Susannah Lazzaro left her small village, Francavilla Angitola, located in the Italian region of Calabria, when she was still a child. It was 11th September 1970, the day of her birthday, when she and her family embarked from the Italian port of Messina on the Marconi ship towards Australia: a place she only knew through the picture books that her teacher, Ms. Lia, had shown her at school. They read, "English soldiers were shooting at the blacks and in return the blacks were throwing their laces to the soldiers."
After their months-long boat trip to Australia, Susannah and her family arrived at Station Pier, in Port Melbourne, where many others originally from their Italian home town were waiting to welcome them.
Integration into the new country proved an easier process for children than it was for adults, especially because Susannah started going to school pretty soon. It was there she met many other children of European immigrants - but she said there was no sign of any Indigenous kids at her school. "At first I knew only what I saw on TV about Aboriginal people," explains Susannah. "Mostly negative things - which later on I discovered were not true."
When I just arrived to Australia they called me wog. I did not know what wog meant.
Susannah faced her own difficulties due to her race, "At school they made fun of me. When I just arrived to Australia they called me wog. I did not know what wog meant."
"I just did not want to go back to school but my mother one day told me "you go back to school and will tell them you're proud to be wog. Because you are Italian and you must always be Italian."
As she grew older, Susannah was increasingly curious about Australia. Above all she wanted to know what life was like outside of the city of Melbourne and outside of the "Italian bubble" where she was living.
It was then when she decided a volunteer youth worker in Western Australia, working with the Catholic-run Pallotine mission, but not as a religious missionary herself. It was here for the first time she found herself working side by side with Indigenous people.
Below: Listen to Susannah's full interview (in Italian) with SBS Italian:
*WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are advised that this gallery may contain images of deceased persons.
Susannah's journey into Australia's Indigenous culture started at the Pallottine mission at Rossmoyne, a suburb of Perth, where Indigenous teens from remote communities in the Kimberley and throughout WA came to board in order to attend high school in Perth.
Something she observed culturally as an outsider was that between Italian and Indigenous cultures were many more similarities than differences.
Susannah said she could mostly see it in the connection between people and their land and community. But there was also a feeling that she shared with the young Aboriginal people she was living with: it was the nostalgia they felt for their people and their home country even while they were studying in the city, far away from them.
I could feel their pain. It was the same sufferance I went through when I came to Australia.
"After spending a year with these guys, I could feel they did not like to stay in town," says Susannah. "They were always talking about their family back home and their culture."
"I remember I could clearly perceive the pain they were experiencing. The same pain I felt when I came to Australia because I was missing my grandparents, the land where I used to play, the countryside, my school friends, my dialect."
Initially, Susannah's stint at the Perth-based mission was only intended to last a year.
Soon though she decided to extend the experience for five more years and relocated to a more remote outback mission in the mid-western WA town of Tardun, inland from Geraldton.
There, her bond with Aboriginal people and culture was solidified when she met Wocky, a Niul-Niul and Jabba-Jabbar man from the remote Northern community of Beagle Bay (salt water people) near Broome, whom she would go on to marry.
Today they have been together for 27 years and the reason it's worked, Susannah says, is because they didn't try to change each other.
Susannah and Wocky Source: Courtesy of Susannah Augustine
"We both learn from each other to find a way to walk together and to support each other instead of one leading on the other," explains Susannah. "This is how we taught our children to be who they are, and to be strong in their culture on both sides of the family."
"They're not Italian or Aboriginal. They're Italian and Aboriginal. They're our children and they have a history of two different cultures, and they take the best from both of them."
Listen to Part 2 of Susannah's interview (in Italian) with SBS Italian:
Life wasn't always easy at the beginning for Susannah and Wocky's relationship, because to stay together they first hoped to obtain the approval of each others' families. After all, both had chosen as a life-partner a person who did not belong to their community of origin.
But, if for Susannah’s Italian family it took a long time to accept Wocky, the Aboriginal people welcomed Susannah immediately.
[Our children] are not Italian or Aboriginal. They're our children and they have a history of two different cultures, and they take the best from both of them.
She was literally welcomed in the community by a big hug from her mother-in-law-to-be who shortly after bestowed on Susannah her Aboriginal name: Juboul, meaning "grey-haired woman," - a way to describe her wisdom.
Susannah says, "How can we walk together when we can't sit together and learn about each other?"
"This is where the problem is, because in the Western world we are so intrigued by other cultures but we always want them to learn our way of life, thinking that our way is the best. We never listen to them or sit with them."
Can we really then walk together? Listen to Susannah's response in this interview (in English) with SBS Italian:
is the familiar story of multicultural Australians, as they are today - trying to embrace their Australian identity, whilst staying true to their culture, identity and family. It's a heart-warming update on how multiculturalism is working in Australia and a colourful account of the country that we are evolving into.
