This NAIDOC Week, Renewal SA speaks with its cultural advisors on their personal journeys. Jess Davies-Huynh has sat on the Reconciliation Committee at Renewal SA since late 2021.
Jess Davies-Huynh is a consummate ambassador for a forward-looking Australia.
A proud Kaurna and Ngarrindjeri woman, she also boasts German-Australian heritage and has a surname embodying classic Welsh (Davies) and Vietnamese (Huynh), the domain of her husband Danny.
Finding out about her extended family has been a long time in the making for the woman from Hallett Cove but deeply rewarding as well as ever evolving.
“My Pop grew up on a dairy farm down by the Coorong, with his mum and stepdad whose surname was Davies,” she says. “Pop’s biological father and his family lived on the farm next door, but Pop didn’t know that was his real father until later on in life. It was all swept under the rug in those days.”
Jess, who now works in a community engagement role at the National Indigenous Australians Agency in Adelaide, started to learn more deeply about Kaurna history, her ancestors and extended family connections when she was around 16 or 17-years-old.
“I would go with my Pop to Native Title meetings and sit and listen to the Elders and get exposure to that kind of stuff. Culture is passed down from generation to generation, but because of past government policies, that didn’t happen for everyone.
“But now we have been able to reclaim that through the hard work of our Elders and things like the Kaurna Native Title claim and Kaurna language revitalisation.”
“I didn’t get it in my early years growing up, so learning more about my family’s history was really cool,” she says.
“I had always known about my Aboriginal heritage (but) there is a whole side of my family that I didn’t get to grow up with. We didn’t really get to have that connection with some of those aunties and uncles until later on.”
Meeting more members of her extended family is continually rewarding she says.
“Once of the first questions asked when you’re out in community is, ‘Who is your mob?’ and I’m still finding new family connections all the time.”
Growing up in the Southern suburbs of Adelaide, she says, means she is very much a beach person as her favourite place in South Australia clearly shows.
“Near the mouth of the river in Port Noarlunga is a sacred Kaurna women’s site. So, I feel a special connection to that place, it’s been there far longer than European settlement.”
NAIDOC week 2024 for Jess who has sat on the Reconciliation Committee at Renewal SA since late 2021 (and to increase an already full workload, this tied in with the birth of her son), is understandably full on, with lots of different events to attend.
There has been the National NAIDOC Awards Ball, the state NAIDOC Awards Luncheon, NAIDOC in the Mall event, an opening for the Yuki (bark canoe) exhibition which links to her Ngarrindjeri background and undertaking a Welcome to Country for an event with the Association of Consulting Architects. And Friday 12 July brings the annual NAIDOC march up King William St to Parliament House in Adelaide.
“There is that element of activism and coming together and continuing to fight for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander rights. But it’s also a time for us to just stop and connect with each other, and to celebrate the strength and resilience of our cultures.”
Understanding of the Aboriginal connection to Country is key to helping bring about reconciliation she says.
“It’s hard for us Kaurna people, under native title law a lot of our land has been ‘extinguished’ because there are new buildings on it and a lot of settlement has occurred here. But we never lost our connection to our traditional lands. Country is inseparable from our culture and that continues to this day.
“Renewal SA has a big role to play when it comes to land use on Kaurna Country but the Reconciliation Committee has been very genuine and this has helped get better outcomes and opportunities for Kaurna people when developments occur.
“It’s about shared values and I think we are always learning from each other.”