Assimilation discourses and the production of Ella Simon’s Through My Eyes

Abstract

Through My Eyes (1978) was among the first Aboriginal women's narratives available to a mainstream audience. Ella Simon, a prominent Biripi woman from Taree on the mid north coast of New South Wales, made oral recordings of her life story in 1973. She was determined that her resultant autobiography would prove to Aboriginal and white readers alike that 'white and black can live together; that they've got a lot in common'. Ella Simon believed that publishing her life story would provide a forum for her complex and then controversial views on assimilation. This article contests, on the contrary, that the editorial process that transformed Simon's oral recordings into a written text did not respect nor accurately convey Ella Simon's views on how 'white and black' could 'live together'. By examining transcripts of Simon's original oral recordings, I demonstrate how lack of cultural literacy amongst her non-Aboriginal collaborators led to the prioritisation of monocultural understanding of assimilation, to the detriment of Simon's more pluralist views.