Hearts sing when stories are returned home

Elfie Shiosaki in conversation with Jay Anderson about her debut collection Homecoming.

Jay Anderson
Homecoming  traces your family’s history across four generations and is written using archival records, letters and oral history; it is a truly incredible debut Elfie, and I’m sure it was sown from many seeds, but I am eager to learn more about the research project that underpinned it. 

Elfie Shiosaki
Thank you, Jay. I think Homecoming grew from my desire to reconnect with my grandmother’s stories and her Whadjuk and Wilman Noongar ancestors. I remember reading some of these stories in archival records our family had been given and this encouraged me to do more archival research. 

In particular, I was moved by a collection of letters written by my grandmother’s grandfather, Edward Harris, about his children who had been removed as part of the Stolen Generations. Edward Harris corresponded with the Chief Protector of Aborigines, A. O. Neville, for more than a decade between 1915 and 1926, pleading for his children to be returned to him. I thought of these letters as love letters for his children, in a way. 

From 2015 to 2018 I held a position as an Indigenous Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Human Rights Education at Curtin University and I had an opportunity to explore in my research how Noongar people had historically protested against the 1905 Aborigines Act, in particular the forcible removal of children, and how this protest had been recorded in archives. These records hold precious stories about Noongar people’s unending love and care for their children.  

In Homecoming, I wanted to find a way to recover my own family’s stories from archives and return them home. 

Jay Anderson
It’s really wonderful that your family held onto those love letters and that others did the same so that you could return these stories home but I imagine that combining all of this research, all of the materials – from the archives and letters and conversations you had with your loved ones – would have been a monumental effort. Yet, the entire collection flows so wonderfully and combining the perspectives of many members of your family and shifting from one to the other throughout makes for an astoundingly powerful read. Can you tell us more about weaving Homecoming together? 

Elfie Shiosaki
Some of the stories in Homecoming are held in archives. Some are held in spoken word histories recorded with my grandmother and great-grandmother, or family stories and memories. Others are even held in my imagination. Some are big stories, and others are small.  

Piecing together fragments of stories that told more than a century of history across homelands, generations and diverse periods of colonisation, protectionism and assimilation felt disorientating. I felt lost, as if I couldn’t find a pathway, for a time. But I continued to experiment with style and form to attempt to amplify Noongar women’s voices which had been silenced in the past. 

I wanted to explore histories of emotions, and for the reader to possibly come to feel these histories, rather than know them, and reflect on their universal themes of love between parents and children, grandparents and grandchildren. I think there is a depth of emotion in my grandmothers’ voices. I wanted to find a way to enable my grandmothers to speak for themselves, instead of being spoken of by others – by me. When they speak for themselves, I think their voices are powerfully affecting and connect with your spirit. 

In some ways, their voices represent a kind of truth-telling of our shared histories, from Noongar women’s perspectives. 

Jay Anderson
It’s really wonderful that you wanted to take care of your grandmothers’ stories, and I think you succeeded in this – not only in finding a pathway to amplify Noongar women’s voices, but in doing so in a way that had an incredible amount of emotional depth. What about some of the other intent in your writing – weaving these various perspectives together in fragments disrupted time and deepened the sense of connection between the generations represented in the collection. Can you tell us more about your intentions in doing so, in building  Homecoming  around generations in this particular form? 

Elfie Shiosaki
I enjoyed playing with senses of time and place in Homecoming. The form collapses a linear sense of time as past, present and future. I think this creates space to explore our intergenerational connection with our ancestors. I feel my grandmothers’ stories in my bones, in a way, and I wanted to tell their stories intuitively. At different times, we connect with each other, even if we are only looking up at the same Milky Way, swimming in the same Indian Ocean or feeling the same Southerly on our skin.   

To me, the stories in Homecoming reflect the agencies of Noongar people to attempt to sustain connections between parents and children, grandparents and grandchildren. I wanted the form to reflect this agency, if that makes sense. 

Jay Anderson
I think the various perspectives in fragments reflect this agency – which is both deeply sad, in what was lost between generations, but deeply beautiful, in what has persevered in the resilience of love. This, I feel, is connected to the concept of ‘restorative storywork’ which is how the collection is described. I am really interested in what this might mean as we reflect on the ongoing intergenerational trauma caused by the Stolen Generation, which continues today with contemporary practices of child removal. In ‘Blood Love’, you write ‘In this world, children would know who they were and where they came from, so they could always find their way home.’ Here, I had a sense, a feeling, of what restorative storywork might be, which grows through this conversation with you, but I have struggled to articulate it myself in conversation, so I wondered if you might elaborate? 

Elfie Shiosaki
In an international context, First Nations people are re-building our Nations for next generations by revitalising our knowledge, stories and ways of knowing in the 21st century. This kind of storywork is living and breathing on Noongar boodja (country), as we reconnect the old and the new, and revitalise our stories and storylines.  

Restorative storywork returns these stories home, and protects and preserves them for next generations so that they too will know who they are, and where they come from. I think this is the new world Ngangk is imagining for Koorlang in ‘Blood Love’. 

Some of these stories have been lost for generations, and my heart kind of sings when I think about them being returned home. 

Jay Anderson
Thank you for elaborating Elfie – I think Homecoming, in turn, will make many hearts sing. I found my own heart singing loudly during a wonderful section about your great grandmother on Cottesloe beach with her friends where they nickname her ‘Venus’ and you write ‘The archive could never hold the beauty of a daring Noongar woman.’ I loved this critique of the archives, and of how history is made and shared, but I wanted to know more about what you learned researching the archives. 

Elfie Shiosaki
My grandmother shared this story with me. Her mother had told her about spending happy summer days with her white friends at Cottesloe Beach when she was a young woman in the 1930s. Her friends called her ‘Venus’ because apparently she looked very beautiful wearing her bathing suit. I think it’s a tender glimpse into her life, in a fleeting moment when she was enjoying her youth. And it’s a moment I connected to, because I have memories of happy summer days at Cottesloe Beach too.

In ‘Venus,’ I reflected that ‘The archive could never hold the beauty of a daring Noongar woman’ because I wanted to assert that archives are not the sum total of Noongar people’s lived experiences. They are not the sum total of us. There are other ways of knowing. There are other ways of making history. 

There are times when Noongar people evaded the surveillance of the government and there are no archival records about them. I wanted to find a way to recontextualise the archive with living Noongar knowledge, and tell those stories. 

Jay Anderson
It’s a beautiful story and Homecoming is an incredible way of making, or remaking, history. I did wonder, when reading it, what it must have been like for you to write this from an emotional perspective? There was such a breadth of emotion singing through its pages and as readers of  Homecoming  we bear witness to unflinching love and unbearable pain – what sort of toll did this take, what were some of the joys and challenges? 

Elfie Shiosaki
I found doing archival research difficult at times. I worked together with my grandmother, Helen Shiosaki, and my father, Alf Shiosaki. I think my father in particular helped me navigate the darker times, when I couldn’t see the pathway in the research and writing. 

Archives hold histories of oppression of First Nations people, and I think you kind of feel this oppression when reading archival records, if that makes sense. But, in this context, I came to understand how brave my grandmothers were. 

I think Homecoming has a kind of triumphant spirit within it. The themes within the book of resist, survive and renew represent the agencies of Noongar women to recover from colonisation. Each generation contributes to this recovery, to reconnect the old and the new. We are continuing to do this. 

Jay Anderson
I felt that inherently triumphant spirit within it, and if this came from your grandmothers, your family, I am wondering about other influences. You draw from the archives, from your family’s history, and your own experiences, but were there other contributions, other sources of inspiration in producing  Homecoming? Other researchers, other writers, artists, or musicians? 

Elfie Shiosaki
I think I followed the pathways carved out by Narungga woman Natalie Harkin and Yamatji woman Charmain Papertalk-Green, who have both written extraordinary collections of poetry that reckon with archives and their legacies for Aboriginal people. I think I found reading their works liberating, because they relocate Aboriginal ways of knowing and making history from the periphery of the discipline of history to its center. 

Jay Anderson
What about the influence of your other work? You’re also a Lecturer in Indigenous Studies at the University of Western Australia, and you were recently the Indigenous Editor for  Westerly Magazine – can you tell us more about this work and how it impacts your creative practice? 

Elfie Shiosaki
I’ve been a lecturer at the School of Indigenous Studies at UWA for a few years now. I have the privilege of teaching in the Indigenous Knowledge, Heritage and History major, and I teach units about Indigenous knowledge, Indigenous ways of knowing and Indigenous research. I do research about histories of advocacy by Indigenous people for human rights, Indigenous understandings of rights, and the significance of Indigenous storytelling for rights discourses. 

In my teaching and research about Indigenous human rights, I have come to understand that First Nations storytelling holds great potential to revitalise our human rights culture, how we think and feel about each other. This storytelling transforms our understanding of who we are, and where we come from, as a nation of people. It can create shared senses of place which center our knowledge and stories of Country. I think my creative practice emerges from my human rights practice, if that makes sense. 

I had the privilege of working with Westerly as an Editor of Indigenous Writing from 2017 until earlier this year. This position was created to mentor, encourage and support emerging Indigenous writers. It was the first of its kind for a literary magazine in Australia. I really enjoyed exploring Indigenous writing as a genre, Indigenous-determined writing spaces, and writing collectively with other Indigenous writers about Country and kin. I think I came to understand more how Indigenous stories and storylines are connected and part of greater Indigenous story systems. 

Jay Anderson
That makes perfect sense – I’ve met many storytellers who are driven to the practice, in whatever form that takes, for human rights first and foremost. I think I am too. And it’s wonderful that we are seeing more Indigenous-determined writing spaces in the industry – this change is long overdue. So where is  Homecoming  going and where are you going next? 

Elfie Shiosaki
I love thinking about this question, but I don’t know how to answer it yet. 

Jay Anderson
That’s perfectly okay, I suppose sometimes we don’t know until we get there. I’m looking forward to seeing wherever that will be for you and your work Elfie. Thanks very much for chatting with me, it’s been a privilege and an absolute pleasure. 

Elfie Shiosaki
Thank you, Jay. I’ve really enjoyed yarning with you about Homecoming. 

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About the book Homecoming pieces together fragments of stories about four generations of Noongar women and explores how they navigated the changing landscapes of colonisation, protectionism, and assimilation to hold their families together. 

This seminal collection of poetry, prose and historical colonial archives, tells First Nations truths of unending love for children – those that were present, those taken, those hidden and those that ultimately stood in the light. 

Homecoming speaks to the intergenerational dialogue about Country, kin and culture. This elegant and extraordinary form of restorative story work amplifies Aboriginal women’s voices, and enables four generations of women to speak for themselves. This sublime debut highlights the tenacity of family as well as First Nation’s agency to resist, survive and renew. 

Elfie Shiosaki has restored humanity and power to her family in this beautifully articulated collection and has given voice to those silenced by our brutal past.