Joe Orr Road Rod wrote:
good dolphin wrote:
Joe Orr Road Rod wrote:
good dolphin wrote:
I'm not one of those people who is Polish-American with an emphasis on Polish. I never went to Saturday Polish school and I don't speak the language. I never lived in an ethnic ghetto and I was never pressured to associate only with my own. My great grandparents were the ones who came over and I was lucky enough to know one of them into my adult life, so that probably added to my identity. We have a fairly tight knit family that keeps some of the traditions but probably in an Americanized way. Poles would probably laugh if I identified as Polish and first generation immigrants certainly don't see me as connected to the country. I'm American with a sense of my heritage and an interest in politics. Your question is as odd to me as asking why I have five fingers. Its just who I am.
I also have appreciation and celebrate other cultures.
My kids are the first generation of my family on any level that are of mixed heritage (all my nieces and nephews and extended relatives of that age are as well but my age and before is all Polish). I take it upon myself for them to understand their heritage inherited from me as I know it. I support and encourage them to also learn about their Irish roots and I'll teach them about it as much as I know but ultimately that is on my wife and her family.
I think it is important to have a sense of identity, a connection to the past and a connection to the larger world.
However, identity is a strange thing. I am American of Polish ethnicity but my inherited sense of Polishness is informed by pre WW I, pre WW II and pre Communist identity. I can tell you to a certainty that those who lived through Communist occupation have a different sense of what it is to be Polish than I.
Ultimately, what the hell do I know? This is what I am and it doesn't seem so bad so I'll pass it on to my boys.
I do view life as being indebted to those who came before me and obliged to those who come after. I'm not blind to the fact that my forefathers were probably incestuous hillbillys who would get into bar fights with people who wore the wrong high school hat. However, without misery they never would have looked to US as a great alternative and I would not be who I am today.
The concept of "nationality" beyond simply being American is a very Chicago thing. ."
No it's not.
Yeah, it really is. As W_Z said, maybe a thing in large cities with homogeneous immigrant neighborhoods. I spent several winters in Central Florida and never once heard someone mention his or her "nationality". I've spent months in Lexington, KY, people don't identify like that there either.
and I've spent time in rural Texas where they still speak German and another named Panna Maria where their ethnicity is definitely recognized
Florida is like Phoenix, a place with no past or future. Still, Miamians of Cuban or Caribbean descent certainly identify with their heritage.
You don't have to travel far from Florida to find places like Charleston that still maintain ethnic heritages. Immigrant cities across this country maintain immigrant traditions.
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