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Show another human dilemma shared often with me: childhood adoptees who search for their natural parents I've heard from bitter, hurt, adoptive parents ("We've always done and given all we ever humanly could . .") and from the adoptees themselves ("I appreciate and love them as my parents with all my heart, but they simply refuse to understand that I have both the right and the need to try and find whose blood runs in my and my children's veins."). Illegitimacy, abandonment, adoption. It would take extraordinary wisdom to begin to answer these thorny questions. I surely wish I could find a special reply, comforting words to make it right for these people. It goes deep and it goes on. Another I've misunderstanding heard repeatedly stems from some of our formal studies of history: the persistent and widespread feeling that an active interest in one's ancestry is proper only for bluebloods. 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OtlS Map Co mtmUu MPAR-- ment of becoming a "melting pot" American, while unwilling immigrant Africans were categorically demoralized, their children emasculated of nearly all sense of ancestral lineage or cultural history. today, millions of families can pursue history, if they by talking with elders who may able to recall information they were told during their youth by their parents and grand- parents. I've heard now so many times how when a shy, retiring elder is questioned, the answers prompt young family members, slack-jaweto demand, "Why haven't you told this to us before?" And, as you would expect, the elder replies, "None of you ever asked me." It is especially moving when a blood-descegrandchild seeks the family history, because most grandparents strain to remember every of detail as if some mystic sense is activated by passing the torch Wet, nt lint-pie- Illegitimacy, abandonment, adoption. It would take extraordinary wisdom to begin to answer these thorny questions talented or fortunate few. Historic Europe's largest population the ancestors of most of America's white people has been made anonymous, dismissed as "serfs" or "peasants" with scarcely a mention of their vital roles played in that continent's culture. And, across the world, Africa and its people have been portrayed so negatively that, despite being the earth's second largest continent, "Tar-zan- " caricatures were for decades its most pervasive image. Today, all of us need to recognize that the serf, the peasant and the slave possessed no less family lineage than the master or prince. In fact, in a comparison of respective bloodlines, those of the serf, the peasant and the slave would likely prove the stronger, more resilient and adaptable. Most Americans are descendants of immigrants whose circumstances influenced them to show little or no interest in preserving their histories. The average young European immigrant became fired with the excite- - along to the youngest living generation. And sometimes the results overwhelm. I will never forget when I spoke about families at the University of Texas at Austin. After the session, I was approached by a craggy blond "Ain't but two young halfback-type- : men in the world scare me my gran'daddy and my daddy," he said. "And one time I asked my gran'daddy about our family, like I heard you saying. Well, he told me clear back into pioneering times . . . and it's the only time I ever saw that old buck cry, and I ain' shamed to tell you, I did, too." More recently in Los Angeles I met Mark Lecker, who had experienced what can happen when youth become motivated by family history and tap their elders' memories. "It was your Roots that got me curious about us," Mark said. He queried his maternal grandmother, whose maiden name was Carr, and within the next hour had learned of generations of Irish emigrant Carrs who he'd never dreamed existed, many still living in the homestead city of Lee, Mass. 6 PARADE APRIL 19. 191 |
