Australia, the movie

This past weekend I rented the movie Australia from the offices in the basement of our dorm. Starring Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman, all I really knew about the movie was that I remembered liking it after my grandparents took me to see it before Christmas. I was amazed after I read the introductory statements, because this entire movie dealt with issues that pertain not only to the topics of this course, but to my final research project as well.
The movie begins with an introduction into the territory of Australia in 1939, with a mix of the white British and settlers and the Aboriginals who were native to the territory. One product of the mixed cultures in the same area was mixed race children, dubbed 'creamies' by many. This biracial plotline is mixed in with a race to drive cattle across the desert, a war, and a love story, but it is interwoven into all of it. During the war, all of the biracial children that the government could find were sent to Mission Island, the first target of the Japanese upon their invasion, while all of the white children were sent to the safety of southern Australia. Not to mention that the white father of the biracial boy we come to know, called Nullah, tries to kill him several times.
The first time I saw this movie it represented a piece of history to not be proud of, but much more of it hit home now that I have begun my research and participated in this course with readings and discussions. This is a piece of real life and real history for many. I can only imagine the kind of identity issues these children had to deal with, especially if they had murderous fathers and were yanked from their families by the police simply because they were not white. They're parents may or may not have loved each other and tried to help their children to accept who they are (depending on the situation), but no relationships of that nature would have been widely accepted by the culture of cities and towns. Therefore the children had a hard time finding acceptace from most places, sometimes even from within their own families.