MY PLACE

Sally Morgan is recognised as one of Australia's best known Aboriginal artists and writers. She is one of a number
of successful urban Aboriginal artists.
Sally was born in Perth in 1951, the eldest of five children. As a child she found school difficult because of
uestions from other students about her a!!earance and family background. She understood from her mother that
she and her family were from "ndia. #owever, when Sally was fifteen she learnt that she and her sister were in fact
of Aboriginal descent, from the Palku !eo!le of the Pilbara.
$his e%!erience of her hidden origins, and subseuent uest for identity, was the stimulus for her first book & My
Place& !ublished in 19'(. "t tells the story of her self discovery through reconnection with her Aboriginal culture and
community. $he book was an immediate success and has since sold over half a million co!ies in Australia. "t has
also been !ublished in the )nited States, *uro!e and Asia.
#er second book &Wanamurraganya& was !ublished in 19'9. "t is the biogra!hy of her grandfather, +ack ,cPhee.
She has also written five books for children.
As well as writing, Sally ,organ has established an international re!utation as an artist. She has works in
numerous !rivate and !ublic collections in Australia and the )nited States, including the Australian -ational .allery
and the /obell 0oundation collection. #er work is !articularly !o!ular in the )nited States. #er work as an artist is
e%cellently described and illustrated in the book Art of Sally ,organ, available in our 1eb sho!.
She has received many awards, including from the #uman 2ights and *ual 3!!ortunities 4ommission. As a !art
of the celebration in 1995 of the )niversal /eclaration of #uman 2ights, her !rint Outback was selected by
international art historians as one of 56 !aintings and scul!tures for re!roduction on a stam! re!resenting an article
of the /eclaration.
My Place remains her most influential work, not only because of its very wide !o!ularity but also because it
!rovided a new model for other writers, !articularly those of indigenous background.
She is currently /irector of the 4entre for "ndigenous #istory and Arts at $he )niversity of 1estern Australia.
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My Place, by Sally ,organ is now an Australian 4lassic, but it wasn8t when " first read it back in 19'', Australia8s
bicentennial year. 9ike many Australians, " was shocked to read this dee!ly moving memoir which revealed without
bitterness or rancour a chastening story of endemic racism in our country. " had thought " was an educated !erson
and this book made me realise to my dismay that " knew nothing about the Aboriginal heritage that under!ins
Australian identity. 1hen " saw My Placeas an audio book, " wanted to revisit this memoir, to test its !ower in the
:1st century when ,organ8s voice is now one of many Aboriginal Australians telling their disconcerting stories. 9et
me assure you, it has lost nothing of its im!act;
<orn in Perth, 1estern Australia, Sally ,organ is a year older than " am. She and her siblings were brought u! to
answer uestions about their colour by saying that they were of "ndian origin, a strategy her mother and
grandmother ho!ed would shield them from the racism of the schoolyard. $hey believed that they were !rotecting
the children by denying their Aboriginal descent, from the Palku=<aligu !eo!le of the Pilbara, and kee!ing the
children in ignorance of it.
<ut Sally8s adolescence brought rebellion and stubborn uestioning, and she embarked on a relentless uest to
find out who she really was. /es!ite the eually stubborn resistance of her grandmother /aisy, and the dee!
reluctance of her mother .laddie, she began unearthing the truth. #er grandmother, /aisy, had been born at
4orunna /owns, a !astoral !ro!erty owned by the /rake7<rockman family. )nder the aus!ices of the notorious
A.3.-eville, Protector of Aborigines in 1.A., she had been taken from her mother Annie, a full7blood Aborigine
who lived and worked at 4orunna. /aisy ended u! working for most of her life, un!aid e%ce!t in kind, at "vanhoe,
another !astoral !ro!erty owned by the /rake7<rockman family. She never married, and she never saw her
mother again, though she was able to have some contact with her brother Arthur who came looking for her.
/aisy8s child, .laddie, was sent away from "vanhoe to Sister >ate8s, a ?home8 for children@
They took you away when I was twenty. The man from the Aborigines Protection Board said it was the best thing.
e said that black mothers like me weren!t allowed to kee" babies like you. e didn!t want you brought u" as one
of our "eo"le. I didn!t want to let you go, but I didn!t ha#e any choice. That was the law. That was the law.
.laddie stayed at Sister >ate8s until she was 15. <oth she and her mother e%!ected that she would then be
allowed to live at "vanhoe but it was not to be. .laddie had to leave to board with a religious family who asked her
to leave, because she had gone to the ?sinful8 movies. She married <ill, a war veteran obviously suffering Post7
$raumatic7Stress7/isorder, with whom she had five children, but he made their lives a misery with his drinking and
violence. 1hen he died, .laddie was left to bring u! the children on her own because his !arents had no time for
<ill8s !art7Aboriginal family.
$his brief summary of these damaged lives is gradually revealed as Sally records her indefatigable attem!ts to give
these women a voice. She refuses to be ashamed of her heritageA she wants to know it and to be !roud of it, but
/aisy and Sally have had their whole lives disru!ted by government !olicies, by e%!loitation and by racist
assum!tions so their reluctance to reveal their secrets is well7founded. 1hen finally .laddie tells her story,
beginning with the bleak days at Sister >ate8s when occasional visits from her mother were cherished memories, it
is !oignant indeed. Se!arating kids from their families was !erha!s not so unusual for Australian !astoral families
who routinely sent their kids off to boarding7school, but .laddie was only three.
1hen /aisy finally agrees to tell some Bbut definitely not allC of her secrets, she am!lifies .laddie8s memories of
this time. As an un!aid servant at the station, and subDect to laws reuiring her to work, /aisy had no say about
the future of her child. She had been se!arated from her own mother because she was a $light%skinned
one! Bmeaning that her father must have been a white man not a tribal AborigineC and she had been sent away on
the !rete%t of getting an education, which turned out to be training as a domestic servant. Ashamed of her illiteracy
well into her old age, she could not read or write so there could be no e%change of letters or corres!ondence about
how her child was getting on at Sister >ate8s. She had no money either, being entirely reliant on the /rake7
<rockmans to give her leave and trans!ort to make any visits. And knowing that her se!aration from her mother
had turned out to be irrevocable must have made her an%iety and distress even harder to bear.
0or Sally, the mystery of her mother and grandmother8s !arentage is a scab that must be un!icked. -either /aisy
nor .laddie know the identity of their fathers, and there are conflicting stories. $he /rake7<rockmans claim that
there was a ?,altese Sam8, but when Sally !icks u! the trail from the old !eo!le in the Pilbara they say that it
couldn8t !ossibly have been him. 0or the first time Sally sus!ects the reason for the women8s shame, sending her
to old !hotos of #owden /rake7<rockman where she saw a resemblance that shook her identity to the core.
$he only as!ect of this memoir that diminished its authenticity for me, was the inclusion of some uasi7religious
e%!eriences, such as visions and !remonitions. /aisy may well claim that $white "eo"le need to get educated
about this! but however sincerely it may be believed, this ty!e of s!irituality has never been authenticated in any
scientific or !sychological conte%t. $o the contrary, it has always been shown to be linked to !erce!tion or memory
Bor fraud, though "8m not suggesting that this is the case hereC. Peo!le remember that they foresaw something
after it8s ha!!ened, and they forget the times that they were sure something was going to ha!!en when it didn8t.
$hat8s human nature.
Sally ,organ received the #uman 2ights Award for 9iterature in 19'( and the 3rder of Australia <ook PriEe in
1996. My Place was also short7 listed for the -ew South 1ales Premier8s 9iterary Award in 19'(.
$he narration by ,elodie 2eynolds is a little stilted here and there, as if 2eynolds has not noticed !unctuation, but
the voice is su!erb. "t brings this story of three amaEingly strong women alive, and is faithful to the Aboriginal
*nglish s!oken by /aisy, Albert and .laddie.
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,organ's book was the fourth and final te%t that " e%amined in my brief tri! into Australian literature. " came
across My Place while " was looking into female and Aboriginal authors in Australia's contem!orary and historical
literary scenes. "ronically enough, " stumbled across several sources that named Sally ,organ as not only a great
Australian author but as a well known Aborigine also. " could not have had better luck@ here was an author that was
the e!itome of the Australian minority. $he only !roblem was that the book was not at any local library and would
therefore need to be reuested through an interlibrary loan. 1ell, this !roved to be of little conseuence
considering " had the better !ortion of a 5667odd !age book to finish. $he arrival of the book was timed
magnificently and " was able to finish &iders in the 'hariot and begin My Placewithin an hour of each other. 1ith
the end so close, " could Dust about taste the clear, cris! air at the end of the tunnel.
My Place was a refreshing change from the three !receding te%ts because unlike the fictional
narratives of those books, ,organ's te%t was more autobiogra!hical. She made no effort to change the names
of !eo!le or !laces nor the dates for the sake of convenience or courteous anonymity. #er te%t is therefore
very real and emotionally raw. $here was not a single moment in the te%t when " felt cheated by any kind of
inaccurate or un7historic invention. ,organ was able to !roduce a te%t that was challenging to the reader and
likely to herself as well.
$he story begins with ,organ recounting her early years. *verything from wetting her !ants in school to
slee!ing in the same bed with her two sisters and brother to running across the backyard with her mother,
grandmother, and siblings in order to esca!e the drunken ramblings and threats of her mentally ill father. "t seems
that the young girl's largest !ush towards the e%!loration of her ancestry was the social ruckus that her a!!earance
freuently caused amongst her !eers in school. ,organ tells her tale with a kind of naFvetG that im!lies an
innocence that far e%ceeds the ine%!erience of childhood. $he fact that ,organ had !roblems coming to terms with
her inherent difference was because her mother never submitted to saying that the family was Aboriginal until the
author was well into her thirties and her grandmother staunchly insisted that their entire family was white.
4onseuently, ,organ grew u! in a house that avoided the most glaring !iece of history that made them
significant.
As ,organ recounts her e%!eriences from over the years, she gives the reader everything Hall her
emotions, thoughts, ideasHeverything that holds any significance to the socially colorblind girl. $he real emotion of
the te%t, at least of the first half of the te%t, comes from what ,organ does not say or says but does not e%!lain
since she likely did not understand the situations or events at the times that they ha!!ened, res!ectively. 0or
instance, as a girl, young Sally was called names, asked to end friendshi!s, given strange Dobs, ignored by her
father's !arents, and freuently submitted to strange behavior by her grandmother.
" found myself re!eatedly filled with a kind of sorrow and frustration while reading ,organ's account of
many trying e%!eriences as a little girl. ,any sections were rather difficult to read because of how blatant and
misunderstood the discrimination against the narrator was. As ,organ matures and begins to come into her own
she slowly realiEes that she is not .reek or "ndian but is Aboriginal. $his realiEation cou!led with the matriarchal
side7ste!!ing of the issue leads the young woman to develo! an aggressive thirst for the truth. "t takes ,organ
many years Huntil she has graduated collegeHto begin to collect the stories and histories of her family members.
Although her collection is slow going at first, the train of her work begins to !ick u! s!eed enough to !ull more and
more !eo!le into the !roDect, !eo!le who are willing to submit their stories, names, and guidance in the name of
rebuilding the Aboriginal community.
3ne of the most im!ortant themes of the te%t and of Aboriginal history that " was able to gather from My
Place is that of the loss. 9oss, as you might remember, has been a maDor theme within the literature that " have
read and analyEed u! until this !oint. Australian literature seems to be Doined by this unifying thread of !ersonal
loss and the Dourney of recovery. "n ,organ's book, however, the te%t is not informed by this theme of loss and
recovery, it is driven if it is not !ulled by it. Australia's relationshi! to the Aborigines is dee!ly marred by this theme
of loss.
"magine the genocide and institution that was built u! against the -ative Americans that tried to eradicate,
e%terminate, assimilate and destroy, divide and conuer the many nations of that community. -ow take the
institution of slavery in the )nited States and the !ost7civil war era in which discrimination and racism were maDor
social forces. Somewhere between these three maDor s!aces of time and action lies the essence of the Aboriginal
condition in Australia. $hrough the first7hand recollection of elderly Aborigines the author is able to create a
history of a !eo!le that has been overlooked and brushed almost com!letely under the rug of history.
"n a nutshell, ,organ's collection recounts the history of a !eo!le whose lands were taken away by the only
!eo!le who were given legal rights to own them@ <ritish colonials. $hese new landowners built massive !lantations
where Aborigines were e%!ected to come and work, but were not necessarily ke!t or owned as a !ermanent
workforce. #owever, Dust like American slavery, ,organ's stories highlight a great deal of discrimination and
racism that lead, historically, to the birth of many illegitimate bastards who became a third demogra!hic of Iwhite
blackfellas.J
$he Aborigines8 working conditions that a!!ear in the historic accounts in ,organ's te%t are gruesome and
!ainful to read. Aboriginal workers were freuently beaten, se!arated from their children and denied !ay that was
!romised to them over e%tended !eriods of time. $he Aboriginal children and mi%ed7race children were said to
generally have been taken to or!hanages where they received a basic education and religious curriculum. Since
slaverytechnically did not e%ist in Australia, children were freuently segregated, if they were se!arated at all, by
the a""earance of their skin. As a result, mi%ed7race children went both ways and were !ushed into both white and
black grou!s in the education seuence.
$he Dobs that were given to Aborigines were generally service Dobs such as housekee!ing or Dobs which
demanded e%cessive or difficult !hysical labor such as !lowing, !lanting, or the clearing of land. ,organ's voluntary
contributors from the Aboriginal community all gave stories which related a general disavowment of contractual
wages or com!ensation on behalf of em!loyersA Aboriginal workers freuently received nothing in e%change for
their service or labor. $he refusal or IinabilityJ to remember the !romise of wages ke!t Aborigines in a very low
socioeconomic !osition. Subseuently the white !o!ulation did not need to own slaves since they had a large
available workforce that was, more often than not, willing to work for room and board of the most basic nature.
3nce the work was done, the em!loyers were able to send their workforce away without the need to continue to
!rovide anything.
As the story !rogresses and nears a close ,organ begins to learn from the elderly members of the
Aboriginal community that what her !eo!le are really yearning for is a feeling of ownershi! by the younger
generation. 1hether that generation consists of full7blood or mi%ed7race Aborigines, any kind of connection
between the younger community and the older one is looked u!on as a kind of strengthening and satisfying
means of building a national community. ,organ's contributors em!hasiEe the need for and the !ower of creating
a large7scale Aboriginal community as well as a national awareness of that community and its history. "n short,
the author makes it clear that a tree without roots will never grow and a !eo!le who have never had a clearly
defined or discussed role in society must work hard to earn the res!ect and recognition that they deserve in their
own land at the very least.
1hile the theme of Australian war veterans has been touched on, if not lightly develo!ed, by $im 1inton
and Patrick 1hite, it is given a significant !iece of narrative here. ,organ e%amines 11"" veterans in Australia
through a familial lens. #er father is described as a man with good intentions and a loving heart. #is duality comes
in the form of his war7damaged mind, a mind that tries to drown the memories of the !ast in alcohol. ,organ's
father is freuently hos!italiEed for his unstable mental condition. 1hile in the hos!ital, the young narrator goes to
visit him and recalls some of the other !atients she saw while she was there@
" ke!t telling myself that he Kanother L01 !atientM wasn't really a ghost, Dust an 3ld
Soldier. ,um had confided that all these men Kin this wing of the hos!italM were 3ld
Soldiers. She lowered her voice when she told me, as though it was im!ortant.
She had a fondness for them " didn't understand. " often wondered why 3ld
Soldiers were so s!ecial. All of these men were missing arms or legs.
,organ is able to get her mother to give a nearly com!lete retelling of her father's service during 1ord 1ar
"". $he author's mother tells her daughter that the reason that her father had such a difficult time after returning from
the war was because he had lived through such torturous events during it. $he story highlights the role that
Australians have !layed in international conflicts and the way that they are treated as veterans at home. 3ne thing
that stood out was the government's willingness to !rovide the veteran's family with financial su!!ort while he was
in the hos!ital and then after his death. $he government aid, however, was shar!ly detested and made the source
of sus!icion by ,organ's grandmother. ,organ tells the reader that since her grandmother had seen the
government treat Aboriginal !eo!le so badly and had watched Australia remove nearly all rights from her !eo!le,
she had lots of trouble believing that the aid her family was receiving was anything more than a farce or a tra!
,organ's Australia covers all kinds of !eo!le, from white citiEens willing to risk their lives and livelihood in
the name of saving or !reserving Aboriginal fugitives, or by giving them Dobs or !laces to eat and slee!, to
Australians who would not bat an eye at the thought of beating or cheating an Aboriginal worker into submission.
$he full s!ectrum of !ersonas is covered through ,organ's stories and the stories that she gathers. $he author's
Australia is one defined by a long history of discrimination, racism and governmental abuse of !ower.
$hrough all the transcribed stories !resented in My Place, the reader is given a glim!se into Australian
dialect B" am sure that there is more than Dust one, although " have not heard enough Australian s!eech be able to
distinguish between the vocaliEed linguistic differencesC that the three !revious books did not offer. Australian
linguistics, as !resented in ,organ's book seems to favor the shortening of words and the attachment of an IoJ
onto the end. 0or instance, IAborigineJ is shortened to Iabo,J IambulanceJ is shortened to Iambo,J and Iservice
stationJ is shortened to Iservo.
vi
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Socio7geogra!hically, My Place traverses the thick !lainal bush of Australia and the desert=lowlands of
1estern Australia as well. ,ost of the stories described take !lace in or around <risbane and as a result, three
maDor landsca!es are drawn out@ the multi7ethnic suburbs which include middle class white families and low class
Aboriginal or mi%ed7race familiesA the bush in which ,organ suggests to the reader that the Aboriginal s!irit
thrives and in which the Aboriginal characters all seem to feel drawnA the !lainal lowlands where the !lantations
or IstationsJ and farms are ke!t. $his final area is where most of the stories take !lace since when Australia was
being coloniEed many *nglish settlers bought land with the intention of farming it. Also described in this third
section is the rail systemHa massive trans!ortation infrastructure which connects the Australian interior with the
more !o!ulated coastal areas.
,organ's Australian mosaic takes advantage of the most diverse color !alette of any of the four books
that " e%amined. 1hile her book was easy to move through uickly and did not !rovide the same kind of de!th or
com!lication as &iders in the 'hariot or the same kind of narrative or structure as is Illegal (elf or )irt Music, it
had an emotional element and a historical vision that stood out as a diamond in the ruff. 1hile " had the hardest
time getting through 1hite's te%t ideologically and linguistically, ,organ's te%t !rovided an emotional challenge
that was Dust as challenging to overcome.
Secrets
Perha!s the maDor theme of the book is not to have secrets within the family. $here are so many secrets in Sally's
early life. 1hy are her -an N her ,um so tight li!!edO 1hy is her -an so ashamed at being seen as blackO She
has to find the answers to these uestions N feels so much better when she does so. $he secrets influence her
whole life.
Family Life
Sally learns the value of the family N sticking together through thick N thin from an early age. $here is so much
evidence of this N it forms another maDor theme of the novel. #er ,um N -an give Sally N her siblings such stability
when life is far from easy for either of them.
General Effects of War
Sally's early story illustrates the wider effects of 1ar, taking in whole families N friends as illustrated through Sally's
father. #e suffers very badly as a result of the :nd 1 1A he's in N out of hos!ital, has terrible nightmares N is
tyrannical with his family, drinking away the money they badly needed for food N bills. So as a girl who should have
had a carefree childhood, she feels res!onsibility for her family in such a way that she grows u! before her time.
She worries about her !arents' constant uarrels N an ongoing shortage of money.
Education
#er feelings of res!onsibility at home !revent her from taking education seriously. 3n the other hand, her sister,
+ill, !rotected from alot of the !roblems, loves school. 1e also learn how at school there weren't always enough
books N there was regular humiliation in the classroom.
Aboriginees & Wites
$his is the most u!setting !art of the book. 2arely has a book brought out such dee! emotions in me@ anger,
sadness, tears etc. Arthur's, -an's N ,um's stories are so u!setting N moving. $he 1hite's take their land N then
treat very badly. " cried when Arthur was taken from his ,um, never to see her again. And again, when .ladys is
taken away from ,um at the tender age of three. 1hen .ladys is ill she #AS $3 S**> P*2,"SS"3- to go to see
herPPPP Such terrible hardshi!. -an s!eaks bitterly of white hy!ocrisyA they *take* Aboriginal women whene#er they
want, B+T when the Aboriginees do anything wrong, they are told, *,ou niggers don-t know right from wrong.& A-/
A99 $#"S "S "- $#* 19Q6'sP
$here is however laughter N a great feeling of togetherness in the family. $heir laughter at the cinema is infectious
N there is a lot of laughter N Doy when the family is together. <ut a truly hilarious e!isode is when Sally's ,um tries
to sort out the front of the house ready for the latter's wedding.