Tuesday, March 23, 2010

My diverse family

Cousins
Following up on my earlier post, Ancestry and racial identity, I got to thinking about my own family, and how diverse we are, racially and otherwise.  In a word:  very.

You wanna talk about an American Melting Pot?  Even if I limit my considerations to my immediate family, aunts, uncles, and first cousins, we are Germans, Dutchmen, Englishmen, Scots, Filipinos, Mexicans, Indians (both Asian and American), Japanese, Senegalese, African-Americans, native Hawaiians, Irishmen, and Italians. 

Further, when it comes to faiths, my clan includes Catholics, Protestants, various other Christian derivatives, Muslims, Buddhists and agnostics.  No Mormons or Hindus yet, but who knows what the future holds?

We speak many different languages:  English and Spanish, of course.  But also German, French, Wolof, Tagalog, Ilocano, Móoré and Italian.

Keep in mind that I am only considering a small slice of my family.

If, in reciting my litany I sound a tad prideful --well, it's because I am proud.  I've got a great family that represents the best that humanity has to offer.  I say that without reservation.  Diversity breeds open-mindedness and tolerance.  And, unlike for example, the various Royal Families of Europe, with all their inbreeding, my family's gene pool is far more likely to produce some positive genetic mutations.

But, I wonder, is my family all that unique?  How many other families out there have as much or more diversity within them?

More cousins
I suspect that this kind of diversity occurs more in American than anywhere else on earth.  After all, this continent has become the destination for immigrants from every corner of the globe.

So, anybody else out there have families they want to brag on?

1 comment:

Dan Binmore said...

I'm at the opposite end. My family is English. I've married into a family of Americans of strictly Irish and Norwegian descent. The English are basically Germans, Scandinavians and Celt (Irish). We are whiter than white. Interestingly I take no pride whatsoever in where my ancestors came from.