YarnUp 8: Aunty Donna

What does Community, Mob, Culture mean to me? It’s family. It’s all of that. And family is not just our direct family unit, you know

I’m a Wiradjuri woman, my family is from Cowra in central West NSW. But I was born and raised pretty much really in Sydney on Gadigal Land, Redfern Waterloo and then out at Mascot. I now live on Bidjigal Country at Hillsdale. I am a Mother of four, and a Grandmother of seven. I come from a big family, Dad was, one of eleven kids. On Mum’s side there’s only her and my Uncle, so only two on that side but there’s a lot of kids, grandkids and great grandkids. I got a new one yesterday for my birthday, so I have a birthday twin. Everyone in the family’s got a niece or nephew born on their birthday, but I didn’t – so now I do. That’s my nephew’s son, so it’s my great nephew. And my other baby, my sister’s grandchild is only about 3 weeks old. So, they don’t get to stay the baby for long in my family, we might have to have a break for a little while now.

Culture is what keeps you strong, I guess. It’s having that strength in knowing that you come from the oldest living Culture in the world, that’s what I want my grandkids to know.

What does Community, Mob, Culture mean to me? It’s family. It’s all of that. And family is not just our direct family unit, you know – all the cousins that came out of those 11 on this side and two on this side – that’s our family. But then we also have people that are connected to our family that are not blood-related but they’re still counted as Mob. And Culture is everything you know. And when I talk about community, there’s of course the Aboriginal community and the organisations, sports communities, and networks as well. Past history, this what I talk about on my walking tours. I only knew the political side of being Aboriginal, but I didn’t have the Culture side because of our past history that’s been denied. But now I know a lot more, and there’s still a lot I don’t know about Culture in different communities. Culture is what keeps you strong, I guess. It’s having that strength in knowing that you come from the oldest living Culture in the world, that’s what I want my grandkids to know. They’re allowed to know now from when their born. It happens, it’s part of their life. At the end of the day, it’s family to me. There’s so many of them that It’s hard to think about other things sometimes, with so many birthdays and different events.