Abstract: In this essay, I seek to explore the ways in which personal observations and experiences of Indigenous Australians throughout my life as a Singaporean Eurasian migrant in Western Australia, from the mid-1960s to the present, informed and complicated both my sense of belonging and my writing of novels and short stories. As such, this is a mostly anecdotal and autobiographical account. It includes reflections on my encounters with Indigenous Australians as a child and as an adult, the latter during my employment as a teacher and photographer of Aboriginal people, and during my friendship with an Aboriginal family. As a Eurasian Australian writer, I explore afresh aspects of some ‘stories’ I have made and the history that has made me, to raise questions about how to rethink difference and belonging.
Keywords: Aboriginal; cultural identity; Eurasian migrants; Simone Lazaroo’s fiction; literary and photographic images of Indigenous Australians; White Australia Policy;