Cultural Identity and the Good Samaritan
Posted By Thomas on December 10, 2009
I just read a great post over on BB:
To Feldman and his colleagues, the genetic evidence suggests that modern Samaritans are descended from Hebrew men, left behind after the Assyrians conquered ancient Israel, who went on to marry non-Hebrew women. It’s probably not just coincidence that Samaritan ethnicity (at least, the official social recognition of that ethnicity) is traditionally passed to a child through its father–exactly opposite from the way Jewish ethnicity has been traditionally passed down.
In that way, the evidence suggests that both the Jews and the Samaritans are right, sort of. If you believe ethnicity is something passed down from the mother, then the Samaritans probably aren’t Children of Israel. But if you think ethnicity comes from the father’s side (or, you know, from both parents) then the Samaritans have a good case. It’s all about how you use culture to interpret the science.
Not only is this an excellent piece because of the science, history, religious and genetic implications, but it brings to mind some concerns I had nearly a year ago over cultural identity.
You see, it’s always worried me that I was basically wrong about certain preconceptions in my life. One of the goals I set for myself when I began my research is that I would finally know the truth about my heritage, and that, while calling myself a “mutt” was technically correct (and charming in a self-deprecating way, or so my wife would have you believe), I felt that the details of my heritage were a large part of how I identified myself to other people.
Looking at it Technically
To satisfy my curiosity, I created a small application called Mutt. It took any individual, and walked through their family tree, finding the oldest relative on any branch with something filled in for the “location of birth” field. So, if I had a 16x great-grandfather who was born in Ireland, and I didn’t know who his parents were, I’d qualify him as 100% Irish. Likewise, a grandmother who had no parents listed, but I didn’t know where she was born, would be listed as 100% Unknown. A child of one of these 100% people would naturally inherit 50% of their place of origin, independent of where they were born themselves. That way, someone born in Pennsylvania with 2 100% German parents would be 100% German themselves.
For my personal makeup, certain things were easy, but the roadblocks kept me from getting the full picture. My maternal grandfather was 100% Norwegian, as both of his parents were first generation immigrants from Norway. His wife, however, is another matter. Adopted at only 6 months after her birth from an orphanage in Roseau, Minnesota (having been born in Minneapolis) in 1921, Ruth never knew who her biological parents were. I’ve started the paperwork to try and track that information down, but it’s going to be slow-going. All we know of her is that she was given over to a Lutheran orphanage, and her adoptive parents found her through the church. So, this leaves me with a big fat 100% sitting at the level of my grandparents. Doing the math, that means I have at least 25% of me that remains an ethnic mystery.
My great-grandfather on my father’s father’s side had a similar issue. Adopted at an early age from a catholic church in Ogdensburg, New York, all attempts at finding his biological birth information have failed. And, unlike my grandmother, it’s not the government or historical societies standing in the way: For all we know, no birth record exists. So, add his unknown information to my mix, and I’m sitting at 37.5% Unknown.
Of the things I know about my heritage, I can say that I’m 25% Norwegian, 25% Swedish, and I have muddled traces of Scottish, German and English through my paternal great-grandmother. Everything else is unknown. So, how do I identify ethnically? My father’s family never really celebrated anything ethnic, beyond my grandmother’s ability to make an awesome Swedish meatball dish. My mother’s family has/had Lefsa for every holiday meal, and since my grandmother was raised by a Lutheran Norwegian minister, it came naturally that they’d all consider themselves 100% Norwegian as well. My name, however, is of French origins, and relates back to my great grandfather, who grew up in a large family of immigrant French-Canadians. Oddly enough, I think that’s how I identify my heritage the most.
My wife identifies strongly with her Irish heritage. The interesting thing is that’s she’s mostly one background or another in greater percentage than Irish (like me, she’s 25% Norwegian, making our Gaelic and Celtic-named children all 25% Norwegian as well). But, like me, her name is her connection to her heritage.
Conclusions and Meaning
After working through all of my math, and finding some interesting results, I realized that it didn’t mean too much for me, personally. It didn’t matter that I had more Viking blood in me than anything else, I still see a scruffy French guy staring back at me in the mirror. Even if my only connection to my French heritage is from a man who was adopted into a French family, it’s still part of my identity.
The story of the Good Samaritan brought up a lot of questions on how people identify ethnically, and what that means to them and to those around them. I don’t think those questions can be answered universally, and they certainly can’t be answered with a small piece of automation that examines my family tree. The program fails to understand how the populations of places like the United States and Canada are filled with immigrants. Even the people that lived here before the immigrants predate the creation of those countries, and so therefore wouldn’t officially be identified as “American” or “Canadian,” either.
After a good deal of thinking on this subject, and how to come to some consistent conclusion that would apply to everyone, I decided that we’re all either Babylonian or Sumerian.
If I see one more Babylonian move into my neighborhood, I swear, I’ll take it up with the city council.
I work so hard on this research that the question inevitably comes up: “Why?” I either ask it of myself, particularly on sunny days when I should be out soaking up some vitamins or getting some much-needed exercise, or from a friend while they’re looking at my statistics page.
In my quest to acquire a proven relationship between my children and each of the presidents, I’ve hit a few snags, and sometimes I’ve hit a relationship that’s actually too distant for the software to track. Andrew Jackson either didn’t know who his parents were (they died when he was very young) or didn’t tell anyone before he died as well, so that’s pretty much a dead end. Many of the presidents were descendants of the Dutch in colonial America, on both sides, and we’re not related to the Dutch except through early European Royalty (which is 25+ generations).
