Not long ago, I finally got bitten by the genealogy bug. All of the relatives who could have helped me with this were gone by the time I started with this. But there are also lots of resources available today on the Internet, and that got me hooked. So over the past 5 months or so, I’ve been doing a lot of web surfing, looking for various clues about the lives of my ancestors and the world that they lived in. In some cases, the search engines have led me to buy a book or contact a government agency, but they have also led to some web sites where I’ve found direct reference to family members (e.g., the Ellis Island web site search, and the 1920 and 1930 Census info available for a fee on ancestry.com). Overall, it’s been much like any other form of academic research, all dry and crisp and precise. As a geek-like eternal student, that kind of thing appeals to me. So it’s been enjoyable.
But it has also made me stop and think: what about the human factor here? Back when I was a kid, I was pretty close to a lot of the stuff that I’m now looking down at from “on high”. I was actually around the kind of people that I’m now reading about, i.e. the immigrants and their immediate offspring. I actually saw and heard and otherwise sensed a bit of the “older world” that I now seek to rediscover from a digital perspective. E.g., meat markets and other ratty little stores, tenement buildings and people raising pigeons for food, women cooking cabbage soup. And to be honest, I didn’t always like that world. I wanted to be a regular suburban American kid, and the old “pollock” stuff seemed very un-cool. Those people were locked into the past, inferior to me and my friends.
So I feel a bit schizoid about the whole project. In some ways I am sorry for once being so uncharitable and dismissive about “the old world” that had still been a part of my mother and fathers’ lives. But in another way, I still harbor some negative feelings about that world. I generally don’t look back at it nostalgically, longing to recapture something of the way that they lived.
But actually, I have differences in feeling about my mother’s “old world” versus my father’s “old world”. I was (and still am) more sympathetic to my mother’s relatives and the experiences that I had as a child with them (in the Dundee neighborhood of Passaic). I remember that the people involved on my mother’s side seemed “nicer”. I still looked down at them for the most part (except for my Uncle Bruno, who was always pretty cool). But today, it seems much easier for me to have good feelings about “Mom’s old world”.
My dad came from Wallington, which was a early on the suburb of Dundee, the place where factory workers went to buy a home with a little bit of a backyard once they could save some money. I’d need a shrink and a lot of time and money to ferret out all of my memories regarding my father and then analyze them; but the bottom line is that I didn’t like his world too much. They didn’t seem as nice as the Dundee crowd. They seemed more “Americanized”, but in the worst ways. E.g., mindlessly materialistic, concerned about status without a sense of style, locked in a continuing sense of dissatisfaction. Dundee somehow seemed to retain some “old world charm” to balance off the old-world poverty. By contrast, Wallington seemed to have ditched the poverty, to a greater extent, but also lost the charm, to be replaced by a bastardized Polish-American sense of reality.
I’m probably being unfair to my father and his Wallington world in many ways. And my present exercise in genealogy will hopefully be a good way for me to come to grips with my own prejudices. But there is one thing that I remember that I still believe needed rejection. And that was the attitude about other ethnic groups and races that I picked up around my father’s friends and associates.
Not that my mother’s “Dundee world” was utterly innocent in that regard. They were quite afraid of the black and Puerto Rican families who started moving in during the late 50’s. I also recall my mother telling me and my brother that we shouldn’t get too involved with Italian families — read, don’t bring an Italian girl home to be your bride. But on the other side of the coin, they maintained some humility about other kinds of people; the “n-word” for blacks and the “s-word” for Puerto Ricans was not used (sensibly enough, given that the “p-word” could easily be used against them). And actually, my Uncle Bruno (who was still living in Dundee with my grandparents) told us that as future world travelers, we should be ready to meet different people. He even told us of some good experiences he had with blacks in his travels.
OK, so my Uncle wasn’t exactly a freedom marcher in Mississippi, and the rest of my mother’s relatives had their fears. But compared with what I heard from the Wallington crowd, this was positively enlightened. Let’s just say that my father’s people weren’t terribly circumspect about using insults against other races. I still remember those guys in their T-shirts with cigarettes and beer guts, talking about how “they” just don’t want to work and “they” expect others to take care of them and “they” behave like pigs. There was a certain viciousness in their words, which I just don’t remember from the Dundee crowd. Well, maybe that’s just a phase that people coming out of poverty need to go through. The Dundee folk were content to keep renting their little cold-water tenement apartments; the Wallington folk were now land-owners, and thus had more to lose (and not much more income to keep it with). Their pride mixed with their heightened fears of losing what they had achieved, and spawned some very uncharitable attitudes about all that remained “outside the boundaries”.
That’s the human factor that the research doesn’t immediately reveal. In a lot of ways, I probably was wrong in overlooking what was good about the good old days. I purposely stayed away from the people who could have told me directly what I’m now trying to discover via the Internet. I had my uppity attitudes, and that was wrong. HOWEVER, there were indeed things about the good old days that were not so good. I hope that I’ve at least done a little bit better in terms of being open to all people, to overcoming the tribalism that ultimately dooms humanity to war without end. I’m not free of bigotry and bad attitudes, but at least it concerns me. I think the same goes for my brother and all of my cousins. Hopefully, there was some generational progress in that regard after all.
Jim, I think I understand the “schizoid” aspect of immigrants and their prejudice or seeming lack thereof.
It might have to do with a need for “first generation” Americans to distance themselves from the “old country” and make it a point of “being American.”
My father was a first generation American, i.e., his parents came from Austria; he and his brothers were the “first” generation born in the U.S. I also vividly remember both my paternal grandparents. My grandfather was a genial kind of man–but in my later years I found that perhaps one of the reasons he was so “genial” was that he likely was drunk most of the time. I can’t be sure about that, but I think my suspicion is probably right on the mark. (I won’t bother with “proving” the point here as there’s no reason for giving details of my grandfather’s life here.) My father’s mother, however, could see little good over here. In fact, she lived for the day she was going to return to Austria–or at least I think that’s what she wanted. I remember her telling me stories of rolling hills and green valleys in what she implied was the “paradise” of Austria. Everyone in the family knew that my grandmother, who had their first child in Austria, burned my grandfather’s letter, telling her to come over to the U.S. She finally was found out by her father who told her she belonged with her husband. So my uncle (a year old) and she came (reluctantly for her) over here.
There was a lot in my dad’s family that he “rejected” in the form of “never doing that” or “not living like that” or “not going back to that neighborhood” in Chgo.
I’m wondering if some of the aspects of your paternal side with it’s prejudice was an attempt on the part of that side of the family to “be more American.” After all, didn’t “all” people who were American use the words we now only indicate by an initial letter? I remember the late 1930s and all the 1940s. I even lived in Texas during the 1945-1946 “year.” I’m here to tell you I vividly remember that year and that at that time “Northerners” would tell you (especially we who had lived in Texas) “they” were still fighting the Civil War then. The nooses hanging on the tree recently in a high school yard were only too real even then, although that seems like a very late date. There was a great deal of open prejudice then that was simply considered the “way it was.” This was a looooong time before MLK came on the scene. I’m not saying your family was “right” in its prejudices–but maybe it was a way to become more American in those times. I’m not condoning what went on in those times; I’m simply stating the fact of what was.
I also remember having a really outstanding nun for a teacher in 5th grade Catholic school. I remember her telling us: When “they” go after someone in a prejudiced way (it doesn’t matter who), just remember that it won’t be long before they come after you. This again was in the 1940s when prejudice against Catholics had been “abandoned” only about 10 or 20 years previously. My mother told me she was refused a job when she was asked her religion and said “Catholic.” She was on the spot refused the job only because she was Catholic.
As to your maternal side: Perhaps the “Dundee” crowd was not as threatened with proving how American they were. They had been here longer; they didn’t have much to prove in that regard. My own mother was a “third generation” American. She was the third “layer of generations” to be born in the U.S. I also know how different they were from my father’s family. I can’t say they were “nicer”–just different. More an aspect of “nothing to prove” about being “American.”
I also think that in your father’s family education might have had something to do with their attitude. Perhaps I’m wrong and am generalizing, but if they came from a lower economic class, perhaps their education was not as high as the “Dundee” crowd–albeit in small increments.
I think of my dad who graduated high school and had an education in the trade of tool and die making. Relatives in Austria had offered him the opportunity as a teenager to go back to university in Austria. However, his parents needed him here in America to help support the family–so the opportunity was not even considered. My dad always regretted his inability to go on to further education. (I’m presuming this was my grandmother’s side of the family–perhaps even her father or a brother.) This full story except the fact of my father’s being asked was never revealed. My mother, on the other hand, was educated in a “secretarial school.” In those days there were 2 year schools that prepared a “girl” for work until she married. These were considered at the time the equivalent of a complete high school education. And nobody in the family ever even dreamed of anything further. Years later, in the 1960s, when my sister insisted on a college education, she had to fight my father tooth and nail for it. His attitude was, why would anybody need a university education–particularly a “girl”? (Of course, hidden in here is the opportunity he lost, I’m sure.) I’m simply pointing out the difference in the attitudes toward so many things back in the 1940s, 1950s, and even the 1960s.
Then, of course, there are all the “submerged” psychological factors that moved people; but all those are way off the scale of discussion in such a blog.
I have found in my own genealogical study that as I grow older, I realize many, many things I never realized before. I have been able to put 2 and 2 together, realize aspects of situations that occurred that I never dreamed were there. I think it is that as one gets perspective, one begins to understand the psychological factors that were at work in people, and all was not always the way it was perceived at the time by the individuals experiencing it at the time. These realizations don’t necessarily make one resentful, they simply fill out a picture and give one a perspective on real life that one only gets with “distance.” (If ever the phrase “hindsight is 20/20” prevailed, it is in such a situation of genealogical study and the realizations that come with it.)
I really hope that your genealogical search will prove productive for you in ways you may never conceive at this point. You are well on your way in your search.
MCS
Comment by Anonymous — November 6, 2007 @ 7:46 pm
Jim, I think I understand the “schizoid” aspect of immigrants and their prejudice or seeming lack thereof.
It might have to do with a need for “first generation” Americans to distance themselves from the “old country” and make it a point of “being American.”
My father was a first generation American, i.e., his parents came from Austria; he and his brothers were the “first” generation born in the U.S. I also vividly remember both my paternal grandparents. My grandfather was a genial kind of man–but in my later years I found that perhaps one of the reasons he was so “genial” was that he likely was drunk most of the time. I can’t be sure about that, but I think my suspicion is probably right on the mark. (I won’t bother with “proving” the point here as there’s no reason for giving details of my grandfather’s life here.) My father’s mother, however, could see little good over here. In fact, she lived for the day she was going to return to Austria–or at least I think that’s what she wanted. I remember her telling me stories of rolling hills and green valleys in what she implied was the “paradise” of Austria. Everyone in the family knew that my grandmother, who had their first child in Austria, burned my grandfather’s letter, telling her to come over to the U.S. She finally was found out by her father who told her she belonged with her husband. So my uncle (a year old) and she came (reluctantly for her) over here.
There was a lot in my dad’s family that he “rejected” in the form of “never doing that” or “not living like that” or “not going back to that neighborhood” in Chgo.
I’m wondering if some of the aspects of your paternal side with it’s prejudice was an attempt on the part of that side of the family to “be more American.” After all, didn’t “all” people who were American use the words we now only indicate by an initial letter? I remember the late 1930s and all the 1940s. I even lived in Texas during the 1945-1946 “year.” I’m here to tell you I vividly remember that year and that at that time “Northerners” would tell you (especially we who had lived in Texas) “they” were still fighting the Civil War then. The nooses hanging on the tree recently in a high school yard were only too real even then, although that seems like a very late date. There was a great deal of open prejudice then that was simply considered the “way it was.” This was a looooong time before MLK came on the scene. I’m not saying your family was “right” in its prejudices–but maybe it was a way to become more American in those times. I’m not condoning what went on in those times; I’m simply stating the fact of what was.
I also remember having a really outstanding nun for a teacher in 5th grade Catholic school. I remember her telling us: When “they” go after someone in a prejudiced way (it doesn’t matter who), just remember that it won’t be long before they come after you. This again was in the 1940s when prejudice against Catholics had been “abandoned” only about 10 or 20 years previously. My mother told me she was refused a job when she was asked her religion and said “Catholic.” She was on the spot refused the job only because she was Catholic.
As to your maternal side: Perhaps the “Dundee” crowd was not as threatened with proving how American they were. They had been here longer; they didn’t have much to prove in that regard. My own mother was a “third generation” American. She was the third “layer of generations” to be born in the U.S. I also know how different they were from my father’s family. I can’t say they were “nicer”–just different. More an aspect of “nothing to prove” about being “American.”
I also think that in your father’s family education might have had something to do with their attitude. Perhaps I’m wrong and am generalizing, but if they came from a lower economic class, perhaps their education was not as high as the “Dundee” crowd–albeit in small increments.
I think of my dad who graduated high school and had an educa
Comment by Anonymous — November 6, 2007 @ 7:46 pm