My name is Robert Fielding, I'm from and reside in Mimili community, and well, to be connected to your cultural heritage and that again, you know, it was always there. It was always there because I had my mother's line. I had my mother's line, which was power, it was about culture. It was about identity, that we knew who we were. We were Western Arrernte people, that we were born from, Muslim, Afghan pioneers, that we became a very strong family of women that taught you the importance of who we are as Arrernte people, Western Arrernte people, and Afghans. Come from Pakistan, Lahore, and how important that culture and identity was.
But to come to your father's line, it was about assimilation. It was about how my father, was denied of rights, how my father did not have that mother, that father, because being born of a white man, a European, you did not have that connection with your father.
I am who I am because I chose to go backwards to move forward, and to become who I am. So I can go to my deathbed knowing that I have accomplished on who I am as a person, and as a person of First Nation, of custodian rights, owner of this space, this time. That I am who I am because I had to go backwards, and that I have a daughter that's sitting here also, Partimah, and how important it is that they don't need to answer to anybody.
I am who I am because of ngayuku walytja (my family). I understand my father’s, grandfather’s stories. I understand my ngunytjunku Tjukurpa (my mother’s storyline), her daughter, her sister, that we come from the fruits and the womb of our women. My grandmother. And how important it is that we are who we are, and that art is art, and life is life, and identity is identity. And that I have many teachers out there that cannot deny me on who I am, because I am who I am, because I am Robert Fielding. Because I chose to go backwards, to move forward, and for me to be strong on who I am as the person that I am Aṉangu, Aboriginal.
