Debra A. Hocking - Speaking My Truth

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Debra Hocking is from Tasmania, an island state of Australia lying approximatelytwo hundred kilometres south of the mainland. She is a Stolen Generations survivorand descendant of the Mouhenneer people. She is Indigenous co-chair of Australia’sNational Sorry Day Committee and Indigenous chair of Achieving ReconciliationTasmania. Debra has worked for many years on Aboriginal community health issues.She is a recipient of the United Nations award for the International Year of the Cultureof Peace and the Human Rights Award for Humanitarian Activities in Tasmania.Debra’s contribution to this collection, Reconciliation: An Indigenous AustralianPerspective, is a moving personal narrative of struggle and reconciliation. Raised inan abusive foster home, the search to find her birth family led to the discovery thatshe is member of the Stolen Generations, the term used to describe the thousandsof Indigenous children in Australia who were removed from their families and placedin mission schools and foster homes. We follow Debra as she battles governmentbureaucracy in a determined effort to reunite with her family, and we watch her initialbitterness and anger transform into compassion and political activism. Her workwith groups such as Australia’s Sorry Day Committee and Achieving ReconciliationTasmania support her growing optimism that reconciliation can become a way of lifefor all people, Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike.278 278 | |
Reconciliation: An Indigenous Australian PerspectiveI am a Stolen Generations Survivor. I was born in Tasmania in 1959. Mymother was a great-granddaughter of Fanny Cochrane Smith, a notableAboriginal woman of the late nineteenth century.I hardly knew my mother, but I have learnt from my siblings that herAboriginal heritage was extremely important to her, and she continuedpractising her culture right up until her death in 1980. She raised herchildren in traditional Aboriginal ways learnt from her mother.However, the welfare authorities viewed her child rearing as unacceptable,and she was accused of neglect. This was a commonplace accusationin Tasmania in the 1950s and 1960s. Aboriginal families were watchedcarefully. A critical report by a welfare officer, however flimsy, was enoughto remove children to foster homes or institutions. Often, all the childrenwere removed and siblings were usually split up. Although there was noracial stipulation in the legislation that enabled the authorities to removeAboriginal children, we now know that it was the Tasmanian form of thenation-wide drive to assimilate Aboriginal children into the mainstreamAustralian culture.Not long after I was born, my father deserted my mother and family. Mymother found it increasingly hard to provide enough food for her growingfamily. In desperation, she approached the welfare department andrequested financial help. Sadly, that was a costly mistake. The authoritiescame to our house with an order to remove all four children: my oldestsister aged six, my next sister aged five, my brother aged three, and myselfthe youngest. I was still being breastfed. My mother refused to hand us over,so we were taken by force. I cannot imagine what that must have been likefor her. I now have four beautiful children, and if anyone had attempted toremove them, I would not be responsible for my actions.We children were split up and placed in foster care. I have no memory ofthis but my other siblings do. Only recently did one of my older sisters breaksilence and tell me what she had experienced in her foster home and heranguish at not knowing where her siblings were. It took a heavy toll on her.My other sister and my brother have never talked about their experience,but it has left them with hurt, trauma, and grief. Even today we have littleFrom Truth to Reconciliation | 279
Page 4 and 5: elationship as brothers and sisters
Page 6 and 7: About this time, my real family mov
Page 8 and 9: and my siblings. I remembered the n
Page 10 and 11: made sense to me. The racist commen
Page 12 and 13: was demeaning, and we needed to get
Page 15: Section 4Journey of the Spirit

Debra A. Hocking - Speaking My Truth

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