In a message dated 11/24/1999 3:39:32 AM Eastern Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

> Of course, our ethnicity has a significant bearing on what we perceive our
> heritage to be, and how we relate to the items that others declare to be
> heritage.

David-

Interesting insight. For many generations, children of immigrant families
struggled to be "American."  Now, some seem to be struggling to find their
way back to their early roots and away from the melting pot. With the mix of
cultures in my family, both inherited and chosen it is interesting which
roots we "select" as our dominant heritage - Irish, French, Scottish,
English, Jewish? My sons have added components of Eastern European and
Russian thrown in.

For some reason (much to my FR, Scot, English mother's mild dismay...) the
Irish elements of my heritage seem more present than the others. I don't
think I realized this until in my thirties I read a book "A Year in County
Clare" - about a young American couple's return to her grandmother's cottage
in Ireland.

What I thought were my own strange quirks suddenly leaped from the pages of
this book, as the writer described behavior she labeled "characteristic" of
the Irish. OK, for example: I find it difficult to go into a store where I am
the only customer. I had struggled subconsciously with this for a long time
(it probably saved me a lot of money!). But in the Clare story the writer
described having to station schills inside her art gallery so that other
customers would be drawn in - the Irish didn't enter empty public rooms
readily. Cultural paranoia? Maybe. Who knows. I didn't expect this insight,
given all the hype about how garrulous the Irish were, what wonderful
storytellers, how glib. Here was a bit of the dark side of the culture that
suddenly resonated in me somewhere.

This summer, my sons and I went to Ireland. Dan, my elder son (21) seemed to
be on a quest for his own identity -- seeking clues in his Irishness, which
by now must be only 1/8 of his bloodline. Yet here he was, raised Jewish in
New Jersey, experiencing the same mysterious resonance that I had felt 20
years ago.  Dan, a writer and poet, now wants more than anything else to
study for a time at Trinity College, Dublin. He sensed he was "home" there --
with the rain and the cool air and the persistent melancholy that somehow
permeates the atmosphere.

The younger son, Casey (18) loved the Guinness, loved Ireland, but more in a
universal traveler's way. Maybe he feels more "American" than anything else
-- not drawn to anything consciously distinct. Case wants to be a screenplay
writer -- New York seems more comfortable to him.  I wonder if at some point
he will embark on his own quest for what he senses is his own dominant
heritage. Maybe it all has to do with the strength of the genes from one
source or another.

-- Mary