MISS PATRICIA M HEFNER ([email protected])
Sat, 16 Jan 1999 01:36:20, -0500
I want to comment on Americans who say "I'm Irish because my ancestors
came from there" or "I'm Italian" or whatever....this has been going on
for some time. Some people traced their ancestry to draw a line between
them and the immigrants that came in in the last century and this one--
the Irish, the Italians, the Poles, the Greeks-- they looked down on the
immigrants, so they started to trace their ancestry back to the era of
the American Revolution so as to say "well, I'm more American than you
are--good gosh, your parents were born in Greece, so you're not an
American!" I'm *not* making this up. Yeah, it was sick. It was a
different matter altogether when Alex Haley wrote "Roots" back in the
'70's. That unleashed a veritable genealogy craze. Everyone wanted to be
"rooted" somewhere. I could talk about my Appalachian background because
one of my grandfathers was born in West Virginia, and that'd be more
like tt, since my grandfather told me to never forget the state of his
birth and upbringing. They'd been in those hills for at least five
generations. .Some people not so affectionately refer to these people as
"hill-billies". It's the antithesis of the glitz, the bright lights and
big city nuttiness of Vegas and Hollywood. Instead you've got shacks.
But sometimes people have a very strong identity with the places their
families came from, especially if they are first generation and had both
parents born in, say, Lithuania. Never mind that they were born in the
States; their cultural heritage is Lithuanian even if their political
heritage is not. Since I'm one-quarter Polish, I feel an affinity for
the place, but no, I'm not going to claim that I'm Polish! My
grandmother was born there....I was born here. I'm off the soapbox......
until next time....
OK, for the U2 content. What's your favorite U2 long-play video? A bunch
of people have told me that theirs is "Live at Red Rocks". I mean, heck,
that video on TV is what me hooked on U2!! :-)..
Pax,
Patricia
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b2 on Fri Jan 15 1999 - 23:26:24 PST