My Place by Sally Morgan

I grew up in Washington State, the Pacific Northwest of the United States, and in our history classes we studied Colonial America and Africa. Therefore, I only had the information my mother gave me about Aboriginal suffering.
You can be sure that upon my arrival into an Australian history class I was blown away by how much I absolutely did not know about Aboriginal oppression in Australia. My history teacher made quick work of introducing us to the racist discrimination that "white Australia" employed against the native Australians. To further impress upon us the devastation government policies and social rejection created within Aboriginal communities, she wrote us an assignment focused around Sally Morgan's My Place.
She couldn't have chosen a better way to show us how the people we read about and the suffering written about in our textbooks was real and it actually happened with actual consequences.
Sally Morgan grew up completely separate from her natural culture and heritage and was left with a feeling of emptiness that she could never explain. As soon as she began to ask questions it became clear that her family was involved in a cover-up; a cover-up of the very thing that tore apart her family and the families of so many other Aborigines; a racist society with the intention of eliminating the culture of the land.
Though My Place isn't written with the highest sophistication or professional writing structure, the stories and the power of them is not lost in the least bit. Every Australian should read about how social and government pressure took a toll on an entire culture in order to accept responsibility and to most past this disgracefull period in Australian history as a whole, united nation.