Identity Musings
Apr. 21st, 2010 11:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trystinnI've always been a bit uncertain as to identity, it seems so fluid to me. I was adopted by my stepfather at 6 months, and so he raised me. When someone asks my cultural identity, I somehow feel I need to preface that. The story I give of my heritage is his family's, because I too, am his family. My mother married two men who look alike, I joke that the APB would net both of them. And so, oddly enough, I look like his family. There is great comfort in that. Most of his family has forgotten I'm not genetically related to them and there's yet to be a reunion where someone hasn't remarked how much I look like my Dad. *WEG* This used to give me apoplexy, now Dad and I just share a sideways glance and grin like Mad Hatters.
My mother's family was Irish and German, the Jewish coming from my grandmother. And so, though we weren't raised with any religion in the home (unless one counts Calvinism, we were very much Calvanists without the trappings of Lutheran on top), my mother has always identified as Jewish and identified her children as Jewish. I am visibly recognizable by other Jews as Jewish, especially when I take off my glasses and show a profile. My glasses have always hid the ridge, once exposed it just seems so obvious to others Jews and a few gentiles, too. Even here on Whidbey Island, women grab my arm and whisper that question that has followed me wherever I go "mishpaka (Family)?" Yes, I am family by whatever definition you prefer.
And so, my dearly dears, are you.
My mother's family was Irish and German, the Jewish coming from my grandmother. And so, though we weren't raised with any religion in the home (unless one counts Calvinism, we were very much Calvanists without the trappings of Lutheran on top), my mother has always identified as Jewish and identified her children as Jewish. I am visibly recognizable by other Jews as Jewish, especially when I take off my glasses and show a profile. My glasses have always hid the ridge, once exposed it just seems so obvious to others Jews and a few gentiles, too. Even here on Whidbey Island, women grab my arm and whisper that question that has followed me wherever I go "mishpaka (Family)?" Yes, I am family by whatever definition you prefer.
And so, my dearly dears, are you.
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Date: 2010-04-22 02:15 am (UTC)Identity is an interesting thing - I'm still learning who I am, outside of family/work/...
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Date: 2010-04-22 04:51 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2010-04-22 04:39 pm (UTC)