“What are you?” In today’s era of multicultural awareness, you get asked this from time to time. “What is your family? Where do you come from?” You see, everyone must come from somewhere. By answering, you show how you embrace diversity and are a sensitive and caring person.
I always answer the same way. “I’m an American.”
Now, this simply won’t do. You see, everyone must be from somewhere else. Surely, there must be some culture or heritage that you claim. Everyone knows that there is no such thing as an “American” culture. Perhaps there is some misunderstanding here. “Where does your family come from?”
“Well, I have ancestors on both sides of my family that have lived within 50 miles of where I live now for longer than 200 years. I have at least 10 direct ancestors that fought in the Revolutionary War. That’s just on the American side. There is one who we believe was a Hessian mercenary fighting for the British who later either decided to stay or couldn’t afford to return home. I can go farther back than that. I can trace ancestors to Boston nearly 400 years ago.”
“So you must be English.”
“No. I have ancestors that come from England. Also Ireland, Wales, Germany, France, Italy, Sicily, and the Netherlands. That’s just that I know of. There are also family rumors of Spanish, Scottish, and Native American.”
Now, thoroughly perplexed, our imaginary questioner grasps for a tangential assault. “What religion are you? What kind of food does your family eat?”
“I am Christian, but do not belong to any particular denomination. I eat pizza, hamburgers, french fries, ham, potatoes, tacos... You know, what everybody eats.”
“So you are just a white European, a WASP.”
At this point, my patience has run out. I am not a WASP. A wasp is an insect. I am not European. I’ve never left the country. Well, once to Canada, but that hardly counts. I am an American. But if that’s simply not good enough, then I’ve come up with a label for all those people that are politically correct and create labels for people because they hate the labels that other people use. It’s a label with a proud heritage. One that covers most of the places that my ancestors came from. One that avoids most of the negative connetations that “White” or “European” seem to have. I’ve decided that in the future, I shall be referred to as Roman-American.