Reflection by Erin Macnamara

I enjoyed this assignment and I feel that I have become more aware of Indigenous issues and its really opened my eyes up more about our countries history and made me realise just how important history and family is to making us who we are and the problems that arise from not having that connection to family or history.


The topic of ‘Returning Home, New Family Histories’ incorporated the theme of identity and we decided it also incorporated the theme of stolen generation. I think that the stolen generation and what we know about it and the impact of that on Indigenous Australians today shows just how much identity – which is made up of history, culture and family – is important. The film Rabbit Proof Fence and the novel Finding Ullagundahi Island represent our topic very well. They both incorporate the themes of identity, family, culture and history.


This assignment was made easy and fun by having a good group, especially Rebecca, who went out of her way to organise and set up the blog and who took the time to meet up and discuss the assignment. I think it is a great way of presenting our information and I found it more enjoyable then having to write an essay, it was good to do something a little more modern and making good use of the technologies available to us. I loved reading the novel Finding Ullagundahi Island as well as the novel Butterfly Song which has the same themes and I read for the previous assignment, and I plan on reading more novels similar.