After reading Hunger of Memory The Education of Richard Rodriguez I started thinking about my own ethnic background and culture. What I came up with was a lot of nothing. I called up my mom and told her that I was rootless. Her response was that I was just clueless. Thanks, mom.
I then had a conversation with her about her growing up with a Hungarian mother and a Bulgarian father. She reminded me about when her father came to Ellis Island that he had to change his first name, Marin, to Michael. However, he kept his last name Lovrinoff. Though my great aunt and uncle both changed their last names to Lorrin. My aunt even ended up having a nose job to have a more “American” nose.
As we talked my mother mostly talked about the foods my grandmother would prepare for them. Stuffed cabbage was always a favorite and chicken paprikash at Christmas were a couple she mentioned. Yet she didn’t mention any traditions that they had other than going to church.
So after I talked to my mother I called my aunt up and got some more information from her. Now she mentioned back in the early 70’s she and her dad would go to a lake with other families to listen to live music and do Macedonian dancing. She also mentioned the food aspect and added a few more items to my list like kielbasa, hurka and dobostorte. The last one is the one I remember because it is a delicious tort.
My aunt also mentioned the importance of the church and what a big deal it was when a cardinal came. He told my grandmother to make sure she spoke the language to her children. However, she didn’t take his advice. She reserved her language for her sisters and the ladies at the church.
Next I talked to my uncle. What he had to say was much of the same, no real traditions expect the food and the importance of the church. What he did mention to me that I found very interesting is that his father wanted his children to assimilate because of the discrimination he found at work. My uncle also said, “with each generation we keep losing our heritage- it is being diluted.”
I have to say that I agree with my uncle. Looking back at my own childhood we didn’t go to church, but neither did most of my friends. My mom worked like crazy and she almost never cooked “real” meals. About half of my friends moms worked, too. I wasn’t introduced to Macedonian dancing. What I realized was that I was a white girl who attended a white school, and had a white last name. Other than being told that I had a big nose I don’t think my ethnicity had a part of my growing up.
What did have a big part in my growing up was that my mom read The Feminine Mystique while in the hospital when she had me. This book opened her eyes to a new way of thinking and behaving.
I am Woman was an anthem in our house. Stories like Hansel and Gretel were retold with Gretel being the dropper of the bread crumbs. Books like Dick and Jane were pointed out that they were not the way life should be. Jane could play with boats, too. When I was around 3 I even attended the Women's Caucus in Texas.
My mom became active in politics and even ran for State Representative (she never won). I grew up going to political events and being around people who were thinkers and doers. My mom eventually became a lawyer. She even once had a man for her secretary
What all that meant was that I could do anything I wanted. Ironically I went into teaching - a typical woman’s job. College was never discussed it was just assumed that one would go. For all the wonderful and eye opening things my mom did I never learned to be a good typist. Her secretaries would type my papers for me because this was a skill I didn’t really need because I was never going to be a secretary ( secretaries are awesome!).
Jaimie,
ReplyDeleteI love the description you share of your family and how Rodriguez encouraged you to investigate your own culture. You wrote a lovely portrait of your family and culture. I would like to ask you, based on what you know about your own culture and how they handled assimilation, what are your thoughts of assimilation? How do you feel about your own family’s assimilation? Do you think there is a level of tragedy that you, like so many of us, did not grow up knowing more about your culture and develop a stronger sense of cultural identity? Do you know why your grandmother didn’t preserve the language with her children? What are your feelings about this as her granddaughter? Is there a reason your mom stopped attending church? I ask you these questions to get insight similar to what Rodriguez described in his book, not in any way to provoke or offend. You have an awesome ability to get this insight, which I fail to have access to, and maybe this is why I am so intrigued.
I know very little about my family’s heritage. I have no contact with my father or my father’s family. Most of my mother’s immediate family including her parents are deceased. The only way for me to know exactly what my cultures are I’d have to either hire a genealogist or do lots of investigation myself. As both of these things cost money I do not foresee myself having being a teacher and a mother, I will most likely never make this determination. My people fully assimilated based on what little I have found. Changed their names and abandoned their native tongues to become one with “America.” But it makes it very hard to know where all those behind me came from and what cultures exactly they abandoned. I think it’s great that you have access to this invaluable knowledge.
I applaud your mom for her bold involvement in politics. That’s an awesome legacy (it doesn’t matter in the slightest that she didn’t win!). What an incredible role model for you and for other women. I love it! Are you particularly political as a result of your mother’s example? How did your mother develop a zest for politics? Feminism seems to be an important part of her legacy as well. That is wonderful.
I found it very funny to read about your resistance to learn how to type because I shared the exact same sentiment in high school. I remember vividly roaming the halls and hiding in the bathroom for the majority of my typing class. I resisted in part because I wasn’t very good and in part because “I am not going to be a secretary!” No one ever told me I’d be typing papers until my last breath; that I’d be emailing parents and administrators and that these responses would need to occur in a timely (within a ten-year time span!) manner. I HATE typing!!!! I HATE texting! These are my nemesis without a doubt. My fingers appear average size but when I type they may as well be drumsticks. I hit on average 4 keys at once. I’m pretty sure this is an art form…somewhere. Only kidding but it takes me triple the amount of time it takes the average person to type anything. I secretly wish I’d applied my rebellious ways to another class. Maybe this is a result of our being raised by strong women with feminist principles?!
Thank you so much for sharing!
Richelle
Hi Jaimiee,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your post! I know it was a hard one for you to write, but I think it came out very well, as evidenced by Richelle's reply! You did so much research and soul-searching--hopefully it was quite meaningful for you to do so!
There is a way in what your family experienced over three generations, and what my family experienced over three generations, is simply part of the human experience. From a certain light, we can mourn the cultures that have been lost. In another way, we can state that change is simply what we humans do!
Sometimes I think about all the generations that preceded me. Literally, at some point, someone in my family migrated out of Africa. They may have been hunters and gatherers in Europe or somewhere else for thousands of years. They came and went as the animals and the glaciers did! They came into contact with new people. They married outside the tribe and started again!
Of course, agriculture made us all live in one place. Continuity reigned. But even there, I have no doubt that generations of people changed languages, changed religions, changed cultures.
In fact, my last name is one adopted by the Ashkenazim Jews in the early modern period of European history. Yet no one in my family is Jewish or has been Jewish for as many generations as I can go back. All I can say is that it is somewhere there in my past, along with lots of other things.
And don't even get me started on my Celtic first name, Kyle. There is no one Irish or Scottish in my family that I can tell. My dad just like the name!
Our culture is how we spend our days: when we wake up, when we eat, where we go and how we get there. It obviously has changed from 100 years ago. I grew up eating processed meals in the 1970s. It wasn't food from the "old world," that's for sure. But that was my culture. It reflected changes in our economy, our agriculture, our homes, our families, etc.
200 years from now our great great . . . grandchildren may wonder what we were like. They will likely mourn the fact that they no longer carry on the "old ways" and that things are so different. They may even live on Mars, who knows :)
It's human to look back but it's also to human to look forward. You have a lovely story that is every bit as rich and cultured as Richard Rodriguez (or Queen Elizabeth, for that matter).
Thanks so much for your post!
Kyle