I mean really, how many generations of living in this land, or how many different nationalities blended into your blood does it take before you can finally drop the ethnicity from your American descriptor?
When does it happen?
How does it happen?
Will we forever cling to keep heritage before nation?
Without incident of war when do we all just be Americans?
My mothers folk started coming to America before the Revolutionary War, other generations from my Mom' side came in over the centuries and added their bloodlines into the family, There's English, Irish, Dutch, Scottish and Ute too. All these people were Christians--Baptist, Methodists and Catholics.
My Father's family packed up in 1938 and got out of Austria while they could--they saw what was coming, they had worked quietly and secretively against it but when their capture was inevitable my grandfather drew out his vacation money and received a visa for a sabbatical to work and teach alongside his FIL, my great-grandfather who was already here. They got out and left virtually everything behind. My father was thirteen, his parents had mixed lineage of Slavic, Turkish, Hungarian, German, Italian and Austrian. All these different people had different religions--Christian, Judaic and Muslim.
So, here I am, the product of two people from very diverse nationalities and religions. All of that shaped them in their lives and in turn shaped the lives of me and my siblings.
What am I to call myself when I cannot lay claim to anything greater than 25%, and the greater part of the diversity comes from an ancestral League of Nations.
I am a Melting Pot American, I am a Heinz 57 American, I am a Multi-Cultural American, I am 21st Century American. I am an American.
I am me.