- I've always been incredibly proud
of my indigenous heritage.
Indigenous culture in Australia, is still here.
There aren't any plans of my people going away.
(both laugh)
(tense music)
- So just starting right off Kathy,
was there a conscious decision by you
to start to integrate the struggle
of your people into your celebrations
and if so, how did you conclude
that it was the right thing to do?
- Well, I guess, because I am so big on family, Michael,
I am a family orientated person.
Family for me is where my identity starts
and I've tried to bury that
(coughs)
and tried to be in denial about that,
but there's just simply, it's futile
because it's just truth, it's all truth.
So, and out of family
(clears her throat)
and part of my identity has always been culture.
And in terms of struggle, you know, indigenous people
in Australia especially even
of my generation very much still carry those struggles
and they're not necessarily shared verbally,
but they're absolutely felt
between for example, daughter and mother,
child, parent, granddaughter, grandparent.
And so, you know that kind of struggle
was absolutely evident in the degree of confidence.
For example, my grandparents had or my parents had.
It was very normal to sort of feel the shame
of being a black person.
And, you know, children are only a kind of an extension
of what they see and what they feel in their own homes and..
(clears throat)
..excuse me.
And so, it wasn't until well into my kind of career life
that I could kind of look
at it at my childhood in that sense kind of analytically
and critically, and sort of check myself
and ask myself, why?
Why did I feel that way?
Why did my kids who were other aboriginal?
And towards other kids who were also termed indigenous.
Why were we so ashamed of who we were?
And, it was definitely a learned behavior,
but I guess as you get older and you read books
and you learn more about the history
of your own sort of people..
yeah.
The world, things become clearer, you know.
So, I mean, you can't be indigenous
in Australia and not understand struggle.
It's just goes together.
- Yeah.
- That's a history of Australia.
- Yeah, yeah.
Was there a sense of carrying aboriginal people
and aboriginal culture through,
you know, all of your success?
- Oh, well, I've always been really, really determined
to always acknowledge my ancestors.
I've always been incredibly proud of my indigenous heritage.
I've got, you know, very much the values
that I've carried a very important to me.
And I'd like to, in fact I know
that I'm a woman of integrity
so, and I'll always honor, you know, those values
that I know will always be dear to me.
And, you know going back to family
and identity and culture, ancestors.
So, I always viewed myself as a continuum
of the stories of my ancestors.
And so, for the type of stories
that my ancestors have experienced.
Especially in the last 200 years,
around 200 years of colonization in Australia.
It was important for me to kind of change
that narrative of struggle and turn it
into something positive, a tale of resilience.
- Mmh
- And to emphasis how, you know, the indigenous culture
in Australia is still here, you know,
after 65,000 years and we don't really,
there aren't any plans of my people going away
(both laugh)
despite, you know, the efforts of the past of some.