i'm between 2 and 3 generations off the boat. of all my grand parents, 3 were first generation born here. the 4th is not known, but probably themselves only one or two generations from immigration. all came from northern europe, but very different areas. the details are not known regarding the circumstances, but all of them were illiterate.
the stories i got growing up started with simple details, like what country they came from. always that they were proud of being from there and wanted their children to be proud too. as i got older, the stories of these people became darker. extreme poverty. alcoholism. intimate partner violence. early teen pregnancy. religious fanaticism. sectarianism. an "evil" side of the family we were to stay away from.
when someone mentions one of those countries my great grand parents came from, it's hard not to imagine if things would have worked out better had they stayed. i don't think of people in those places as "my people" or anything, though admittedly a lot of americans seem to. the chuddier parts of my family totally would, because they are weird racists. the libs probably would too, because that kind of thinking is always under the surface, and of the older cohort, they remember conversations with the first generation immigrants and their weird pride for being born in a place they left.
i think a lot of children of settlers feel they have to come up with some story for their emigration/displacement, especially now that so much political discourse in the US is about how immigrants are not "coming the right way" or whatever the current rhetoric being deployed is to obscure how it's always been racism.
i'm between 2 and 3 generations off the boat. of all my grand parents, 3 were first generation born here. the 4th is not known, but probably themselves only one or two generations from immigration. all came from northern europe, but very different areas. the details are not known regarding the circumstances, but all of them were illiterate.
the stories i got growing up started with simple details, like what country they came from. always that they were proud of being from there and wanted their children to be proud too. as i got older, the stories of these people became darker. extreme poverty. alcoholism. intimate partner violence. early teen pregnancy. religious fanaticism. sectarianism. an "evil" side of the family we were to stay away from.
when someone mentions one of those countries my great grand parents came from, it's hard not to imagine if things would have worked out better had they stayed. i don't think of people in those places as "my people" or anything, though admittedly a lot of americans seem to. the chuddier parts of my family totally would, because they are weird racists. the libs probably would too, because that kind of thinking is always under the surface, and of the older cohort, they remember conversations with the first generation immigrants and their weird pride for being born in a place they left.
i think a lot of children of settlers feel they have to come up with some story for their emigration/displacement, especially now that so much political discourse in the US is about how immigrants are not "coming the right way" or whatever the current rhetoric being deployed is to obscure how it's always been racism.