Memorising the Acknowledgement of Country and other rites of passage

I had to Google “What’s a culture?” and heard my degrees scream in pain.

In those first months Down Under, I witnessed the celebration of the Queen’s Official Birthday, which was not her birthday and allegedly changed every year, and the Friday Before The Grand Final. Nothing happens on that day, as the Grand Final for the Grand Australian Football League is on the following Grand Saturday instead. Go figure.

Cover Letters are just corporate fan-fiction. - What I lack in skill I make up for in anger and enthusiasm.

Give Victorians a day off and get ready for protests.

Here, they had a day off for anything. On top of the usual Religious celebrations, there were Victoria-specific ones. The Melbourne Cup with horse races, protests and funny hats; Regent’s Jubilee with protests and tea parties; Australian and New Zealand Army Corps Day with coconut cookies for charity and, of course, protests; Labour Day; Australia Day, also known as Invasion Day.

Every year there is much debate around Australia Day and possibly changing the date, the name, the meaning, or cancelling it altogether. January 26th 1788, was the day the First Fleet arrived on the Continent and Arthur Phillip planted the Union Flag of Great Britain.

Spoiler alert: this key piece of information will be in my citizenship test almost a decade later.

But you might have gathered that Arthur & The Gang were not the first people on this Land.

Every day is like the classic American Thanksgiving celebration but without stuffed turkey.

Colonialism happened in many ways throughout history and across the World. In the case of Australia, Aboriginal tribes were suddenly deemed not fit for modern society. British Colonialists crippled Aboriginal culture and its peoples. They implemented race-based policies that removed kids from their already marginalised families and communities from 1910 to the 1970s. In 2008, the Prime Minister offered a formal apology for the ‘Stolen Generations’ but many claimed that an apology didn’t change the fact that Australia was created on land that belonged to someone else, leaving modern Australians assaulted by the kind of guilt I’ve only seen in Berlin before.

Every event, from cinema screenings to work meetings, begins with an ‘Acknowledgement of Country’ recognising that the land originally belonged to First Nations peoples and that respect must be paid to their elders past, present, and emerging.

If we had a similar practice back in my hometown we would have to acknowledge a long list of historical inhabitants: Celts, Romans, Visigoths, the Western Roman Empire, Odoacer, the Ostrogothic Kingdom, the Byzantine Empire, the Lombard Kingdom, Bavarians, the Frankish Kingdom, the Holy Roman Empire, the Austrian Empire, Austria-Hungarians and, finally, Italians.

I must have skipped the Australian history chapter in school because playing Cards Against Humanity Aussie Edition with the Boyfriend’s friends, my lack of knowledge was a dead giveaway of which answer was mine. Another painful example of how unprepared I was, was kindly provided during the same game night. In a head-to-head pictionary match, fate wanted me to guess the word ‘First Nation Peoples’, my clue was a quickly hand-drawn Aboriginal flag.

My last words before losing the game were ‘a square Pokeball’.

Last year, I took part in a morally and ethically challenging referendum. We all had to vote on whether to change the Constitution to officially recognise the First Peoples by establishing a dedicated body. In the end, the referendum did not pass. I felt like an imposter, having to vote for something so foreign to me. It was not my voice that was missing and I feared it was not my vote to cast.

Note to self: not a square pokeball. Courtesy of Canva PRO.

Finally, I was applying for jobs.

In my quest for a job, any job, I ended up applying for a Content Editing position at a University, a something-something for L’Oreal as if I stood a chance, and as a Health Information Service clerk for a Hospital. This last role came about via one of the Boyfriend’s friends, who worked in Health Information Services (aka medical records) and assured me she’d put in a good word for me.

By that point, I had experience with the Australian form-filling process. I wasn’t questioning the omnipresent question related to Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander background anymore, but I was not ready for what was about to come.

What culture/s do you identify with?

Like, alternative? Nerd? Millennial? Thank god there was a drop-down list.

There was no ‘Italian’ so ‘White’ was my next best option. I hovered over ‘Latinx’ but squinted. Technically, as Mediterranean people, we did go back to Latin roots… But was this what they meant? Surely not. But then, why was ‘Hispanic’ on the list? I felt more Hispanic than Germanic, but history would disagree. I scrolled up and down the list several times before I found ‘European’ and clicked on it.

That will do.

As an Italian from Italy, I can assure you, that was the first time I ever identified as a European. Europeans didn’t identify as Europeans. There was a staggering lack of patriotism on that side of the pond if we compared it to how many North Americans fly the U.S. flag on their front porch. I’ve never even seen a European flag.

Are you part of a minority?

Am I? I mean… as a white human being, no. Were migrants and ‘English Second Language’ a minority in Australia? Probably not. Women with a double degree wouldn’t be the majority but I am a cis, straight, able-bodied, neurotypical person, and I can’t claim to be a minority.

I needed the reverse approach: what have I been discriminated against? Only child, divorced parents, overweight, alternative… That didn’t seem like the information a recruiter would want.

Maybe, if I needed to ask myself the question, I didn’t belong to a minority.

Smart.

So, I ticked no.

Those first job applications taught me a lot about myself and how I handle unexpected questions: Google and panic.

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Directly from the archives, please enjoy this authentic photographic evidence:

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Cover Letters are just corporate fan-fiction