hand-me-down silence
At six or seven, a secret was passed down—one heavy for young shoulders, but it was held all the same. Father leaned in close as though the air itself had ears. His words carried a weight that couldn’t yet be named, but they lingered: “Don’t ever tell anyone you’re Aboriginal. It will make your life hard.”
At the time, the whole meaning of his words was elusive, but the fear behind them was palpable. It was the same fear that had shaped his life, passed down from his mother, and she from hers. Growing up in a country that treated us as invisible unless we were seen as a problem, Father did what many before him had done—he hid and, in doing so, taught the same lesson.
Born a few years after Australia’s Coloured Minority was published—a document that turned us into numbers, categories, and policies—Father learned that to exist as Wiradjuri was to be erased. His mother, my grandmother, had said, “Act like a white child, or they will take you away.” It wasn’t advice. It was survival—the only way she knew to protect him in a world where Wiradjuri boys had no space to grow into Wiradjuri men.
By the time that silence was passed down, the policies of assimilation had already torn through generations. The Stolen Generations, they called it—a neat name for something devastatingly untidy. Families were torn apart, children taken from their mothers, and cultures severed from the lands they belonged to. Father’s life had been shaped by the threat of erasure—being removed from his family and himself. When he taught the lesson to hide, it wasn’t harm he intended—it was protection. But in that protection, the same suffocating silence was handed down.
This is the legacy of the Australian Colonial Project. It wasn’t just about taking land. It was about taking us—our language, culture, and sense of self. The ghost of that loss followed him, and in passing on the lesson of silence, that ghost settled over the next generation. “Don’t tell anyone,” it whispered, its voice as heavy as his.
But how can one bury who they are? Its wrongness felt like an itch beneath the skin, even as a child. To be told to hide one’s identity is violence that leaves no visible scars, but the marks remain. Beside the silence was shame nestled deep, gnawing at the edges of self-understanding. It was the kind of shame that didn’t need to be spoken; it was written in the air, woven into the looks of others, and reflected in how society moved. One begins to learn early on that something about who they are, something inherited, is wrong. Silence and shame wrapped themselves like a second skin. The lesson was clear: disappear or be erased.
The policies may have softened in the 1980s and ’90s, but the impact did not. Like so many others, our family was still reeling from the aftermath. Walking through the ruins of what had been taken, we tried to piece together fragments of ourselves, unaware of what had been buried long before.
Searching for connection became a journey—seeking out pieces of an identity buried beneath the weight of history. But how does one search for something they’ve been told to hide? The process of reclaiming Wiradjuri heritage has never been linear. It’s been full of false starts, moments of clarity followed by confusion, steps forward and setbacks. The question remains: What does it mean to be something taught to be denied?
Cultural reclamation isn’t a process with a neat resolution. It’s ongoing, like a conversation stretching across generations. Each time a new word in Wiradjuri is learned, each time stories of the ancestors are revisited, there’s a sense of reclamation—but also a sense of loss. It’s never just about recovering what was taken. It’s about navigating the space between what remains and what’s possible.
Baldwin’s words resonate: history is not to blame or condemn but to understand. There’s no blame for Father’s warning to hide who we were. He did what he thought would keep us safe—he was a product of his time, of the violence done to him, to his family, to his people. But understanding doesn’t erase the pain. It doesn’t make it easier to carry the knowledge that parts of us were buried long before birth. It offers a way forward, knowing that reclaiming self and culture will never be complete. And that’s okay.
Now, life exists between what was and what is still to come. The trauma of the colonial project remains, but so does the hope of reconnection. This story isn’t just about survival, though survival is a part of it. It’s about resistance, about refusing to let the weight of silence define who we are. Wiradjuri identity stands, and no history, policy, or whispered warning can take that away.
But it’s not a conclusion. What they tried to erase, I am still finding. What they sought to silence, I am still learning to speak. Dhulu-ya-rra-bu: I talk straight, listen deeply, and listen to the voices of those who walk this path beside me. Buram-ba-bi-rra: I share what I’ve learned, but my story is only one of many, part of a collective story of survival and reclamation. Marraga-la-dha: I care for my community because I know our strength lies in our struggles and hopes. Gulba-ngi-dyili-nya: I know who I am, but I also know that my identity is not fixed—it grows, it evolves. Walan-ma-ya Wiradjuri mayiny-galang: I advocate for Wiradjuri self-determination, knowing that true sovereignty is an ongoing process. Wama-rra Wiradjuri gulbanha: I build knowledge, but I understand that building means honouring the past and shaping the future. Nganga-dha nguram-bang: I look after Country, and in doing so, I look after myself, knowing we are one.
There isn’t a final destination in this process. There is no ultimate reclaiming. What matters is that we continue moving forward, unearthing what was lost and speaking into being what was silenced.
Clinton Hayden is a Wiradjuri Blak queer artist and writer based in Melbourne. His practice spans photography, AI image creation, print media, drawing, and bricolage, exploring the intersections of personal and collective histories. Clinton’s work is deeply informed by his commitment to preserving and promoting Wiradjuri language and engaging with Indigenous Queer Futurism.
