Paper Summary:

This paper discusses the historical Australian plan of seizing half-caste Aboriginal children from their families so that they would be reared in orphanages where they could be cultured with the intent of marrying them off to white men. The paper explains that the historical accounts of these occurrences have begun to emerge with the life writings of Indigenous woman who suffered through this crime. Two such works are Ruby Langford's "Don't Take Your Love to Town" and Doris Pilkington's mother's life story, "Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence". This paper analyzes both of these works from a literary and historical context.

From the Paper:

"The callous separation of Indigenous children from their homes and societies and barbaric policy of ethnic cleansing rank among the most heartless atrocities in the annals of history, and the least understood facet of post-colonial Australian history. The discriminatory Australian plan of seizing half-caste Aboriginal children from their Aboriginal families to be reared in orphanages where they could be cultured with the intent of marrying them to a white person or grooming them to become domestic servants was set into motion in 1931. It was phenomenon not born in the 20th century, but an injustice that gathered momentum at this time. Only in the past few years have the gruesome details of the crime surfaced, with Aboriginal families advocating for a Federal Government inquiry into the matter. The accounts of those Indigenous people who had to suffer the anguish of broken attachments and imperialist impulses have begun to surface with the emergence of the life writings of Indigenous women, including the autobiographical narration of Ruby Langford in Don't Take Your Love to Town (1988) and Doris Pilkington's mother's life story, immortalized in Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence (1996), both of which will be analyzed in this report from a literary and historical context."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Langford, Ruby, and Susan Hampton. Don't Take Your Love to Town. Ringwood, Victoria, Australia: Penguin, 1988.
• Pilkington, Doris. Rabbit-Proof Fence. New York: Hyperion, 2002.
• Brewster, Anne. Reading Aboriginal Women's Autobiography. Horizon studies in literature. South Melbourne, Australia: Sydney University Press, 1996.
• Carrodus, Geraldine, Libby Tudball, and Tammy Walsh. Rabbit Proof Fence: A Study Guide. Metro. Melbourne: Australian Teachers of Media, 2001.
• Clark, Y. "The Construction of Aboriginal Identity in People Separated from Their Families, Community, and Culture: Pieces of a Jigsaw." AUSTRALIAN PSYCHOLOGIST. 35 (2000): 150-157.

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