This idea of ethnic identity has been on my mind. As we enter the season of family gatherings and honoring our ancestors, I feel the need to know and understand where I come from. However, after interviewing family members and reading about my ancestors, I found that basically I have no discernible ethnicity, and this is why. The automobile and electronic media have stolen my ethnic identity.
Let me begin to explain this by talking about language without boring my reader with a lengthy family tree. My maternal grandmother was a mix of Irish and Dutch Jewish. With family names like Canan and Geisselman, this is apparent. On my maternal grandfather's side, we have Scott and French ancestry with the names of McCullah and Jolly, which was changed from Jole (there's an accent over that e, but I have no idea how to type that). On my father's side, we are Welsh with the last name of Jones, like everyone else in Wales. What a mixed up bunch we are! With all of these distinct language traditions in our past, you would think that there would be something left over for my generation, my children's generation, and my grandson's generation. But noooooo! The only French word that I know is jole, which means happy, and I only know that, becase it is a family name. And don't even get me started on the Welsh! I don't even think that the Welsh can speak that language. Maybe, there are just too many languages in my background with too many differences to have retained anything. I can't even claim any Southern or Okie language accent even though my great-great grandfather was the last of the Morgan's Raiders, and my father was born in Oklahoma. No one saved any language traditions for me. I speak English and not even British English at that.
Let me take a step back to this Okie thing. This is going to seem a bit round about, but let me start with a family story as told by my grandmother. "Uncle Lewis was quite a big wheeler-dealer -- lazy, but a wheeler-dealer. But, anyway, somehow, he got control of my grandparents' property, and he promptly traded it off to some people from New York. So, here we go . . . back to New York. We lit at Morton, and he traded it for an apple orchard which he knew nothing about. If it hadn't a been for the hired man, we woulda really been in deep trouble, but he'd stayed there to look after the property. Well, after awhile, he traded that off for a pear orchard in Kendall which he knew less about than the apples. Then, he traded it off for two houses in Rochester. No one could pay any rent. They didn't have any money to. Was hard times. Then, he traded that off for a pea ranch down at Clareton, and one crop of peas, and we were done. There was no more money. So, anyway, they decided they better do something, and, of course, they didn't discuss matters with us children, but he mortgaged a cow to THREE different farmers: sold it to 'em whatever you wanna call it, and he got the money, and he give the money to my mother. Then, he got on a freight train and made it to Ohio where they had both grown up. So, anyway, we were just little kids. We were sitting on the steps and with nothing to do it seemed like, and about that time, a police car drove up. And, so, my mother came to the door, and they asked if Lewis Canan lived there, and she said, 'Yes, he does, but he's not home at the present.' And they said, 'Well, when do you expect 'im?' She said, 'You're lookin' for 'im. I'm not.' So, anyway, they were busily packing the rest of the day, and we piled everything we could -- all the furniture an' everything onto my dad's old Model T truck, and my mother had a car. Well, we made it as far as Canton, Ohio, and the car broke down. We didn't have any money to get it fixed. So, it was pulled into the garage, and we got everything out of the car, and my mom and us older kids had to get up on the load. Talk about 'Grapes of Wrath.' That's how we got to Big Prairie, and I often wondered about that old cow -- how in the world they divided it up." So, you see, even though she compares her childhood with the great Okie story, The Grapes of Wrath, my grandmother couldn't even claim Okie heritage, because she was born in California and lived in New York and Ohio. My dad, on the other hand, was born in Oklahoma, but he couldn't even claim the Okie thing, because he came to California long after the Dust Bowl. Besides, his family were not migrant workers. They were very middle class. You would think that they could at least have been poor Okies so that one day, I could write a decent blog post on my ethnic identity.
What does this have to do with the automobile and electronic media, you ask? I'm getting to that. I promise! But first, let's talk about religion. There are many ethnic traditions that are centered on religious beliefs. I wish this were true for me. I was raised a Baptist. You're probably thinking, "Finally, an ethnic tradition." Nope. Somewhere back in time, part of my family were Jewish, and somewhere back in time, we believe that part of our family were Irish Catholic. However, more recently in my grandparents' day and age, my family claimed to be Protestant, but they did not go to church or have any other outward appearance of Christianity. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Still, this did not give any religious tradition for my family to pass down from generation to generation.
With the holidays fast approaching, you might think that my family at least has some holiday traditions. Well, OK, kind of. Remembering that I have some Dutch ancestry, one could argue that our Santa Claus tradition came from this part of the world. Santa Claus is derived from the Dutch Sinter Klaas, a modification of Sint Nikolaas. Every year when my children were little, I would wait for them to fall asleep. Then, I would get out of ed in the dead of night, run outside in my PJs and slippers in the freezing cold, and jingle bells so that my children would think that Santa Claus was outside. There's just one catch. My Dutch ancestors were Jewish. So, this is probably just a really painful tradition that I inflicted on myself. My kids didn't even really believe in Santa Claus, anyway. In order to preserve the true meaning of Christmas, I always told them that Santa was just pretend like Superman. My Celtic ancestors from Ireland are known for the Christmas traditions of mistletoe, holly, and Wassail, but none of these things are really part of our family traditions, because mistletoe and holly berries are poisonous, and I have small dogs that love to chew everything into tiny pieces, and I hate Wassail. Maybe, just maybe, our traditional Christmas tree is passed down from our French ancestry since the tradition of the Christmas tree began in 17th century Strasbourg, France, but I could not really trace this through any family memories. It seems that all sides of my family even the non-French ones have had Christmas trees as long as they can remember. So, once again, I'm left to make my own traditions.
Still don't know what this all has to do with the automobile and electronic media? I'm getting there. Really! First, I want to tell you about what others say my ethnicity is . . . specifically the government. When I fill out a government form, often there is a section that says, "What is your ethnic background? Please marke one box." Then, it will proceed to give choices like: white, African-American, Pacific Islander, Asian, Eastern European, Native American, or Hispanic. Of course, I mark white, but this is not an ethnicity. The term African-American actually refers to a section of the population that has some cultural connection as does the term Pacific Islander. However, Asian, Eastern European, and Native American are all terms that refer to geographic areas, but people within these categories have a multitude of cultural backgrounds. The term Hispanic is based on language and encompasses all Spanish speaking ethnicities. Yet, the most culturally diverse is the section of the population called white. This is nothing more than a category based on skin color. It says absolutely nothing about my ethnic heritage. Besides, I'm not even white. I am sort of a pink color. Even this was not purposefully passed down as part of my ethnic background. It is simply a freak of nature that genetically connects me to my family.
Now, about how the automobile and electronic media stone my ethnicity. Finally! When my grandmother was a little girl, she knew some Dutch, and she was able to retain it into adulthood, but it was never passed on to my mother. There are two reasons for this. First, with the popularity of the automobile growing from one generation to the next, my grandmother's family drove their broken down cars further and further away from all Dutch speaking relatives. For some reason, there was no Gaelic left even in her generation. By the time my mother came along, TV was the most popular mode of communication. Instead of the family sitting around talking in their native tongue, my mother and her siblings sat around the TV and watched "Howdy Doody" and "The Lone Ranger." Everything became English. Even my father who came to California in a Model T Ford, lost his Oklahoma accent, because his family car had taken him so far away from family members who spoke with an accent. Before the advent of the automobile, families lived closer together, because no one wanted to walk 2,000 miles t get to the next state. Language traditions were easier to retain, because grandchildren would hear their grandparents speaking their native language. Likewise, before the TV, families were more likely to sit together and talk, making it more likely that a little traditional language would have come out now and then. TV became the center of the home, forcing the English language to penetrate even into family time.
One tradition that both sides of my family had in common was the tradition of hospitality and socializing. When my parents were young, they remember that any family members that lived in the near vicinity along with friends and neighbors would visit each other. They would sit in the yard and drink ice tea and eat watermelon in the summer, or in the winter, they would sit around kitchen tables and drink hot coffee. Sometimes, there would be twenty or thirty people at one time just sitting around and talking. Even when I was a child, this tradition hung on if only by a thread. Mostly around the holidays, friends and family would all get together at one home to open presents, eat until we had to unzip our pants, and talk. Now, we all get in our cars and go out of town or go to our grandchildren's program at different schools. Instead of meeting with family, we watch our favorite sit-com after work or binge watch Netflix during the summer. And, I can guarantee that none of my family sits around and reads as a family unit for entertainment purposes on a regular basis. We have become a solitary culture looking at our loved ones over the glare of electronic devices and driving around on the highways waving at each other as we pass by.
Even Christmas has been affected. Before the automobile and electronic media, this was a sacred holiday. Now, we hop in our cars and drive to the mall thirty miles away instead of passing down the crafts that make our culture and ethnicity unique. Now, we watch "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" (my personal favorite) instead of getting together with our family members that live less than a mile away. Instead of telling family stories about where our Christmas traditions originated, we go to day after Thanksgiving to a Christmas tree lot ten miles away to buy a tree. Then, we watch "It's a Wonderful Life" on Netflix.
Some would argue that any outward appearances of ethnicity have disappeared from my life, because my family has lived in American for so many generations. I would argue that I have friends with Mexican heritage whose families have lived in what is now the United States for many generations longer than mine, and still, they retain their ethnic identity. They speak Spanish, they make tamales at Christmas time, and they live in extended family households. Others would say that I have lost my ethnic identity, because all of the intermarriage that has occurred in my ancestry has made me a mutt. Maybe this is close to the truth. It is highly likely that there are so many traditions and ethnicities present in my heritage that no one could pick which traditions to cling to. Yet, as recent as three generations back, language traditions and family life traditions were retained. I say that the automobile and electronic media stole my ethnic identity.
It's OK, though. Because I have nothing to fall back on, I have been given the freedom and great privilege of making my own traditions. I guess in a way, I am able to create my own ethnicity. My life, my children's lives, and my grandson's life are full of tradition. We are big on birthdays. There are always parties and no one ever receives less than five presents. We also celebrate the seasons. We build a bonfire, bundle up in blankets, and enjoy popcorn. For spring, we do crafts and cook a big dinner. For the summer celebration, we go camping on the beach. And, for fall, we dress up, honor our ancestors, and eat soul cakes. The Fourth of July is also celebrated in grand style complete with enough sparklers for everyone. I just wouldn't be the Fourth of July without singed fingertips. And, let not forget the all important holiday -- Christmas. When my kids were little, we would make an advent calendar out of colorful construction paper. Now, my daughter has passed this tradition on to her son. Each date has an event that brings significance to our celebration. A couple of examples are, December 4 -- go shopping for stocking stuffers, December 12 -- watch a holiday movie as a family, December 22 -- play secret Santa by leaving an anonymous gift on someone's doorstep, preferably someone in need. Each year, we would also go on a Christmas light drive. Janie and Tyler now do this with Kayden. Mr. Elf on the Shelf has even travelled on to my grandson's home. I'm leaving out so much like Easter, food, and family stories. Suffice it to say that although I do not have an ethnic identity that fits into a box, my life is full of family values and significant tradition. So, even though the automobile and electronic media stole my categorical ethnic identity, I have made my own. So, what is my ethnic identity? I like to call it Le Scoduwalish.