The Stolen Generation Research Paper

Ladies and gentlemen, do you truly understand what the Stolen Generation is and what the Indigenous Australians had to suffer? I am not here to tell you right from the wrong, no, I am here today to present all the facts for you to make the decision yourself. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd may have apologised to those affecting in his "sorry speech", but Ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you; sorry is not going to change the past, nor it is not going to fix it. My job today is to inform you that the Stolen Generation is still a problem today. The conversation will focus on how it is still effecting their culture today, the issues the suffer due to the past, and that they are still looking for their families.

Firstly, the Aboriginals take pride in their culture and have a very strong connection with it. The moment the children were taken away from their families, their connection broke. Their culture is their home, their land, their

family, and it was all taken away from them. Aboriginal children were taken away to go to school to get educated, but they were educated, they were learning their culture. Could you imagine being taken away from your family because the government did not like the things your family was teaching you like, your culture, way of living, and stories of how it became?

Secondly, this generation experience ongoing psychological issue as they deal with after their traumatic past.

Their psychological wellbeing was never considered and there were no avenues for them to get help. It is a fact that over half of the people effected suffered loneliness, low self-esteem, and loss of identity later on in life. Most put their feelings into hate which caused problems to the society. Joy Makepeace, taken away when she was less than a years old said "I was hurting and had found no way of safely healing the pain, so I turned the pain into anger, resentment and bitterness inwards and did what many of us do, which is to punish and hurt ourselves. Despite being loved, I choose to suffer from days of depression and I couldn't see any hope in the future". So, when you see some Aboriginals undertaking criminal or bad behaviours, before you judge them because of their colour, or their heritage, consider what might be the reason behind their behaviours and how our society might have contributed to their psychological

state.

Finally ,people are still trying to find their families. The Stolen Generation ended in 1970 which was 47 years ago. Despite this, aboriginal people are still looking for the families, homes and land. What is most concerning is that most aboriginals from the Stole generation did not their families until they were 30 years old or older. The problem with meeting your families so late in life is that you no longer have such a strong connection with your family, the childhood memories growing up together are not there, and the bond has been lost. Aunty Maria Starsevik who was taken away at age two said " I met my mother for the first time when I was in my 30s, and it was sad because too much time had passed, and it was hard to make a connection".

Therefore in conclusion, I have discussed the very important topics of the breakage of the Aboriginal culture, the issue they face afterwards, and how the family relationship was broken. I hope I have persuaded you that the Stolen Generation is still an issue today. The word sorry, cannot change the past and will not fix the future. So it is time to make a change. Thank you for listening.