Who Are You?

Last night while watching Texas mercilessly pummel Rice in an almost embarrassing reaffirmation that there are significant differences in NCAA division 1-A teams, I began to pay close attention to a series of commercials which really weren’t selling any product. They were sponsored by an insurance company, but no pitch was being made beyond the discrete display of a corporate logo in the lower left corner of the closing screenshot.

The series of videos were commentaries by a series of Latinos, describing their lives, their struggles and their accomplishments overcoming hardships but always as part of America. They were remarkable stories and they poignantly highlighted the pride of a group in both their ethnic heritage and in their chosen nation. If anyone harbored negative stereotypes of a people, the short spots went a long way toward challenging them.

This morning I went to the web site to see what it was all about. I found that it was a celebration of Hispanic History Month. Previously there had been a Black History series. Take a look and spend a minute or two to check some of the videos here:

Remembering Your Heritage

We get caught up all too easily in emotions when someone raises the question of immigration. We bundle up an entire category of people in a convenient package that reinforces what we’ve heard or anecdotally experienced then solve a complex problem with a simplistic, knee-jerk solution. That does nothing for the problem and debases us as Americans.

SWMBO (She Who Must Be Obeyed) asked me after one of the commercials last night if I felt that I had a heritage or cultural link similar to the ones displayed by these people in the videos. I thought about it for a minute or two and considered my background. I’m an only child from parents whose siblings had few children, so I don’t come from a close-knit extended family. I left home when I graduated from college and entered the military never to return to the locale of my aunts, uncles and few cousins except for a half dozen holiday visits during the first few years. They’ve not thought of me for a long time. We’ve got no linkage.

My parents were from two different European regions, neither of them tightly connected to an ethnic culture, language or even cuisine. We were a distinctly American family and in large measure proud of our assimilation. No traditions or heritage there.

But, then I realized I did have a heritage, a culture and an extended family probably more proud, loyal and select than I realized. These were the group that embraced the same values which I did, which believed in the same things, which voluntarily chose the same paths, endured the same hardships and dangers all for something larger than themselves. We had come together and bonded of our own choice rather than as accident of birth. Over the years we gather regularly and even if we haven’t been in contact for a decade or more, we sit and talk, resuming conversations as though no time had intervened.

After consideration, it was easy to respond to my wife that yes, I did have a culture and heritage. I was a fighter pilot, an American fighting man, a member of the warrior class and we were a proud people. I realized that I was damned fortunate.