Where am I from, exactly? I don’t exactly know. For all of my thousands of conversations with Dead Rita, she was a little fuzzy on her heritage. She was born out of wedlock to my grandmother and Johnny Clark. I THINK it’s all German on my grandmother’s side….but is there some Polish in there too? I don’t know anything about Johnny Clark my grandfather. Mr. Papa proudly discussed his German heritage….but there was always so much exaggeration and so few facts, I have no idea where HIS family comes from within Germany.
It’s a family of secrets from a heritage standpoint. And I’m surprised at how little I care. Probably because it was never emphasized by either parent.
This all comes up as a topic after we spent a lovely evening at the Festa Italiana last night. John aka Giovanni, beloved amore, is half Italian (Father) and half Irish (Mother). But we definitely celebrate the Italian part of him and even went to Toro Italy to find his lineage.
When in Rwanda I see the pride of being a Rwandan, being from a certain place. That was never emphasized in my family and therefore few facts are known to me. I know I could do that whole genealogy search, but I don’t think so. It’s just interesting to see what is focused on by our parents, and then what legacy we are left with because of it.
I seem to fit in wherever I am in the world. But strangely enough, when we were in Northern Italy near the German border, John was handed a menu in Italian, and I was handed one in GERMAN! Das ist so lustig!
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1 comment:
Love this post - living outside of the states nobody ever asks me "what are you" because to them it's obvious, I'm American, but when I was in the US I remember everyone was always asking or pointing out their heritage. If I were to say I'm half German over here almost NO ONE would believe me since I was born in America to American born parents.
Also interesting since everyone seems to be very patriotic around the Olympics.
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