ipl-logo

Assimilation Policy On Indigenous Australians

747 Words3 Pages

The nature of government policies and their impact on indigenous Australians.

Assimilation Policy
The assimilation policy was introduced in 1937 in the Australian government’s effort to abolish aboriginal culture and assimilate children indigenous and white background into Australian society. This was an intended strategy of absorbing Aboriginal people into white society through the process of forcibly removing children from their families. The policy was introduced by the Commonwealth Government by holding a national conference on Aboriginal affairs which agreed that Aboriginal people ‘not of full blood’ should be integrated into the wider population. All of the commonwealth states agreed to the adoption of the assimilation process, In …show more content…

The implemented policy expected Indigenous people to take responsibility for becoming the same as white people, but never gave them the same rights or opportunities to do so.

Zita Wallace, who was taken aged eight years old signified the opposite effects of the assimilation policy the government hoped for, explaining; “There is no black or white, we are both of those. I am black and I am white. We were the product of white men raping our traditional women. We were an embarrassment. No-one wanted us. They just wanted us out of the way.”

She explained the Impacts on the children at the time, that many children of the Stolen Generations were psychologically, physically, and sexually abused while living in state care institutions or with adoptive families. Living conditions in the institutions were highly controlled, with common harsh punishments, the children were often cold and hungry and received minimal if any affection from adult figures. They generally received a very low level of education, as they were expected to work as manual laborers. These children were indoctrinated to reject their culture often caused them to feel ashamed of their Indigenous heritage. Many children were wrongly told that their parents had died or abandoned them, and many never knew where they had been …show more content…

The era of forcible removal and assimilation continued until the mid 1960's. The damaging impacts of the removal policies continue to resonate through the future generations of Aboriginal families as the trauma is inherited by new children in multifaceted ways through parenting practices, behavioral problems, violence, unresolved grief and trauma, and mental illness. in psychological studies of aboriginal families, there have noted a high incidence of depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress and suicide among the Stolen

Show More
Related

How Did The White Australia Policy Limit The Growth Of Multiculturalism

644 Words | 3 Pages

How did the White Australia Policy limit the growth of multiculturalism in Australia during the 1900’s? The immigration Act 1901 was an act of the Parliament of Australia which limited immigration, and tried to exclude all non-Europeans from living and working in Australia. The “White Australia” policy was the name given to a group of laws that stopped non-Europeans from coming to live in Australia. As a non-European, to live in Australia you had to pass a dictation test to prove if you could speak the European languages.

Read More

Australian Government Policies And Practices Affected Patterns Of Migration

589 Words | 3 Pages

History assignment How have Australian government policies and practices affected patterns of migration and changed Australia since World War Two? Changing government policies and practices have affected pattern of migration to Australia and changed Australia significantly since World War Two. Policies such as ‘populate or perish’ and the ending of the ‘White Australia Policy’ changed Australia from a largely British society to a multicultural one.

Read More

Aboriginal Culture: The Ngunnawal People In Australia

483 Words | 2 Pages

Regrettably, the impacts of colonisation have had detrimental effects on the Indigenous cultures remaining within Australia, being effected largely by media stereotypes and false accusations. Understandably, a mistrust for the government has developed throughout generations within Aboriginal communities, as years of slavery, pain, grief, depression and sorrow were caused by the Australian

Read More

Paul Buttigieg's Kinchel Racism Towards Aboriginal Australians

1053 Words | 5 Pages

Due to the actions promoted by racism against aboriginals from the year 1910- 1970 many Indigenous Australians have grown into adults still carrying the scars of the past. Some will never come to know their birth parents or who they truly are. They will grow old with the remembrance of a past full of torture and abuse that they will carry till the day they die. They grew up with the idea that their heritage should be rejected since it is the ‘inferior’ way of life.

Read More

The White Australia Policy

278 Words | 2 Pages

The ‘White Australia Policy’ was first put in place by the federal government in 1901. The overall aim of the policy was to limit non-white immigration, especially Asians. At the time, 98% of Australia’s population were white; Australia wanted to maintain this number, and aim to have the country mainly consist of British people. With most of the country already white, the majority of Australians supported the policy when it was first introduced; this is because the white Australians were concerned about losing their jobs to non-white workers. They believed a restrictive immigration policy was the only way to ensure a secure future.

Read More

Land Dispossession In Indigenous Australia

115 Words | 1 Pages

‘Stolen Generation’ is the systematic forcible removal of Indigenous children from their families to be brought in institutions and training homes from the period of 1910 until the mid-1970. These created

Read More

White Australia Policy: Racism Vs. Aboriginal Culture

625 Words | 3 Pages

It may be believed that the culture’s ways are always the best, and other cultures are not considered to have any positive elements. This was the thinking behind the ‘White Australia Policy’; after years of half-hearted protection full-blood Aborigines were allowed to die out, while part-Aborigines were encouraged to assimilate into European culture. In 1937, the government released a policy paper which concluded: “The policy of the Commonwealth is to do everything possible to convert the half-caste into a white citizen.” In practice, the ‘half-castes’ were not accepted by the white society causing the assimilation policies to fail, due mainly to high Aboriginal unemployment. It is poignant to highlight that while policies specifically regarding Aborigines were terribly intolerant, it was racism from the community that rendered the policies ineffective.

Read More

How Did Canada Treat Aboriginal People

1245 Words | 5 Pages

For example, in 1867, the Indian Act was passed and that act was made to eliminate First Nations peoples’ cultures and they had their rights and land taken away without any warning. This was the beginning of how Canada began their process of assimilation with the Indian Act. Along with the Indian Act, the major expansion of residential schools was a major factor in Canada’s history with Aboriginal peoples and how they treated them. The intention of residential schools were to assimilate the children into Euro-Canadian cultures without any influence from the parents. Kids age 7 to 15 were removed from their homes and were forced to live far away.

Read More

Protection And Segregation: Policy Targeting To Indigenous Australians

206 Words | 1 Pages

Protection and segregation is the policy targeting to indigenous people within around 1890s to 1950s, it is ‘a policy of despair. ’(Hasluck, 1953). In this period of time, Indigenous people are suffering from the beginning and formal institutional racism in the society. The aim of policy are so called protecting and assisting indigenous people by segregate them. In late eighteenth century, ideology of people who are more ‘primeval’ will eventually extinct as the development traced by the European was dominant in Australia society.

Read More

Impact Of Assimilation Policy On Indigenous People

1574 Words | 7 Pages

These children became know as the stolen generation. The government took Aboriginal children, especially those who were half indigenous and half white. They were placed in institutions, foster homes or adopted out to teach them white ways and beliefs. In the institutions, girls were taught to be domestic servants for white people and boys were made to do farming and other hard manual tasks. These homes often denied any contact with the children’s families and did not teach them anything about their culture or heritage.

Read More

Child Removal In Australia Persuasive Speech

779 Words | 4 Pages

Statistics reveal that in 2012, 13,689 Aboriginal children across New South Wales were removed from their families, which was a 2.6% increase from the previous year. The effects of child removal on Indigenous children are detrimental and have long-term psychological and emotional consequences, according to a report by The Guardian, The Closing the Gap campaign aims to address this issue by committing to breaking the current cycle of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child removal and improving outcomes for children through early intervention programs, family support, and community empowerment (Closing The Gap, 2008) (Guardian,

Read More

Impact Of The Assimilation Policy On The Stolen Generations

698 Words | 3 Pages

Some were adopted by white families, and many were placed in institutions, where abuse and neglect were common. (Behrendt, L. 2012) Some Indigenous Families are still affected to this

Read More

Dispossession Of Aboriginal Essay

543 Words | 3 Pages

The policy of protection that removed Aboriginal children from their families between 1910 and 1970 by Government and church missionaries was an attempt to assimilate them into the White Australian society and breed out the Aboriginal race. Firstly and most importantly, the separation and removal of children from their families and tribal elders meant that these children were unable to maintain their cultural identity. They were either taken to missions/reserves or white families where traditional practices and language was prohibited. The restriction on practices such as the kinship system, totems and ceremonial rituals, all of which are mediums through which the Dreaming is expressed, diminished the children’s ties with their

Read More

Ethnic Inequality In Indigenous Australia

250 Words | 1 Pages

The impact of ethnic inequality has been detrimental to indigenous Australians, with the consequences of internal colonialism still affecting them today (text). Loss of language and Dreamtime stories have meant that they have had to rebuild their identity and break free from British oppression by banding together to create stronger communities. Indigenous Australians who live in rural areas of Australia have fewer opportunities when it comes to education, employment, healthcare and housing (text pg. 350). These issues can be once again linked back to the systems that are in place within the country, the way the government approaches these issues in regards to indigenous welfare is problematic. In 2015, the Abbott government supported the decision

Read More

Report On The Lack Of Access To Justice For Aboriginal Australians

1539 Words | 7 Pages

Initially, European invasion meant that Aboriginal people were held accountable to a law they neither understood, nor believed in. Their own laws have throughout history been rejected, ridiculed and ignored. The Stolen Generations are another issue of mistrust. Aboriginal children were removed from their families under government orders, and for many Indigenous people, the presence of government officials is still associated with family separation. Past events, including dispossession of land, separation of families, poverty, racism, unemployment, overrepresentation in the justice system, education standards and loss of identity, country and connection to land, have led to Aboriginal people being disadvantaged when compared to the wider Australian population (NSW Department of Community Services, 2009).

Read More

More about Assimilation Policy On Indigenous Australians

Related Topics

Open Document