Can Generational Pain Be Tamed?

How I relate to Aboriginal people and their struggle

Stolen Generation children at the Kahlin Compound in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia in 1921. Photo courtesy of , Public Domain

Being born in Australia to Greek Cypriot parents I always felt connected to Aboriginal people, in fact, my first boyfriend when I was fifteen was Aboriginal.

I remember walking through the schoolyard in high school holding hands. People used to stare at us with scrunched-up noses but I felt comfortable with him.

As a granddaughter of refugees myself, our whereabouts today stem from British colonization like the Aboriginal people but also from Turkish invasion and migration. I never knew the Cyprus my mother knew or the open fields in her village where her mother used to tend while she played hide and seek among the lemon trees.

Gone.

So too, was the Australia my first boyfriend’s ancestors knew, only made possible to his generation through stories from elders.

When you think of the British invasion in the 19th century, their attempt at ethnic cleansing of Aboriginal people, colonization, and the , survival depends on becoming resilient to generational pain.