Status
Available
Call number
Collections
Publication
Fremantle, W.A. : Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 1987.
Subjects
Original publication date
1987
ISBN
0949206318 / 9780949206312
Description
In 1982, Sally Morgan travelled back to her grandmother's birthplace. What started as a tentative search for information about her family, turned into an overwhelming emotional and spiritual pilgrimage. My Place is a moving account of a search for truth into which a whole family is gradually drawn, finally freeing the tongues of the author's mother and grandmother, allowing them to tell their own stories.
User reviews
LibraryThing member kambrogi
This 1980’s memoir of a mixed race Aboriginal family in Australia is no literary masterpiece, but it provides valuable insight into the struggles of Aboriginals in the first half of the 20th century. In its day, it was perhaps eye-opening for many white Australians and others around the world.
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The first half of the book centers on the early life of a young girl who is surprisingly oblivious to her own racial identity. This part is rather undistinguished, not so different from many stories of poverty and domestic difficulties, and not as well told, however it is worth sticking with it until Morgan eventually begins investigating her family history. As she painstakingly pulls the truth from her mother and grandmother, as well as other relatives, the reader is drawn to these people and their often heartbreaking struggles in a society that treats them with sometimes astonishing cruelty. This book would be more valuable to those who know little on a subject which has now been more widely disseminated. Show Less
LibraryThing member coffeebookperfect
Well written for a first time author.
A good look at Australian History from a very personal and personable viewpoint. Covers brutal topics without assaulting the reader.
Should be compulsory reading in Australian schools - Australian History
A good look at Australian History from a very personal and personable viewpoint. Covers brutal topics without assaulting the reader.
Should be compulsory reading in Australian schools - Australian History
LibraryThing member AdonisGuilfoyle
I read what turned out to be a cheesy romance novel recently, just because the story was set in the outback, but the author recommended this book in her acknowledgements so I bought a copy. What a difference! Sally Morgan's family history/memoir is witty, endearing, honest and painful in places,
The first part of the book is a standard memoir, with the thread of identity running through Sally's vault of hilarious childhood anecdotes. Young Sally reminded me of Scout in Mockingbird, a wilful and individual child whose imagination keeps getting her into trouble. Her father, who was a POW during the Second World War and suffered from (undiagnosed) PTSD when he returned home, took his life when his children were still young, but despite poverty and prejudice, the family stuck together and looked out for each other. 'You lot stick like glue,' a classmate tells Sally, and I love that about them. Nan is a fantastic character, leaving onions all over the house and chatting up Jehovah's witnesses to use their leaflets as toilet paper, but beneath all the humour, there is a sadness and a frustration too. When Sally realises that her family are Aboriginal, she wants to learn more, but both Gladys and Daisy have distanced themselves from the past.
I suppose, in hundreds of years time, there won't be any black Aboriginals left. Our colour dies out; as we mix with other races, we'll lose some of the physical characteristics that distinguish us now. i like to think that, no matter what we become, our spiritual tie with the land and the other unique qualities we possess, will somehow weave their way through to future generations of Australians. I mean, this is our land after all, surely we've got something to offer.'
Daisy, born in 1900, and Gladys, born in 1931, were both used and abused by white men, in particular, fathered by employers but then sent away from the land like dirty secrets. Children fathered by white men who 'passed' for white were even taken from their Aboriginal mothers and adopted out (the 'Stolen Generations'). I can't even begin to take in how they were treated. Everybody knows about the history of slavery in America, but the same disgusting practices and attitudes were still happening in twentieth century Australia, thanks to men like A O Neville.
Thank you to Sally Morgan, her mother Gladys and grandmother Daisy, for sharing their stories. Definitely recommended.
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recounting her discovery and acceptance of her Aboriginal heritage. She grew up in Perth in the 1980s, with her mother Gladys, four siblings and her nan, Daisy, and once asked her mother, in all innocence, which country they originally came from. Her mother and grandmother had learned to be ashamed, even fearful, of admitting that they were Aboriginal Australians and never told Sally and her brothers and sisters about where their family came from. After reading the personal memories of Gladys, Daisy and Daisy's brother Arthur, told through Sally, that bitter secret seems almost understandable. The first part of the book is a standard memoir, with the thread of identity running through Sally's vault of hilarious childhood anecdotes. Young Sally reminded me of Scout in Mockingbird, a wilful and individual child whose imagination keeps getting her into trouble. Her father, who was a POW during the Second World War and suffered from (undiagnosed) PTSD when he returned home, took his life when his children were still young, but despite poverty and prejudice, the family stuck together and looked out for each other. 'You lot stick like glue,' a classmate tells Sally, and I love that about them. Nan is a fantastic character, leaving onions all over the house and chatting up Jehovah's witnesses to use their leaflets as toilet paper, but beneath all the humour, there is a sadness and a frustration too. When Sally realises that her family are Aboriginal, she wants to learn more, but both Gladys and Daisy have distanced themselves from the past.
I suppose, in hundreds of years time, there won't be any black Aboriginals left. Our colour dies out; as we mix with other races, we'll lose some of the physical characteristics that distinguish us now. i like to think that, no matter what we become, our spiritual tie with the land and the other unique qualities we possess, will somehow weave their way through to future generations of Australians. I mean, this is our land after all, surely we've got something to offer.'
Daisy, born in 1900, and Gladys, born in 1931, were both used and abused by white men, in particular, fathered by employers but then sent away from the land like dirty secrets. Children fathered by white men who 'passed' for white were even taken from their Aboriginal mothers and adopted out (the 'Stolen Generations'). I can't even begin to take in how they were treated. Everybody knows about the history of slavery in America, but the same disgusting practices and attitudes were still happening in twentieth century Australia, thanks to men like A O Neville.
Thank you to Sally Morgan, her mother Gladys and grandmother Daisy, for sharing their stories. Definitely recommended.
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LibraryThing member bobbieharv
(Bought in Australia) An Australian girl doesn't realize she's black and aborigine till she's a teenager. Pretty good - she tries to discover her tribal relatives.
LibraryThing member Amzzz
Sally Morgan tells the stories of herself, her mother, her grandmother and her great uncle, as she discovers what being Aboriginal means for her and her family. We read this book for school, I didn't really enjoy it.
LibraryThing member MarkKeeffe
A very good book. Interesting to see the personal journey the author went on to find her identity and heritage. Her mother and grandmother were great characters who had such a tough life. Good stuff.
LibraryThing member VivalaErin
I think this book had the potential to be really great...but it is just terrible writing. It should have been interesting; there is a very limited amount of writing about or by Aborigines. I wanted to know how Sally finally found out about and embraced her Aboriginal heritage, and the parts where
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she repeats the tales of her mother, uncle, and grandmother are much better. However, she just takes way to long to tell her story and there are plenty of anecdotes that are just too long and off-topic. I read this for a class on Postcolonialism. It worked for our section on Australian literature, but it was just terribly written. What happened to children with even a portion of Aboriginal blood was terrible, and I'm glad the Australian government is finally offering them some kind of assistance. Morgan did well with the older generation's story, and it immensely helped in sharing the history of the Aborigines. Show Less
LibraryThing member mdbrady
My Place, by Sally Morgan. Fremantle Press (2010), 440 pages. First published 1987.
Sally Morgan has written a poignant memoir about her discovery and exploration of her family’s aboriginal Australian roots.
Morgan describes her childhood in a working-class family in Perth, the largest city on the
As a teenager, Morgan discovered her true ethnic heritage and responded first with confusion and then with curiosity. Marrying and raising children of her own, she painstakingly traced down and recorded her family story. She talked with the white women in whose family her grandmother had worked, and found their version of her family’s history was demonstrably false. She also visited the “station” in northeastern Australia where her family had originally lived. There she found people who had known her grandmother and uncle and who accepted her as part of their larger family. Eventually her great-uncle, mother, and grandmother added their stories to her book. Her memoir ends on a note of reconciliation.
The stories told by her relatives make painfully real the conditions shaping the lives of aborigines in the first half of the twentieth century. They were still under the total control of the particular white family that settled in their home regions. Although slavery was not legally in existence, their lives resembled that of slaves since they literally had no options but to obey powerful whites. Both Morgan’s grandmother and her great-uncle were taken away from their parents as children and had never seen them again. Her great-uncle was sent to a violent and abusive “school” from which he was able to run away and eventual establish himself on a small farm. Her grandmother was sent as a child to serve in the household of her “owner” in Perth.
Nan spent most of her life as a domestic servant in that household and her story resembles those told by the women whom we have been reading for Real Help. She was expected to play with and serve the family’s children who were only a few years younger than she was. The family claimed that they loved her and treated her as part of their family, yet they would not let her keep the children she bore. She only saw her daughter, Morgan’s mother, two or three times a year. Although Nan had assumed she would stay with the family her whole life, they fired her, and then begged her to return. She agreed to come back because they were the only stable factor in her life, only to be fired second time. In her old age, she was bitter and frequently estranged from the daughter whom she been forced to give up. After describing the strenuous work expected of her and always having her meals alone in the kitchen, Nan said, ”You see, it’s no use them sayin’ I was one of the family, ‘cause I wasn’t. I was their servant.”
Reading this story, I thought again about scholars who claim that race and gender have no reality because they are only “social categories.” Maybe race and gender do not have any biological meaning other than that we give them, but as “social categories” race and gender can determine almost everything about the lives some individuals are allowed. Categories like race and gender can give some groups of humans the power to abuse other human beings in very real concrete ways.
My Place focuses mainly on the treatment of aborigines by white Australians. I hope that other books I plan to read will introduce me to more of their culture and society. As a white, American woman, the stories of Morgan and her family resonated with what I know of both African American and Native American treatment, and yet the setting and the particulars were unique.
I feel richer for having read this book and recommend it strongly to others.
Sally Morgan has written a poignant memoir about her discovery and exploration of her family’s aboriginal Australian roots.
Morgan describes her childhood in a working-class family in Perth, the largest city on the
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southwest coast of Australia. Her father had fought and been captured by the Germans in World War II and was fighting a losing battle with what we would now probably call post traumatic stress disorder, made worse by his drinking. Morgan was still in grade school when he died. Her mother and Nan, the grandmother who lived with them, decided to keep the children from knowing that they were aborigines. They had justified fears they would be declared unfit and the children would be taken away. Because of white men in their lineage, only the grandmother was dark enough to be easily identified as a “blackfellow.”As a teenager, Morgan discovered her true ethnic heritage and responded first with confusion and then with curiosity. Marrying and raising children of her own, she painstakingly traced down and recorded her family story. She talked with the white women in whose family her grandmother had worked, and found their version of her family’s history was demonstrably false. She also visited the “station” in northeastern Australia where her family had originally lived. There she found people who had known her grandmother and uncle and who accepted her as part of their larger family. Eventually her great-uncle, mother, and grandmother added their stories to her book. Her memoir ends on a note of reconciliation.
The stories told by her relatives make painfully real the conditions shaping the lives of aborigines in the first half of the twentieth century. They were still under the total control of the particular white family that settled in their home regions. Although slavery was not legally in existence, their lives resembled that of slaves since they literally had no options but to obey powerful whites. Both Morgan’s grandmother and her great-uncle were taken away from their parents as children and had never seen them again. Her great-uncle was sent to a violent and abusive “school” from which he was able to run away and eventual establish himself on a small farm. Her grandmother was sent as a child to serve in the household of her “owner” in Perth.
Nan spent most of her life as a domestic servant in that household and her story resembles those told by the women whom we have been reading for Real Help. She was expected to play with and serve the family’s children who were only a few years younger than she was. The family claimed that they loved her and treated her as part of their family, yet they would not let her keep the children she bore. She only saw her daughter, Morgan’s mother, two or three times a year. Although Nan had assumed she would stay with the family her whole life, they fired her, and then begged her to return. She agreed to come back because they were the only stable factor in her life, only to be fired second time. In her old age, she was bitter and frequently estranged from the daughter whom she been forced to give up. After describing the strenuous work expected of her and always having her meals alone in the kitchen, Nan said, ”You see, it’s no use them sayin’ I was one of the family, ‘cause I wasn’t. I was their servant.”
Reading this story, I thought again about scholars who claim that race and gender have no reality because they are only “social categories.” Maybe race and gender do not have any biological meaning other than that we give them, but as “social categories” race and gender can determine almost everything about the lives some individuals are allowed. Categories like race and gender can give some groups of humans the power to abuse other human beings in very real concrete ways.
My Place focuses mainly on the treatment of aborigines by white Australians. I hope that other books I plan to read will introduce me to more of their culture and society. As a white, American woman, the stories of Morgan and her family resonated with what I know of both African American and Native American treatment, and yet the setting and the particulars were unique.
I feel richer for having read this book and recommend it strongly to others.
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LibraryThing member arubabookwoman
Sally Morgan grew up in Perth, Australia with her mother, grandmother and her alcoholic father, who clearly was suffering severe PTSD, and was frequently hospitalized. Although her early life was difficult and chaotic, it was also at times magical, and I thoroughly enjoyed the portion of the book
Her grandmother was one of the "lost generation" of aboriginal children--those children of mixed race who were removed from their homes and mothers to be raised by the government or by missionaries. During [[Morgan's]] childhood, her grandmother's background was a deep, dark secret. She knew her grandmother looked "different" and that she herself was darker than some of her classmates, but she was told that this was because they were from India. I find it incredible that at that time (the 1960's), in that place (Western Australia), [[Morgan]], an extremely intelligent teenager, would accept this fiction. When, at university age, she discovered the truth, she began to search for her roots and to try to reconnect with her grandmother's aboriginal relatives. She also wanted to find out the identity of her grandmother's father, and her mother's father.
In this part of the memoir, [[Morgan]]'s prose loses its sparkle and becomes dull. It also feels unfocused, as here she is working on her degree, then here she is taking a trip to the outback, then marrying and babies and research all together in very little order. It wasn't necessarily confusing--it just felt scattered, and whatever analysis there was was thin. And while the book includes a little factual/historical information, it is not organized or put in context, so the book is not valuable as a history. I wouldn't call this a "bad" book, but I hope that there somewhere exists a better book on this subject.
2 stars
(By the way, [[Morgan]] is now a well-respected aboriginal artist. I heard of her through her artwork, rather than because of this book, which evidently is required reading in some Australian schools).
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describing her early childhood. The book failed to engage me when it began to focus on the author's quest for her racial and ethnic roots.Her grandmother was one of the "lost generation" of aboriginal children--those children of mixed race who were removed from their homes and mothers to be raised by the government or by missionaries. During [[Morgan's]] childhood, her grandmother's background was a deep, dark secret. She knew her grandmother looked "different" and that she herself was darker than some of her classmates, but she was told that this was because they were from India. I find it incredible that at that time (the 1960's), in that place (Western Australia), [[Morgan]], an extremely intelligent teenager, would accept this fiction. When, at university age, she discovered the truth, she began to search for her roots and to try to reconnect with her grandmother's aboriginal relatives. She also wanted to find out the identity of her grandmother's father, and her mother's father.
In this part of the memoir, [[Morgan]]'s prose loses its sparkle and becomes dull. It also feels unfocused, as here she is working on her degree, then here she is taking a trip to the outback, then marrying and babies and research all together in very little order. It wasn't necessarily confusing--it just felt scattered, and whatever analysis there was was thin. And while the book includes a little factual/historical information, it is not organized or put in context, so the book is not valuable as a history. I wouldn't call this a "bad" book, but I hope that there somewhere exists a better book on this subject.
2 stars
(By the way, [[Morgan]] is now a well-respected aboriginal artist. I heard of her through her artwork, rather than because of this book, which evidently is required reading in some Australian schools).
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LibraryThing member Jaguar897
Another book I’m glad I picked up thanks to a fellow Viner. This is a non-fiction account of the life of Aboriginal professor, artist and author Sally Morgan. The book goes through her memories of childhood dealing with her sometimes abusive father, the struggles of her mother and grandmother
Prior to this book I had no idea of the Aboriginal culture or Austrialia’s history for that matter. This was a good introduction into the topic. Morgan’s book not only touches on Morgan’s own personal story and struggle, but also that of her grandmother and her great uncle helping to give a well rounded view of the cultural and generational change towards national acceptance.
Morgan has an honest way of writing, which makes it almost seem like she is just chatting with you and telling you her story of discovery. There were moments that I was cracking up at her smartassness and other moments that were genuinely touching. By the end of the book I was sobbing uncontrollably because Morgan’s grandmother reminded me of my own grandmother who passed away. It made me miss her and wonder what stories I may have missed from her.
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trying to provide for Sally and her siblings, and her discovery of her Aboriginal culture. Prior to this book I had no idea of the Aboriginal culture or Austrialia’s history for that matter. This was a good introduction into the topic. Morgan’s book not only touches on Morgan’s own personal story and struggle, but also that of her grandmother and her great uncle helping to give a well rounded view of the cultural and generational change towards national acceptance.
Morgan has an honest way of writing, which makes it almost seem like she is just chatting with you and telling you her story of discovery. There were moments that I was cracking up at her smartassness and other moments that were genuinely touching. By the end of the book I was sobbing uncontrollably because Morgan’s grandmother reminded me of my own grandmother who passed away. It made me miss her and wonder what stories I may have missed from her.
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LibraryThing member juniperSun
Sally persists in finding the truth about her heritage. Her mother and grandmother were raised in a strongly prejudiced society that would take mixed blood babies away from their aborigine mothers and so kept secrets.
If this was a novel, I would not have rated it 4 star, because the tale drags in
If this was a novel, I would not have rated it 4 star, because the tale drags in
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parts, e.g. when no progress is made, but the importance of speaking the truth makes this a worthwhile memoir. Show Less
LibraryThing member geniemagik
This is a facinating story about how we transition from being members of traditional society into the mainstream. It is a generational account of this movement.
LibraryThing member Cheryl_in_CC_NV
Read in one afternoon, evening, and night. Just mesmerizing. I still think people should not drink if they're having trouble, and not have more kids if they can't take care of the ones they have, but I feel a bit more sympathy for what it must be like to be in desperate straits or whatever.
I highly
I highly
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recommend this to everyone who cares about racism, or family, or history, or slavery, not just in Australia but anywhere - universal themes that apply to American Indians and African-Americans for sure, probably also Canadian First Peoples, Tibetans, East Indians, etc. Show Less
LibraryThing member csoki637
Realized there is a lot I need to learn about Australian Aboriginal history.
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Call number
BA MORGAN