“I have no religion, ethnicity or culture. My great-grandparents came from Czechoslov-akia and Sweden. My grandparents were second-generation Americans, however the pressure to assimilate into mainstream American culture kept them from passing on their heritage. My great-great-grandfather, a cranky old man, pretended that he didn’t speak English so that he didn’t have to talk to his grandchildren. This left a giant void in my family history. We really have no clue as to what his life was like in Sweden, what their grandmother was like or why they came to America. Even if I could fill in this void, I don’t really know what it would mean to me. What would I use this information for? Would I tell my children and grandchildren the history of their origins, their great-great-great-grandparents crossing the Atlantic to take part in the American Dream? I probably would. But having a greater knowledge of my history wouldn’t change my identity. I can still be proud of who I am, even if pieces of my past are missing.
I felt left out
I remember when one of my friends showed me pictures of the Christian overnight camp she attended over the summer. I felt kind of like a loner. I don’t have a camp that I can go to that will help me identify with my feelings and spirituality. But on the other hand I thought, “Why would I want to go to something so insular?” I like more diversity. It’s more interesting. You get to meet people with different backgrounds, viewpoints and personalities. One of my friends is Buddhist, another is Jewish and Christian. I’m not sure what one of my other friends is, but the truth is that it doesn’t really matter to me.
But it does seem to matter to other people. I feel that people are more likely to believe that I’m racist because I’m white. A lot of our English curriculum has to do with minorities who have suffered under white oppression, with books such as Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry and Farewell to Manzanar. I think that this is a critical part of our learning process, that we learn about history, but it’s hard for me. I’m not proud of the injustices that people have endured at the hands of white perpetrators, such as slavery, the Holocaust, apartheid and the internment of the Japanese during World War II. Who would be proud of a history like that? It makes me sick just thinking about it. We celebrate Columbus Day, when in fact all it symbolizes is the capture and torture of native American.
Learning all of these things about whites makes it hard to accept some of the viewpoints expressed within my own family. One of my family members and her friends seem to believe that we are the Almighty Race. According to them, Japanese businessmen are ignorant, compared to our shrewd American corporations. Accor-ding to them, stupid black secretaries are using affirmative action to work their way up the corporate ladder, surpassing the overqualified white male.
A close friend of mine, who like me is nothing but white, believes that in today’s society we have no place. She says that most white people are either racist, Jewish or Russian and in that, it really leaves no room for us. I really don’t know if I believe it or not but I do know that sometimes I feel left out. I don’t have church functions or the Million Man March to instill pride in my culture and religion. I can’t go back and look at my ancestors, putting together a puzzle of my history. I can’t look back on slavery or holocausts and say that my people were oppressed. Monumental crimes of humanity have not been plagued against me, but every day I feel the tension of the human race, battling against each other because of the actions of stupid people.
At the same time, I like the freedom it gives me. I’m not really expected to belong to anything or side with my heritage. My Asian friend was accused of being “whitewashed” when she was speaking Japanese and didn’t know a certain word.
It’s kind of sad that I celebrate holidays that have no connection to my life. I barely even know what they represent, yet they are my distorted traditions. It’s kind of nice though, I grew up celebrating Hannukah and I exchange gifts at Christmas time. Although I’m not religious, I am still able to participate in these religious celebrations.
When I see a T-shirt that says “White Trash—proud product of the U.S.A.” it strikes me as funny, sad, but funny. It’s ironic that whites would buy or wear a T-shirt like this, as if their own culture wasn’t worth respecting. It’s making fun of my race but I don’t feel acquainted with my race because I don’t have any concrete means of identification like holidays, churches, places of origin etc. So if I don’t feel close to it, or identify with it, why be offended by it?
Yet we are products of our society, we grow up with the attributes that surround us and we have not yet been able to escape the sins of our forefathers because racism is still prevalent today. Slavery is gone but the KKK still exists and that is what we need to work on overcoming. People need to realize that one small minority does not make up a majority. Instead, the human race needs to work together to overcome racial barriers. Then we can write about being a member of the human race—instead of the white race.”