This thread is about people who have re-adopted the culture that their grandparents (plus enough greats to find an immigrant relative) abandoned. Some people read up on the countries that their relatives came from, and bring some of the culture into their lives by giving their children traditonal names from the area, and adopting religious views, outfits, recipes, identifying as a ___ American, etc. Some feel a camaraderie with those still living in the area, and to other descendents of immigrants from that area. In some cases, people even adopt a culture that they have no blood connection to.
If you’ve done this, did you feel that you lacked a connection to American culture, or that you didn’t have enough tradition in your life?
Do people in other countries have a cohesiveness that we in the U.S. lack? Of course every country is different, but what about in general?
For non-Americans, do you feel any sort of connection to the descendants of emigrants from your country?
This isn’t about people who have customs that have been passed down from generation to generation. The thread is sort of inspired by a long ATMB thread in which the brotherhood of blacks in Africa, and blacks in America, and the connection between different groups of Asian Americans were discussed, and isn’t mean to be critical of people who’ve done any of these things. This whole thing is definitely disjointed, but any points that are related to the topic are welcome.
I’m Irish, so pining for a pretend motherland that never actually existed is sort of required. However my grandparents were embarrased to be identified as Irish and did all they could to be just plain Americans. They didn’t want to be identified with their “backwards” culture at all. For whatever reason, this caused my dad to become so freaking hyper-hibernian that I feel more directly connected to Ireland than my actual Irish grandparents did.
The funny thing about it is that’s it’s all imaginary.
I come from a 400 year Southern U.S. genealogy. Many of my direct ancestors we slaveowners and tended to fight losing battles throughout history (they were English loyalists until way late and then signed on hard for the Confederacy for example). I know much of my direct genealogy very well and I like Civil War stuff but that isn’t all that unusual. I am Southern myself so it wasn’t like I ever felt like things deviated for me. The one thing I want to do is go to England and visit the church that my grandparents got married in (St. Dunstans in Stepney) the late 1500’s. It is still standing and supposedly has their marriage records and I share the last name.
I’m with Cluricaun on the Irish thing. Because a lot of immigrants to the U.S. felt it necessary to abondon their heritage, some of the descendents of those immigrants sort of feel like reclaiming that. (As Black and Tans starts playing on shuffle… ha)
I don’t know about the imaginary part though… what’s imaginary? That you’re more “connected” to Ireland? That I could see…
Personally, I read up on Irish history and culture, and listen to Irish music, because I’m interested in it… I want to know what it was like for my ancestors, I want to experience the culture. I’m a history major, so this applies to lots of cultures, but I feel like I can “claim” the Irish part as my own because that’s where my grandparents came from.
I’d be curious to know if a person of Irish heritage sincerely interested in the history and culture is dismissed as being a “plastic Paddy” by the Irish or if it’s just the idiots who drink green beer on St. Patrick’s Day?
Back to the questions raised in the OP, I guess I do feel like I’m not very connected to American culture, or if there even is such a thing… I’m certainly out of touch with pop culture, and I do love traditions… The history major thing, you know.
What Shagnasty said. I’m from Southern roots and my mother is a geneologist. We were too poor to own slaves, but my antecedents have been mucking around the South since Jamestown. I learned Southern cooking in self-defense. OTOH, my father’s family is French, so I have nothing whatsoever to do with that cultural wasteland.
I’m from enough places that if I tried to be from all of them at once, I’d never do anything else with my day. To the extent that an “old country” is called for, it tends to be Scotland, if for no better reason than that my last name is Scottish and that it’s the only one I actually know anything about (we were told about our clan, its history and symbols, etc. when we were younger, and I’ve actually been to the clan seat).
I know there’s a French line, a Welsh line, an Irish line and there’s bound to be many others. The line I know best and rather thoroughly is the Scottish line back to 1066. There’s an Abbey where a bunch of them are buried.
But over the longhaul, I think Ireland has the biggest grip on me in spirit. I haven’t been there, but I’ve seen it – from a few miles up! I don’t want to be satisfied with that for the rest of my life. I’m just going to have to go there.
I think it’s the music and the literature and the sea and the history and the look of the people and the lore. I don’t know. But I remember trying to dance Irish dances when I was a kid – dances that I didn’t know and no one taught me. Very frustrating.
I can trace my line back to where it split off from the royal family (during the Chosun Dynasty, back before Japanese colonialism) - my ancestor was the older brother of the third king or something like that. Koreans are obssessed with ancestry so records are meticulously kept.
I was much more interested in my ancestry when I was living in the US, where getting back to your roots seems to be a more popular undertaking (maybe because it’s more difficult?) than it is in Korea. In Korea no one seemed interested because the information was already all there.
My ancestry is Welsh, English, Irish, Scottish, French, Swiss, German, Polish, Native, and possibly African, so I’m a total American mut. The furthest direct line I can trace is a maternal line that goes back to 13th century Switzerland (specifically a place called Eggersriet). Their descendants married French Protestants who fled when their sect leader, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrus_Ramus , was killed in the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre- to this day their descendants still have the names Laramie, Delramus, and Deramus in his honor. Descendants of these French and German speaking Swiss settled in Saxe-Coburg-Gotha County, South Carolina in 1732 and their descendants moved to Alabama about 80 years later.
What’s interesting to me is that from the 16th century onward, branches of the German speaking Swiss branch have been marrying members of the French speaking Swiss branch AND THEY STILL ARE in 21st century Alabama! In my fairly close family there are French and German surnames that pop up all over the place, and another oddity is that the phonebook in Orangeburgh SC and the phonebook in Clanton AL are the only two places in the nation that have more than 2 or 3 listings for these surnames (they each have dozens). My mother’s family (this line) is extremely clannish and matrilineal and always has been (I’m literally one of the only members to have intimate friends outside the family) and I would LOVE to trace this family characteristic back through the generations and find out just what happened. It could well be that something in 1735 South Carolina accounted for many of the personality traits that still affect my relatives. (Another oddity about this line: very few of us have thick Southern accents even though we’ve been in Alabama for almost 190 years, the south for 275 years, and not even my grandfather could remember any German or French speakers, yet that entire line has members who were asked and in my case still are asked “where are you from originally?” and don’t believe us when we say “about 40 miles up the road yonder”. Having studied sociolinguistics in school and always having been fascinated by accents and dialects I’d love to hear the Swiss accents of these two regions or those by others of French and German Swiss speaking ancestors to see if there’s a connection.
But mostly I just think it’s interesting and a really good way to study history. I don’t care much about my relatives once they go beyond the “story veil”- the ones nobody I’ve known met even in their youth or the ones that no stories survive of- but as a family history it’s interesting because it shows a lot about how America (at least this area of it) was settled. It’s interesting to me that Poles, Germans, French, all manner of Brits, and whatever else, all coalesced to make me (though that probably wasn’t their conscious intent- just a divine blind direction) and that this was caused by the forces in Europe that ultimately shoved them all onto the Atlantic (and I’m from one of the least adventurous bloodlines on Earth so things must have been DAMNED bad over there). Since their cultures were incredibly dissimilar I can’t really capture their culture, but I find it almost mystically fascinating “how amazingly miraculous is your birth” and how these incidents you read about in history books that are just numbers and dates and yawns are often exactly why you’re here.
I’ve toyed with the idea of taking a cultural holiday before - basically, spending some time with the few people who still live mostly traditional Khoikhoi lives with the herding and the living in huts. I’d see it as an extension of the kind of thing I do in the SCA anyway (historical re-enactment) only focusing on the Khoi part of my heritage rather than the English. I’ve never followed through, though, although I have started picking up some of the skills - leatherworking & flintknapping, for instance. I also hope to start pottery soon with a view to eventually making traditional wood-fired pots
In your opinion, how hard would it be to identify an individual based on the fact that he was born in Seoul and emigrated to the US in a certain year? What if I could identify his parents?
My mother’s people were mostly Irish. But I only knew her mother, whose folks had been here for generations. She called them “Scotch Irish”–now properly “Scots Irish.” Redheaded & musical, she was teetotal because of her father’s “weakness.” Presbyterian or not, sounds Irish to me.
My father’s parents came from Ireland & settled in New England. But he died early & we were raised in Texas, so we never knew any details. A cousin married a fellow with Chinese ancestry who did some geneological research.
Now I know that my grandparents came from East Galway. And my real family name–rare in that area–shows up in the writings of Lady Gregory. In the town of my grandfather’s birth. Did he sit by the hearth as his folks told her old stories? Yeats has long been my favorite poet; I only learned in the last few years that he might have been the young man in black silently looking on. (Since he never bothered to learn Irish.)
With me, it’s mostly been the reading & the music. Of which there is no shortage. And a love for Guinness.
Same here, I love everything Irish - from folk tales to celtic history, to gaelic language. My maternal grandfather was from Ireland and traces their roots back to gaelic vikings.
My paternal grandmother and father are from Poland and trace their roots to a more Bohemian/Scandanavian heritage. More than likely that’s why my blond hair never went away in my teens. I’m in my 30’s and still just as blond as when I was 10.
We have several traditions which are prevalent in our home. Both parents are strict Roman Catholic and many of our traditions centre around that.
My background is Polish (all four grandparents emigrated from areas that were, at one time or another, part of Poland), but I feel like a changeling. I’m not particularly fond of Polish cooking, Polish music, Polish dancing, Polish liquers, or a lot of Polish culture. I’ve tried reading Polish history and find it a colossal bore. I don’t feel compelled to try to perpetuate most of it, which I occasionally feel guilty about.
Pepper Mill is, like Sampiro, a mutt, with lots of different northern European bits and pieces, as well as ties to old New England families (she’s distantly related to Salem “witch” rebecca Nurse, and patriot Thomas Putnam. Every now and then she’ll try to resurrect some old Irish custom or something.
I’m 75% Slovak and 25% German (I happen to have a German last name, and German physical features). My mom’s parents came over on the boat and were pretty hardcore immigrants (menial labor, cursed in Slovak, made traditional Slovak food, etc) although I never got to know them (died traditionally early).
My brother and I make a decent effort to keep up with our Slovak heritage. We’ve tried learning some words (although it’s a Cyrillic language so it’s tough) and our aunts still make some traditional food. I think once my brother has kids we’ll probably delve deeper into things and make sure his kids know about “being Slovak” - whatever that means.
It’s definitely easier to keep it “real” in Cleveland - there are Slovak/Eastern European neighborhoods where there are festivals and stuff.
I can only speak for myself, but no, not unless they themselves or perhaps their parents were originally from here. It always sounds strange to me to hear Americans saying things like “I’m German”. I don’t really get the while preoccupation with lineages. It’s not like your average European’s ancestors are all of the same nationality. My grandmother was from Dublin but it wouldn’t cross my mind to describe myself as part-Irish. I’ve never even been to Ireland.
