not really people. It goes back to when white people first invaded Australia in 1788. The English saw Australia as Terra Nullius, a land without owners. Until 1920 in Western Australia, Aboriginal matters came under the Fisheries Department. Even after the 1967 Referendum, Australia regulated Aboriginal people under Assimilation Laws, which weren’t repealed until 1975 in favour of self-determination. Under Assimilation, we had to turn our backs on our families, culture, spirituality, and language and live as white people do. They expected that we would die out, and they planned to breed us out.

 

Ferro: The treatment of Aboriginal Australians is probably much more similar to America’s treatment of its own First People’s than its treatment of African-Americans. Native Americans also lost their identity as Indians by being placed on reserves, being stripped of their cultural dress, language, and ways of living; children were stolen from their mothers with no one to comfort them, and they were herded onto reserves and missions like little animals.

 

• : In Chapter 5, when girls ask you if you are a virgin, you react thus: “In my rage, I forgot about doing my client’s hair. I just wanted to get even. Picking up rollers, brushes, clips, anything my Yamatji hands could find, I let rip. Things went flying through the air every which way. I didn’t care; I wanted to get them. The girls were dodging, ducking and hiding, so they wouldn’t get hit…” You guys mention in your marketing materials that this is not a book where you see yourself as a victim of the system, but rather as its survivor. Were you concerned about disclosing this somewhat violent outburst?

 

• No. I was treated violently all my life up till then. I’d experienced violent outbursts from missionaries throughout my childhood. Their words and actions were violent and they scarred my heart and soul. I guess that was my first incident of releasing all that anger; we weren’t allowed to act up over all those years of being flogged and told we were nothing. 

 

• : Can it be that the girls were simply curious about you?

 

• No. They knew they could make fun of me and that they had no one to answer to, and they knew I had no one to speak up for me.  

 

• : What about the way they asked the question made you feel that they were insulting you?

 

• Well, they were whispering to each other under their breath and giggling. So, I knew they were up to no good by just their body language.

 

• : Did you react somewhat violently because of the corporal punishment you were exposed to in school that made it feel like this was a fitting punishment for the girls’ moral crime?

 

• Yes. I didn’t think it was punishment. I was hurt and, in the past, I had no way of retaliating, so finally, I was somewhere where I could show how I felt. I didn’t hurt anyone. This was the first time I showed anger and, no, I am not ashamed to share this.

 

• : What kinds of material do you paint on (as for your “Rainbow Snake Dancer” painting from 2014)?

 

• Canvas, bark, silk, stones, wood.

 

• : What kind of paint did you use for it or for the majority of your paintings?

 

Collard-Spratt: Acrylic paint because that’s all I can afford and we’re not near enough to the country to get any ochre.

 

• : Do you use a traditional Aboriginal drawing style for most of your works, and if so can you summarize what elements distinguish it from other types of art?

 

• I don’t draw, I paint. I just use my own style. When I paint it just comes to me; I get an image. I don’t have to look at another image to get inspired; it comes to my mind and heart. It’s a spiritual thing; a spiritual connection. It just comes natural, whatever I paint.

 

• : During your visit to Uganda you describe how in the middle of your performance about the Aboriginal people and the hardships they suffer, a girl interrupted you by yelling, “You’re so negative!... Just get over your wages being stolen… Get over your people overflowing in jails. The people will think ‘what’s all the crime you were dong to be put there in the first place!’” (chapter 12). You did not respond to this objection, but continued your talk and then went outside to calm down and be alone. Can you respond to these objections now?

 

Collard-Spratt: No. It wasn’t a Ugandan girl who said that to me inside the room. I was called out of the room by the white lady in charge of the choir. Outside she said those things to me (away from the children,who were all still inside where the performance was happening).

I didn’t respond to her immediately because I had a lot going on emotionally for me then. This African trip brought back many childhood memories of being in the mission, seeing rows and rows of cots, and all the little motherless children. I had a lump in my throat and I was ready to cry constantly. I did eventually say to her, “This is our shared history. Your history and mine. Why can’t you accept it?”

 

• : Why do we need to be “negative” about problems in our society? Are the Aboriginal people being convicted more frequently for crimes they did not commit? Why do you think they are making up a majority of the incarcerated population in Australia?

 

• We are arrested more for public nuisance, drunk in public, bad language, vagrancy, all these minor crimes because of institutional racism. We’re not negative; that’s a judgement put on us by white people. We’re just stating the reality for our people. We live it every day. Aboriginal people are picked on; when they see Aboriginal people, they forget their humanity. That whole colonial way of thinking still exists. And the police or prison guards are never held to account when Aboriginal people continue to die in custody of negligence or physical abuse.

 

• : You describe how you wrote together, as Rhonda told stories, and Jacki wrote down and edited these reflections. Did Jacki ask a lot of leading questions to bring up especially dramatic incidents? Did Jacki do the bulk of the research into Rhonda’s past? Did you guys write most of it chronologically or did you jump around to whichever memories happened to surface at a given meeting? Can you give an example of the best and/or worst moments in your collaboration? Did you ever seriously disagree on something to do with the book?

 

Collard-Spratt: Never. We worked well together. We listened and always showed respect to each other. Some difficult things, like the reports on my father’s death, were too hard for me to read. Jacki read them and wrote that part, then she read it out to me. Then we worked together to word it so we were both happy. We jumped around a lot. I would remember a fun time in childhood and that might lead to other memories. But I deliberately left some things till last, especially the really hard times, unsure whether to include them, to share or not to share. But working together was all good moments; we call Jacki’s office the story room, and we never have had one conflict. We just talk it through, even though we’ve been through every emotion and many tissues. We worked in the true spirit of Reconciliation.

 

Ferro: Yes, it was truly collaborative, down to nearly every sentence. After writing up the chapter based on documents from her mother’s life, I repeatedly asked Rhonda, “But how would you say this?” Another example was when documents assessed Rhonda’s mother Alice as having “a preponderance of 1/16 of Aboriginal blood” (she was assessed as 9/16 Aboriginal in the racist caste system of the era). I asked Rhonda how she would say this. She replied, “My mother was too black to be a citizen, so she had to apply to become one.” I worked through both community development methods of listening, being patient, non-judgmental, and flexible, and also through methods taught through my writing classes to develop characters and scenes, and to get Rhonda to re-live vivid memories, so that the story exploded on the page and readers could imagine the setting, the people, and the emotions. I often asked Rhonda how she felt, slowing scenes down to describe moment by moment. I have to agree with Rhonda that I can’t actually recall any difficult time in our collaboration. It must have been a blessed union, and, yes, I agree that this sounds remarkable. We are both able to listen well and consider before speaking. I would never immediately change what Rhonda said, or interrupt her thinking. I would wait, and then ask questions to clarify, adding in these details. Many magic moments happened when we read a scene out loud, collaborated to get the wording right (like by enhancing the humor in telling the tale), and then laughed out loud and knew we’d nailed it.

 

Faktorovich: What advice do you guys have for writers who are working collaboratively with others or who want to write about their heritage?

 

Collard-Spratt: You need to come together in trust, respect, and true friendship. You will need strength to find your voice. Have the courage to share because we need more stories out there to help people know that we can survive and the wider community needs to know what we’ve been through as a people.

 

Ferro: Hear each other; each session is an adventure and that’s what keeps you going. You motivate each other, and you bounce off each other. Come to each session in positivity for the unknown that is about to unfold.

 

Faktorovich: Thank you for participating in this interview. Do you have anything else you’d like to add?

 

Collard-Spratt: Thank you, Anna. Thanks for your questions and for your interest. Go well and go strong.

 

Ferro: Thank you too, Anna, for your interest.

 

I guess I’d like to highlight the major messages in Alice’s Daughter: Lost mission child. Rhonda’s life story teaches us how surviving and healing are possible through connecting with our land’s ancient Aboriginal spirit, particularly through expressing yourself through the arts, and we hope it may help others who are dealing with a similar past. It also uncovers many dark realities about our white history in Australia. I feel that Australia is ready to face these ugly truths and collaborate with compassion to help start to right the wrongs. Alcoholism, suicide, incarceration, and foster care are the reality for many of our Aboriginal people. Alice’s Daughter goes some way to explaining why. Australia needs to teach this recent history in schools and particularly to those working in health care, justice, and community services, so that they can better understand the intergenerational trauma caused by our country’s past policies, and not judge people on the actions they are taking today. We also need to respect the deep connection our First Nations have with the land. They don’t own the land, they belong to it and it belongs to them; it is part of their spirit. Destroying the land through cattle stations and mining destroys Indigenous people’s very sense of who they are; their identity. Australia has a long way to go before we can truly say that we are reconciled.

 

Anna Faktorovich, Ph.D., is the Founder, Director, Designer and Editor-in-Chief of the Anaphora Literary Press, which has published over 200 titles in non-fiction, fiction and poetry.