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Haha, well it’s my birthday and I went and spoke with my grandmother today.
It seems that some of my close relatives (who we hardly get to see but we enjoy being around more than anyone other random family members) are not Hawaiian, which for the longest time I thought they were, are actually Japanese.
So my dad’s cousin married a Half-Japanese woman (quite a long time ago as my cousins are my age). I had thought she was Half-Hawaiian (I feel stupid), so my cousins are 1/4, but this is besides the point. Her mother, who is completely Japanese, she lives in the U.S. but only watches Japanese television. According to my grandmother, they hate to go and see her because there is no TV they can understand.
I have absolutely no “blood”-ties to being Japanese, and even though I love the fact I’m a mix of Irish, Cherokee, and Dutch. The fact my cousins don’t care that they are partial Japanese irritates me beyond belief. Their grandmother speaks Japanese, has always gone back to visit family in Japan, and they brush it off like it’s not important. Even if I could get in contact with some very distant Irish relatives and could go to Ireland, I would be beyond the realm of the word “happy”.
Well, glad to have that out of my system. But in a way, it’s also another motivator for me, if I could practice even more, when the time comes for us to go visit them, I would be glad to talk to their grandmother.
Also I would like to ask, what does heritage and bloodlines mean to you? As you can already see, it’s pretty important to me.
Honestly, I can’t say it means much to me. Though I’d be happy to learn more about my family history, they aren’t many sources I can refer to (as far as I know) in Malaysia.
Anyway, sounds like a pretty diverse family you have there. :)
EDIT: Whoops, forgot the complimentary ‘Happy Belated Birthday!’ wish!
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This reply was modified 13 years, 2 months ago by
Yippy.
Haha, it’s the United States. Diversity is our middle name, though most of the time it’s not always a good thing. It’s not easy to track family history here either, but it seems a lot of people take pride in it, which my grandfather did.
I definitely went more than overboard with this, seems like when I hit that one year older mark I go a little crazy, accompanied by lack of sleep due to work and classes.
But yeah, my family is an interesting one.
Oh yeah, and thanks for the “happy birthday”. My facebook exploded yesterday, as well as my phone from facebook constantly emailing me.
Happy belated birthday to you, sir. I never tell anybody my birthday because of that, but then again I don’t have a Facebook either.
I don’t know much about my family history except that I’m part German/Irish. I’d like to know more, but sadly I’m not very close to much of my family. My family doesn’t get along very well; the majority are rich snobs or drug addicts. The drug addicts are too drugged up to care about anything and the rich snobs are too rich to care about anybody but themselves.
Haha, I have a solid idea of where you’re coming from. My heritage is really important to me, and the fact that my family hasn’t remained connected to it sort of bothers me. I’m Greek and Irish, and I really only know very little about my family’s history. I know a lot about the Irish side of our history, but not so much about the Greek. The Irish side is actually kind of cool, my great grandfather was supposed to emigrate to the United States on the Titanic, but he missed that because he got shwasted the night before and slept in due to his hangover. So, I sort of exist because of that. Also I’m related to a major socialist leader guy in the Irish Revolution named James Connolly. Still, aside from that my family is pretty disconnected to our Irish roots.
The Greek side is even worse. My grandpa spoke Greek fluently because he was a first generation immigrant, but because there was a lot of discrimination against Eastern Europeans and stuff back in the day, he decided not to teach any of his kids Greek. So, basically, all of my mom’s relatives speak Greek except for her side of the family. Sometimes we’ll go to Greek church for like big events, and those are wicked long with the priest speaking in Greek for half of the time so it’s a smidge’ awkward. After Japanese, or maybe even before it I really want to learn Greek.
Yeah. I guess connecting with my heritage is just really important to me because it feels like a part of my identity, and while being American is totally cool and all, I’d feel like it’d be pretty shitty if my heritage died out because of cultural assimilation.
@Swoosherz Exactly! Honestly most of my family doesn’t really pay attention to it, but my grandpa was huge into researching it, he would always tell me the new things he would find out. He’s no longer alive but his enthusiasm for family history seems to live on through me. As for how my Irish side arrived, I have no idea, but it’s funny when my dad comes home and finds cousins he didn’t know about and they end up with a “Mc-” last name.
As for Greek… well, “It’s all Greek to me.” But when you feel comfortable with Japanese I say you go for it
It’s still strange to think that I could easily get in touch with distant Japanese family, would most likely be really awkward though, seeing as I’m a Caucasian posterboy in a way, dark blonde hair and blue eyes, seems everything except my height screams “WHITEY!”
@RavenTwoFive: No problem. As for your Facebook surge, why not turn the notifications off for a day?
Happy belated birthday! ;)
My family doesn’t care about heritage. I guess we’ve been in the US too long? My mom’s side of the family is from England and Scotland way back when. On my dad’s side, my great grandfather immigrated from Denmark. My great grandmother was from Denmark as well but they met in South Dakota.
I care about heritage, but there’s no one to ask anymore. I think overall my family gets smaller, less kids born each generation. It’s very sad. And since I’m female, my children will be contributing to my husband’s family line. Personally, I think it’s important to understand other cultures even if they aren’t your own. Adoption, I guess!
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This reply was modified 13 years, 2 months ago by
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