I keep hearing from all the hyphenated folks, those embracing their cultural heritage and all that. I can remember as a kid being called a Kraut once. When I got home I asked my Mom what that was. She told me it was slang for being a German; she added you could have called a square head too. That meant you were from Scandinavia. Grandmother Bennett was from Sweden, I knew that, she had a little Swedish flag in her curio cabinet. At Christmastime she told me the oldest daughter in the house got to wear a crown of burning candles! Sounded pretty cool to me. Good thing to have a square head in that situation. I also remember that someone gave my father some lederhosen. There were my size and I did wear them once, I remember feeling ridiculous!
I just don’t get the whole embracing your heritage thing, Heritage is what is left to you. My ancestors from past centuries have never left me a thing! No castles, no lands, no great titles and not even a few bucks or Krona. Nothing. As far as their culture goes I know very little about any of that and what I do know stands a good chance of being wrong. It’s like Native Americans today. Hollywood shows one thing the reality is far different. It’s been 135 years since the last “wild Indian” roamed the great plains. There is no one alive today that lived in that culture. The other “wild Indians” were all tamed long before that. What is left are stories, traditions and reenactments. Just like there are no real Hollywood cowboys.
My thinking is so many are grabbing onto the past in some vain attempt to impress others with that past. Well, my fourth great grandfather on my mothers side, twice removed was this or that. And my response is always, and so? For me it’s like being related to a celebrity of some sort. We all want to brag about that, like we had anything to do with it. Heritage doesn’t give you claim to the past, it is what the past allows you to keep. The objective in life is make your own heritage, not copy the past.
Is heritage and culture the same thing? No, they are not. Heritage may be physical objects, customs, traditions or monuments from the past. Culture however are shared beliefs, behaviors or customs that are contemporary. That’s the thing about culture, it is constantly changing. You really can’t join heritage and culture. That’s why you really can’t judge someone based on their heritage. Heritage is fixed, customs are not. A good thing too, or we might still be practicing human sacrifices or slavery. Both were the custom at one time. So was hanging, putting people in the stocks and any number of other customs.
It is culture that defines us a a person, not out heritage. Whatever cultures you were raised in is going to be that driving force. I’ve thought about it in some depth and struggle to define my culture. My heritage? Swedish, German and British from what the testing shows. Of course, there are others mixed in, a total of 11 according to my DNA. My cultural influences stem from New England, those stoic New Englanders you see and hear about in the movies. Not very adventurous, rather conservative but steadfast in their beliefs, just hardworking, no nonsense folks that won’t take much guff from others. It was from those folks the “pioneers” came. My ancestors weren’t among that group. My father lies in the same ground as some of our most distant ancestors.
I do have some artifacts as my heritage. When I share them with others I am sharing a culture as it existed at that time, to the best of recollection. Of course most of that are stories that I have heard told and retold. One of those ancestors was a ’round the world whaler! That doesn’t make me a whaler, nor responsible for the whaling industry in the late 1800’s. Whatever heritage I leave will hopefully be embraced, remembered and respected in the future.
Hopefully it doesn’t clash with the current culture. I see that happening today with all this ” truth in history” Columbus has fallen from grace, the founding fathers no longer revered as they once were for a number of their customs. Instead our culture is installing criminals as heroes, portraying them as freedom fighters, heroes of the people. Hitler, Castro, and Stalin were all viewed that way once, not that many years ago but the custom has changed now. No one today embracing that “heritage.” Had the Axis power triumphed that would certainly be different.
An aging man living in a confusing world. I was born and raised in East Hampton, yes “the Hamptons” but not rich, not famous and definitely not woke. These are my thoughts, my memories and my opinions. Just the stuff of the regular Joe.
I keep hearing from all the hyphenated folks, those embracing their cultural heritage and all that. I can remember as a kid being called a Kraut once. When I got home I asked my Mom what that was. She told me it was slang for being a German; she added you could have called a square head too. That meant you were from Scandinavia. Grandmother Bennett was from Sweden, I knew that, she had a little Swedish flag in her curio cabinet. At Christmastime she told me the oldest daughter in the house got to wear a crown of burning candles! Sounded pretty cool to me. Good thing to have a square head in that situation. I also remember that someone gave my father some lederhosen. There were my size and I did wear them once, I remember feeling ridiculous!
I just don’t get the whole embracing your heritage thing, Heritage is what is left to you. My ancestors from past centuries have never left me a thing! No castles, no lands, no great titles and not even a few bucks or Krona. Nothing. As far as their culture goes I know very little about any of that and what I do know stands a good chance of being wrong. It’s like Native Americans today. Hollywood shows one thing the reality is far different. It’s been 135 years since the last “wild Indian” roamed the great plains. There is no one alive today that lived in that culture. The other “wild Indians” were all tamed long before that. What is left are stories, traditions and reenactments. Just like there are no real Hollywood cowboys.
My thinking is so many are grabbing onto the past in some vain attempt to impress others with that past. Well, my fourth great grandfather on my mothers side, twice removed was this or that. And my response is always, and so? For me it’s like being related to a celebrity of some sort. We all want to brag about that, like we had anything to do with it. Heritage doesn’t give you claim to the past, it is what the past allows you to keep. The objective in life is make your own heritage, not copy the past.
Is heritage and culture the same thing? No, they are not. Heritage may be physical objects, customs, traditions or monuments from the past. Culture however are shared beliefs, behaviors or customs that are contemporary. That’s the thing about culture, it is constantly changing. You really can’t join heritage and culture. That’s why you really can’t judge someone based on their heritage. Heritage is fixed, customs are not. A good thing too, or we might still be practicing human sacrifices or slavery. Both were the custom at one time. So was hanging, putting people in the stocks and any number of other customs.
It is culture that defines us a a person, not out heritage. Whatever cultures you were raised in is going to be that driving force. I’ve thought about it in some depth and struggle to define my culture. My heritage? Swedish, German and British from what the testing shows. Of course, there are others mixed in, a total of 11 according to my DNA. My cultural influences stem from New England, those stoic New Englanders you see and hear about in the movies. Not very adventurous, rather conservative but steadfast in their beliefs, just hardworking, no nonsense folks that won’t take much guff from others. It was from those folks the “pioneers” came. My ancestors weren’t among that group. My father lies in the same ground as some of our most distant ancestors.
I do have some artifacts as my heritage. When I share them with others I am sharing a culture as it existed at that time, to the best of recollection. Of course most of that are stories that I have heard told and retold. One of those ancestors was a ’round the world whaler! That doesn’t make me a whaler, nor responsible for the whaling industry in the late 1800’s. Whatever heritage I leave will hopefully be embraced, remembered and respected in the future.
Hopefully it doesn’t clash with the current culture. I see that happening today with all this ” truth in history” Columbus has fallen from grace, the founding fathers no longer revered as they once were for a number of their customs. Instead our culture is installing criminals as heroes, portraying them as freedom fighters, heroes of the people. Hitler, Castro, and Stalin were all viewed that way once, not that many years ago but the custom has changed now. No one today embracing that “heritage.” Had the Axis power triumphed that would certainly be different.
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I keep hearing from all the hyphenated folks, those embracing their cultural heritage and all that. I can remember as a kid being called a Kraut once. When I got home I asked my Mom what that was. She told me it was slang for being a German; she added you could have called a square head too. That meant you were from Scandinavia. Grandmother Bennett was from Sweden, I knew that, she had a little Swedish flag in her curio cabinet. At Christmastime she told me the oldest daughter in the house got to wear a crown of burning candles! Sounded pretty cool to me. Good thing to have a square head in that situation. I also remember that someone gave my father some lederhosen. There were my size and I did wear them once, I remember feeling ridiculous!
I just don’t get the whole embracing your heritage thing, Heritage is what is left to you. My ancestors from past centuries have never left me a thing! No castles, no lands, no great titles and not even a few bucks or Krona. Nothing. As far as their culture goes I know very little about any of that and what I do know stands a good chance of being wrong. It’s like Native Americans today. Hollywood shows one thing the reality is far different. It’s been 135 years since the last “wild Indian” roamed the great plains. There is no one alive today that lived in that culture. The other “wild Indians” were all tamed long before that. What is left are stories, traditions and reenactments. Just like there are no real Hollywood cowboys.
My thinking is so many are grabbing onto the past in some vain attempt to impress others with that past. Well, my fourth great grandfather on my mothers side, twice removed was this or that. And my response is always, and so? For me it’s like being related to a celebrity of some sort. We all want to brag about that, like we had anything to do with it. Heritage doesn’t give you claim to the past, it is what the past allows you to keep. The objective in life is make your own heritage, not copy the past.
Is heritage and culture the same thing? No, they are not. Heritage may be physical objects, customs, traditions or monuments from the past. Culture however are shared beliefs, behaviors or customs that are contemporary. That’s the thing about culture, it is constantly changing. You really can’t join heritage and culture. That’s why you really can’t judge someone based on their heritage. Heritage is fixed, customs are not. A good thing too, or we might still be practicing human sacrifices or slavery. Both were the custom at one time. So was hanging, putting people in the stocks and any number of other customs.
It is culture that defines us a a person, not out heritage. Whatever cultures you were raised in is going to be that driving force. I’ve thought about it in some depth and struggle to define my culture. My heritage? Swedish, German and British from what the testing shows. Of course, there are others mixed in, a total of 11 according to my DNA. My cultural influences stem from New England, those stoic New Englanders you see and hear about in the movies. Not very adventurous, rather conservative but steadfast in their beliefs, just hardworking, no nonsense folks that won’t take much guff from others. It was from those folks the “pioneers” came. My ancestors weren’t among that group. My father lies in the same ground as some of our most distant ancestors.
I do have some artifacts as my heritage. When I share them with others I am sharing a culture as it existed at that time, to the best of recollection. Of course most of that are stories that I have heard told and retold. One of those ancestors was a ’round the world whaler! That doesn’t make me a whaler, nor responsible for the whaling industry in the late 1800’s. Whatever heritage I leave will hopefully be embraced, remembered and respected in the future.
Hopefully it doesn’t clash with the current culture. I see that happening today with all this ” truth in history” Columbus has fallen from grace, the founding fathers no longer revered as they once were for a number of their customs. Instead our culture is installing criminals as heroes, portraying them as freedom fighters, heroes of the people. Hitler, Castro, and Stalin were all viewed that way once, not that many years ago but the custom has changed now. No one today embracing that “heritage.” Had the Axis power triumphed that would certainly be different.
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