Living cultures under the acts : thriving beyond resistance

It is early evening. The family is together at the home Mum bought and paid for with cash savings squirrelled away over many years. All four of her daughters are present. Aunts, Uncles, cousins too. And, most importantly, our nana – Mum’s mother. There is a video camera from who knows where. We are filming Nana telling stories. And Nana starts singing. In Wakka Wakka language. We sit in wonder as we girls hear full language spinning around us for the first time. This is all about family, culture and love – perhaps only in retrospect do we also see it as resistance. Colonisation and assimilation simply can’t win when families are living cultures together.