Joe Doakes from Como Park emails<\/p>\n
\nA writer on-line was musing about tracing her family\u2019s roots, going back to The Old Country as Mary and Joseph did when Caesar ordered the census.<\/p>\n
Going back to my home town would be a snap \u2013 my folks still live in the same house.\u00a0 Beyond that \u2013 Dad was from a small town in southern Minnesota and Grandpa grew up on a farm around there, I think, but beyond that I\u2019m not sure.<\/p>\n
The family legend is the ancestors snuck into the country when the borders were not so vigorously enforced.\u00a0 And no White men originally lived in North America, they must have come from somewhere in Europe, but where, exactly? \u00a0Not a clue.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t really care.\u00a0 Nothing there for me, now.\u00a0 The Old Country is so far back that it\u2019s merely myth.\u00a0 I\u2019m an American now.\u00a0 Minnesotan, really, since we\u2019re intrinsically superior to Iowans and cheeseheads and wouldn\u2019t want to be lumped with that riff-raff.<\/p>\n
I suspect it\u2019s the same for all Fourth Generation people.\u00a0 If we could slam shut the immigration gates for a generation or two, the grandkids would hold no sentimental attachment to The Old Country beyond eating tacos on Cinco de Mayo, the way Irishmen drink green beer for St. Paddy.\u00a0 A novelty, not an identity.<\/p>\n
Trump should be pushing a moratorium while we build The Wall and revamp the immigration system to eliminate anchor babies and chain migration.\u00a0 That would be his greatest legacy.<\/p>\n
Joe Doakes<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
‘My familh’s connections to one of our Old Countries – Norway in this case – are pretty strong; I’m in some contact with a fourth cousin who happens to earn a living studying arctic foxes on Svalbard Island – but otherwise, I agree.<\/p>\n
There was a time when ethnic identity was a diversion and a hobby, at least in theory.<\/p>\n
“But Mitch – if you were black, you didn’t have that option”.<\/p>\n
Well, yeah – you’re right.\u00a0 America’s greatest mistake keeps paying dividends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails A writer on-line was musing about tracing her family\u2019s roots, going back to The Old Country as Mary and Joseph did when Caesar ordered the census. Going back to my home town would be a snap \u2013 my folks still live in the same house.\u00a0 Beyond that \u2013 Dad […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=65638"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65639,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65638\/revisions\/65639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=65638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=65638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=65638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}