I am a white American. I’ll never be anything else.
It drives me crazy when someone asks me about my culture as if I’m supposed to respond with some amazing, exotic tale of how I was born in some magical far-away land filled with incredible, vibrant people.
No, I was born and raised in California to a white middle-class family. I ate Pop Tarts and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, I watched cartoons on Saturday morning and went to public school.
This is not to say, however, that I don’t have a cultural heritage or that I don’t have respect for my ancestors. My ancestors came to this country from elsewhere just like everyone else in America. The problem is, this happened so long ago, and so many generations have passed before me that I can’t identify with those ancestors anymore. Consequently, I wasn’t raised like they were and their cultural identity is less visible in me.
I used to work with a guy from Ireland. Once, to make conversation, I said, “You know, I’m part Irish.”
“Every American says that,” he said.
He was absolutely right.
Americans get so caught up with metaphors for our culture, like the “melting pot,” or the “tossed salad” or whatever mixed-ingredient food they will come up with next, that we forget about people like me, the people who have been boiling in the “melting pot” for so long they’ve lost all original flavor and taken on the flavors of everything else in the pot.
This is not necessarily a bad thing. We just need to recognize that new cultural groups have formed, with their own valid cultural identity.
My ancestors came from Ireland, England, Spain, and Austria, but I am not any of those things. I am part of a newer cultural group with its own unique identity.
Justin Perry
Spartan Daily Staff Writer
1 Comment
April 19, 2009 at 10:05 pm
You think you have it hard? Try being a minority whose family came to the U.S. several generations ago, yet people are still asking you why you can’t speak your “native” language, how you’re too americanized/white washed, or how you’re a disgrace to your own race.
At least you’re white. People expect you to only speak english and to be fully americanized, yet if you have a different skin color, it’s suddenly a crime to not know much about your heritage. You tell me why it is that my Russian friend who wasn’t born here never gets asked what languages he can speak, yet I get asked that on an almost daily basis and my parents and grandparents were born here.
I can’t even post my name for fear of backlash. I, too, ate pop tarts and peanut butter & jelly sandwiches and watched Saturday morning cartoons, but it’s unacceptable for someone like me who according to others, should’ve spent their childhood eating ethnic food and watching foreign soap operas.
I’m not saying that I’m not proud to be my ethnicity or that it’s not important to know your roots, but I feel there’s a double standard when it comes to second plus generation American minorities and whites.
It’s time our society quits assuming that anyone with a skin color other than white can’t possible be more than a second-generation American.