An Ancestry.com DNA test tells me that these are my origins:
Ireland/Scotland/Wales, Europe East, Europe West,
Iberian Peninsula, Europe South, European Jewish,
Great Britain, Native American, Scandinavia, Finland/Northwest Russia
but the only thing that connects me to my ancestors
is corned beef and cabbage
is pierogis and golumpkis
is..
is…
well, and I’m a farmer now
and my Lithuanian great grandfather was a dairy farmer
and my French-Canadian great-great grandfather was a dairy farmer
but he went through the ice on the Saint Lawrence River with his cows
and drowned or maybe froze to death first
and after that my 3 year old great-grandmother was sent to a convent
and raised by mean old nuns and she never learned about love and kindness
and my grandma says that’s part of the reason my grandfather became an alcoholic
sometime between when his mother kicked him out of the house at 14 years old
and when him and my grandmother had their first child, my aunt, sixty years ago
and my Irish great-grandfather became a severe alcoholic after his wife died too young
and that’s basically everything I know about my roots
and my father is an alcoholic
and I stopped drinking 3 years ago because I didn’t want to be an alcoholic…
and that is my story
my roots are scattered
and I know nothing about them
aside from a couple stereotypical dishes
and tales from my grandmother.
Within a generation, my ancestors all lost their tongues
and they got amnesia about where they were from
they had to melt into the pot
and learn to call the kettle black…
My wife is Iranian, is Persian
and her roots run back thousands of years
and her story is found in the words of Rumi and Hafez
and her story predates Islam by thousands of years
and her story predates even Zorostor
and it is a beautiful story
and hers is a beautiful family
and Iran is a beautiful country
and half of Iran is secular
and even poor farmers there can recite poetry
can debate philosophy
know their history
including 1953…
and the only ‘culture’ I can genuinely claim as my own
is an American culture
is a culture of coups
is a culture of destroying other cultures
beautiful, ancient cultures
is a culture of war and violence
is a culture of racism and sexism
is a culture of bigotry and hatred
is a culture of genocide and slavery
is a culture of you are either with us
or with the terrorists
but who, really,
are the terrorists?
I can never return to the land of my ancestors
I wouldn’t know where to go
and they wouldn’t welcome me when I arrived
I am American by birth
and unfortunately, also culturally
but…
I refuse to be
so I am stateless
with asylum in the Hawaiian islands
trying to be a humble guest
trying to do my part
and to do my best
the rest?
I guess none of it matters…
