Who Am I by Chelsea Quayle (17, Australia)

Words hold power. And words of power often begin at an individual's roots - heritage, ancestry, descendance. Yet there is an irony in that the same words that hold power, if not clear and obvious, can be rendered useless.
As an adolescent, ‘identity’ was a word that lingered with me. It’s important. Being true to yourself was emphasised and hammered into me - and those around me. A true emphasis on striving to become a name with a face, not a face within the crowd. Yet each time I'd write down ‘Who am I?’, unending blue lines stared back at me. 
I was neither fair or dark - somewhere in between. Born and bred on Australian land and soil, yet on my back lay the weight of distant, cross cultural ancestry. My father's side is a clash of European and Aboriginal descent, my mother, Maori and Maltese.

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I once envied the girl who proudly, with certainty, claimed she was of Indonesian descent. This was proven by her close relatives. She had access to the facts; to her history. She was validated. I wanted to feel validated. She looked the part, sounded the part, so in the eyes of others, she was the part. This was accepted because in a society although words hold power, they only hold power for those who are clear cut. Those categorised in greyscale were followed with weary eyes. 
“What percentage of you is aboriginal?’ they’d say. 
“But you don’t look aboriginal… You don’t look Australian either...’
“You aren’t a full-blood, or a half caste or even a quadroon. Why do you get privileges without proof? It isn’t fair.” 
 
According to ’A report on a Review of the Administration of the working definition of an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, 1981’ there is a ‘three part’ definition of Aboriginal identity claiming that those recognised by the law had to be ‘A person of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent who identified as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander and is accepted as such by the community in which he or she lives.'
 
Is it fair? 
 
Is this fair that I need evidence to fit their ‘one dimensional model of Aboriginality for my ‘cross cultural diversity’ to  be validated? Is recognition based on clinical physical features, to a cold and simple checklist for cookie-cutter authenticity. Evidence, they wish for, from decades, even centuries ago. Evidence that for many was swept away, nothing but dead ends, as forgetting was better than facing the stigma from a society stuck in conservative ways. Better to not speak of it, because unlike those who identify as Indonesian, there is no good that comes from those who claim to be the custodians of the land. 
According to the 2011 census, the mixed race and cross cultural population was the fastest growing group accounting for  2.2% of Australia’s population,  yet they are the most stereotyped and misrepresented. The fact remains that white authority continues to define cultural identity ‘a creation for privileged opportunists to make decisions always about us rather than by us’ as articulated by Julie Tommy Walker, an Innawonga woman and Aboriginal leader. 
 
So what privileges do I have? 
 
Stan Grant, Indigenous journalist and broadcaster states ‘If the very essence of belonging has been ruptured and the certainty of heritage blurred then identity often becomes mystified and  meaningless personal.’’ He refers to my problem, my self esteem, my concept of unique and valued heritage.
 
A privilege to hold an identity? To proudly claim my ancestry, all my parts, without criticism or skepticism?
 
Is it fair?
 
To stare at a void space, 
 
lines ceaseless, in the distance an image blurring, disfiguring before my eyes. 
 
With no answer
 
to the question 
 
“Who am I?“ 

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