Cultural Perspective
After some silence, I have returned. I did not intend to post today, but after reading
skipthedemon and
shirou 's entries on their cultural heritage, I came to a strange feeling of my lack of one. I know many folk speak of their Indian/French or German/Italian heritage and that Mom's family is third generation Spanish and Dad is fourth generation Italian or whatever the case is. The truth is, while I might say I'm a French-Dutch-American, I really have no ties to either cultures besides the one's I've formed from my own interests.
My family is a regular American/European mutt ensemble. Even my parents know very little about the cultures their grandparents came from. My mother's family I know very little of. My mother has mentioned that her mother's mother was rumored to be native american, but beyond that, I know very little of what tribe.
Of all the family, the only member I know some of is Great Grandfather Hiepel, my father's mother's father. He was a first generation American, his mother having come over as a teen to make it on her own. That I take pride in that, a single woman coming to a foreign country without family. She met her husband, who had also came over from Holland, after working here in the states for some years. They were farmers and little more. Salt of the earth and scraping by. But, for some reason, Great Grandpa is someone I've always felt close to despite him dying when I was about 3 years old. I was the first and only great grandchild he met. Fortunately, my family has told numerous stories, most of them very humorous, about him. When I lived in France in 2001, I felt oddly even more close to him and returned to the states with so many questions about his life. I'm not sure why, but I felt his spirit was there about me at the church in Vence, smiling upon me as I lit candles and explored the many rooms behind the alter. The stories my family gave me of him were not of his fights or his heritage, but of his warmth and his level mind, his quick wit and his hard work. Simple folk.
My grandparents on both sides were the first to finally break the generations of farming to get educated. Papaw who passed away recently wanted to move up in the world, went to school. He learned to repair sewing machines and how to handle business. My Grandpa went to business college, but only did one year. He did complete jewelry trade school, but it was his military and experience that made him into a valued businessman by Pizitz, Martin's Jewelry, and Fuji Film.
Then my parents worked towards a movement even their parents didn't expect- college and civil rights. They worked to aid others, in education and support. While my grandparents still hold the subtle details of racism even today, they understand that such views are not correct and my grandmother works very hard to change her own perspectives. My parents I find have very much influenced me: their hard work, their good character, making their own place in life by helping others. Simple goals. So many stories about their own lives, their own mistakes and successes. They are a model. My father only more so than my mother, not because of his profession, but because of the man he has become.
We're not a big family, grandparents, my mother's three siblings, their spouses and my four cousins and my father's brother and sister-inlaw. That's it. It grows slowly as babies are born and my cousin and sister get married. I've been to a Hand family reunion (my mother's mother's family), the family that stayed with the crops and handed down homes out beyond the city limits, the folks who married their childhood sweethearts and were happy for their son to go to trade school or join the military. That's the family we use to be, still are at the heart. But my little corner of the family seems so outside that now, so different on the outside. As my distant cousin talks about having her third little girl with so much joy and pride, I talked about my trips in the countryside of France and the art work I did which the same emotion. But they are all family. All simple, white, americans.
So, I think back on the amount of pride I take in my family. I boast about them every other day, never shy away from saying who they are and what they've done, and what they've taught me. My hopes of even being a fraction of the people they have become, especially my parents, are there as I try to become a better person.
Perhaps its a lack of culture that made them work so hard, of making their own heritage to hand down, their own traditions and homes to pass on to the next. A part of me wishes for a heritage of culture, a rpoud lineage of gentlemen or history, but as my grandfather talks about being a bomber navigator, my father talks about corn-cob grenades he and his brother would toss in the outhouse, my mother's disappearance to Haitte, Ashbury, and my grandmothers' tales of her father's fiddle, I know I've got plenty of culture right there.
Meaningful Phrase: My business Card-
"Special Agent Lintseed Martin.
Primary Counselor, BA
Butterfly Gooser
Good 'Un"