Disjointed from cultural heritage

[I'm a person too!]

Hey gang.

I've always been a bit bothered by the lack of connection I have to my ancestors. I only know my family tree as far back as my grandparents and my family is extremely not close so I've never been handed down any family history from either side. I can guess from the surnames that they are Irish and German but that's all I know. I don't know how either family arrived in Ohio or how long they've been there. This has always bothered me.

You know how kids in school do little cultural history projects based on their families? I was never comfortable with that because I don't know mine, I'm just guessing. Now I live in an area that is heavy on celebrating a variety of heritages and I feel left out. Many people here speak their traditional languages, eat traditional foods, and wear traditional clothing. I have Ohio...

I just feel like I came from nowhere, you know, since I don't have that long rich history so many of my neighbors do. I don't feel like I am part of anything. It has always bothered me that my family has no traditions and it kind of makes me feel like they don't want me to be part of their heritage since they aren't including me in it.

I was just wondering what you guys's relationship to your cultural heritage is. I've been looking for a new hobby, a new sport or language and thought it would be really neat to connect with something in that history which I can be part of but I feel like I'm just grafting myself onto someone else's story. I'm just an american mutt wishing for a history.

[wyrdwyrm]

I know a lot about my family's history, but being mutt-like myself there wasn't a single, strong tradition that was passed down to my generation - it's like every tradition ended with my grandparents.

My Polish side will occasionally celebrate the Polish Christmas (forgot the name right now, darn it) with the local Polish Heritage Society, but we haven't gone for at least a decade now. My German side...we have a single German prayer that my great grandfather used to say at meals that's been written down a few places, but my family's not big on saying Grace so it fell out of use. I remember a few lines of it because we had it hanging up at my house.

That's about it! I make up for the lack of tradition my adopting things (like celebrating Chinese New Year despite not being Chinese) or developing new ones, like getting together with friends for Thanksgiving instead of family (since I don't get enough time off from work to travel).

[Exosk]

(just major oops)

:redface:

[5_♦♣]

Are any of your grandparents alive? If so, talk to them and you will likely start filling in the blanks about your past.

[Zapstileon]

I have minimal connection to any of my family aside from my mother and her parents. Personally, I feel no affection for neither my heritage or my birth country or any culture that has anything to do with either one. Having said that, I also feel no immediate connection to the country I live in now and its culture. I just feel like I'm another person living here doing my own thing.

In my case though, I had a heritage project thing in 9th or so grade. What I did was I told my mother what I needed and she talked to her parents and they talked to the rest of our family and gathered information for me. (I don't speak my mother's family's language so she had to take care of the communication between me and them.) Eventually, I ended up with a load of pictures and anecdotes and facts about where we come from and our ancestors and things because an entire family of people I didn't know existed pitched in to help me. I ended up with two essays and a family tree that went back something like six generations.

[Spotastic]

I have a HUGE family. My grandfather on my dad's side had 37 kids. My grandmom on my mom's side had 15 from at least 4 different guys. I'm Puertorican and Taino, with some African mixture in the bloodlines on my dad's side. I'm Yugoslavian, and some kind of Caucasian mixture on my mom's side (German, Irish, and Welsh I think). It's nearly impossible for me to follow my genealogy.

Basically, my culture is American.

[I'm a person too!]

Well talking to family is not an option. I was never formally disowned but they all stopped replying to me about four years ago. I guess I'm not even really so interested in the specific individuals that led up to me as just knowing which group and history I could count myself part of and belong to. My impression of many of these heritage societies is that they are fun and supportive. Another version of family and something that people take pride in. Maybe I'm looking for something to be proud of?

[Exosk]

They stopped replying or haven't initiated contact? It's okay if you don't want to talk about it more, but I'm not usually one to initiate conversation myself. I have other family members that are this way. It's not from dislike or disowning, there's just no initiation of communication often if distance is a factor.

A genetic test is one way to find out, there are multiple companies that offer them. These won't tell you specific people, but they will tell you what cultures or groups you have inherited genes from. A person with a "full German" parent and a "full Chinese" parent may have as little as 15% recognized German or Chinese genes inherited of each. That's the funny thing about the modern culture and heritage societies is that they usually go by surname or paper trail, but those aren't blood proof of a person's ancestry. Human populations haven't really been isolated enough to genetically distinguish many countries from one another. Many people attending cultural and heritage events probably aren't even carrying a significant amount of genes from that culture/group.

Can't you attend them if you want? I thought these events were like high school rallies, to create the pride. You can be proud of a culture that isn't your ancestral one. I don't know why you couldn't go to these anyways. I like going to the culture awareness events to learn about the different cultures & lifestyles and so far that's brought me much more satisfaction than claiming blood of certain dead people.
;)

[I'm a person too!]

Well none of my family was ever close and I just never heard from anyone at all after I moved out. I sent cards and letters and emails and texts for a couple years but then gave up. I'm not sure if they just aren't with it or if it has to do with how completely I redefined myself in that time (that caused a LOT of friction with my mother who is not above turning people away from me.) I've always been a sort of emotional orphan.

I'm sure anyone is welcome to attend I just want to have some claim to be there. I do go to multicultural events but always feel outside. I don't want to be just a poser, I want to really actually belong to a group.

[Palovana]

Both my father's grandparents came from Italy. Naples on his father's side, Milan and Venice on his mother's side. When I was little, that side of the family was very traditional and we had a very strong cultural identity. It still is, to some extent, but my great-grandparents died before I was born and my grandparents are dead now, too. Cousins have grown up and moved away, one of my uncles and his wife joined a religious cult and are no longer allowed to associate with us anymore for whatever reason. So now that side of the family is very disconnected. The cultural things are still there, but not nearly as obvious as it was when I was growing up. Almost everyone on that side of the family is Italian, but we know that one of my great-grandmother's parents were German and we're not entirely sure, but there's some speculation that there is Greek in the bloodline.

My mom's side is a lot more obscure. I don't know much about here family. She never knew her dad, the only thing she knew about him and his family is that they came from Scotland. My grandmother's family on that side is primarily English and Irish, but the surnames of some of our relatives are French and others are Scandinavian, but we're not sure if they're Swedish or Norwegian or Danish.

If someone asks, I usually identify myself as Italian-American, because that seems the most obvious to me, and I think is the most accurate cultural identity that I could claim. Funny thing is, people tell me I don't "look" Italian. I'm fair-skinned and green-eyed, but my hair is dark and my facial structure and features are typically Mediterranean. People are usually surprised when I tell them my father's side is Italian. I hear that I look Irish or French a lot. I don't look anything like my parents and brother. My mom is blue-eyed but we don't share any other similar physical characteristics. My father and brother are dark-haired, dark-eyed, and have an olive complexion. I suppose I got all the Germanic/Celtic/Anglo-Saxon genes. :P

Everyone knows my family is Italian when they hear my surname, though. It's kind of a trump card. It's three syllables and ends in an "i". :P

[marki]

Yeah I wish I was able to really know more about my Jewish heritage. I never grew up learning any of those things.

[defaultuser]

Well, I like to think of myself as someone that came out of nowhere. :) It's not like I'm totally don't care about ancestors (but probably don't), I just find these thoughts.. hm.. sad. This is just.. mad for me, people breed and breed and breed... and for what? So their children, grand-children etc will do the same? That's the Grand plan? No, just NO.

I remember some photographs of my ancestors, and it always saddens me. Well, as sad as I actually feel about them, that also motivates me to be better, to never repeat the same mistakes.

...

Dammit, shouldn't have thought about this :( This stuff always depresses me a lot. Can't believe that I have considered possibility of adopting a child. NOT GONNA HAPPEN, just NO.

[deltaX]

I know my family tree up to my great grandparents. I could probably find out more of I asked around because I have a grandmother on one side and a great aunt on the other who know a lot about the family history, but I haven't really bothered. For some reason my family's past hasn't really been a big deal to me.

Although I do understand feels isolated whenever doing those family history projects in school. My family is rather uninteresting, while a lot of my classmates had exciting stories about cultural traditions that their family celebrates. Thankfully, I'm done with those projects for now.

[Kuroneko]

I'm very close to my cultural heritage as I immigrated to Canada when I was young. We don't have a large extended family though in Hong Kong or China. My mother's from Hong Kong and my dad's from mainland Toishan region. His parents used to tell him what happened during WWII when the Japanese army brutalized their way to that region. My dad was only about 1 years old at the time. He has lived through the cultural revolution and told me how frightening it was when people (his neighbours) around him would just disappeared overnight and forced out to the fields. That was the reason why our family immigrated to Canada. His family was listed as peasants. lol Now that my dad's retired, he and my mom wants to live there. He said it's so different from before during those years of the cultural revolution. Back then before the takeover, Hong Kong had privatized schooling so my mom at the age of 11 worked full-time at a wig-making manufacturing plant to support her family. For both my parents it was a really tough life.

We celebrate Lunar New Year, Mid-Autumn Festival, Ghost Festival, visit the Buddhist Temple, watch Asian tv series and films (Chinese, Japanese, Taiwan and Singaporean), speak the language, etc. When my older sister got married it was a traditional chinese wedding ceremony with the tea ceremony, my mom combing her hair, red dress, etc. and she didn't change her last name (as according to our culture, the wife maintains her own identity in marriage and the child will have the father's last name but can choose). So yeah, we still practice and celebrate our culture but it could be because we are first generation immigrants.

[Exosk]

Well, I like to feel of myself as someone that came out of nowhere. :) It's not like I'm totally don't care about ancestors (but probably don't), I just find these thoughts.. hm.. sad. This is just.. mad for me, people breed and breed and breed... and for what? So their children, grand-children etc will do the same? That's the Grand plan? No, just NO.

I remember some photographs of my ancestors, and it always saddens me. Well, as sad as I actually feel about them, that also motivates me to be better, to never repeat the same mistakes.

...

Dammit, shouldn't have thought about this :( This stuff always depresses me a lot. Can't believe that I have considered possibility of adopting a child. NOT GONNA HAPPEN, just NO.

I can see how it is depressing too, not sure if in the same way. It's like being stuck on a cycle of being pulled apart and put back together in a different way before it's time and then starting over and over again only to keep doing it...I want to get off of that wheel =(

@ I'm a person too! - I asked my cousin about this and she said that she believes she understands where you are coming from. She was adopted and she has a mixed ancestry such that it's hard to tell by her features alone. She says there is almost always a longing to know for certain what cultures she is from and to feel that she belongs.

[defaultuser]

I can see how it is depressing too, not sure if in the same way. It's like being stuck on a cycle of being pulled apart and put back together in a different way before it's time and then starting over and over again only to keep doing it...I want to get off of that wheel =(

I think I feel somewhat familar. You I remember some of my family members when they were really old, it's like... seeing a shadow of their former self... I... well.. that really saddens me and SICKENS. FOR WHAT DAMN PURPOSE!? So we would do 1 day the same, round and round, round and round, damn madness never ends.

Someone just has to shut the bloodline down.