Interestingly, I had three conversations yesterday about conflicts in identity. All three people I spoke with were torn between who they descended from and which of those lines they wanted to associate with. Maybe in America this happens more often, but my guess is that it is part of the human condition.
The first conversation was with Pedro, who – like many of us in the US – are reeling from the continued impacts of colonization. Pedro was feeling close to his indigenous roots and angry that he is also a Spanish descendant. They (and the Portuguese) were the original colonizers of the Americas and thus leaving Pedro’s people with the longest history of occupation. …but also interrelations means he descends from some of them.
I talked with a friend on the Council in my Cherokee group. She brought it up, not knowing I had already been talking about this with Pedro. Saying how she always felt out of place, but her Cherokee people feel more like family. She, like me, presents very white, and thus she remains aware of her white privilege. When brown people on all sides of her are being disappeared, she has a special empathy that people wouldn’t realize, assuming she’s white.
I spent the evening with another friend, whose mother was Russian and father was Ukrainian. Ever since Putin began the recent war, it has made my friend Vladimir agonize about his relationship to things in Russia he is not proud of. This from a man named Volodymyr at birth, who changed his name because he loved Russia so much he wanted to leave behind the Ukrainian spelling. He is disgusted with the Orthodox Church “allowing itself to be manipulated by Putin,” he groused.
This morning I thought it was interesting timing that the company 23andMe sent an email saying my heritage had been updated. This happens rather often – a few times a year – as more people submit their DNA samples and then self-identify.
If you know me, you know I identify as an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation based in Oklahoma and descended from the original North American ancestors. Before the year 2000, I knew close to zero about the Cherokee people, only that my Grandma Haley was proud to be one. I began a long, personal journey of discovery from 2005-2010, and decided that the Cherokee people are a group I want to actively align myself with, and I’ve done that ever since.
I’ve sent DNA to both 23andMe, and to Ancestry, and they pretty much produce the same results, with a little tweaking here and there.
Ancestry drills down enough to tell me which parent contributed the most to my ancestor. My dad is responsible for most of the English heritage. Which would disappoint him, because he was proud of his Cherokee heritage, but mostly proud of his Irish heritage. My mom is responsible for most of the Scottish and Irish, which would disappoint her, because more than anything, she was proud to be English, and also held pride in her German heritage, because her grandmother was proud to be German.
Neither of these two companies have identified me as having blood that links me to indigenous American ancestors. That is fine, because Cherokee Nation does not use blood to determine citizenship (a common misconception). The closest I can get is that I have access to my father’s DNA results on a site called MyHeritage, and they currently identify him as 1% Inuit.
After studying Anthropology for four years, in northern California and then in Massachusetts, I learned that humans have a strong predilection for defining “in groups” and “out groups.” It makes sense to me on an evolutionary scale, to embed oneself and comply with the group to which one belongs, and to hold the outside group at some level of suspicion. How complicated our lives are then, that so few of us come from a single place. I would love to learn more one day, about how we choose the cultural groups we want others to know we are aligned with.
Conscious Engagement 
Well, in group or out of group, I am such a Heinz 97 varieties that I rarely mention the minority members, which include 6% Indigenous ( Taino and Mosquito). I once got asked to detail it, and very soon got lost in the weeds. So, currently, I happily cuddle under the blanket term of My Group. Regretably, I’ve known a few chauvinists who are out front and offensively proud of one part of their family line. I find that sort of genealogical interest offensive and a sort of racial imperialism. I try to explain that it’s DNA, not cultural superiority, but some seem to think that if they are 80% of something, they think it’s preferable that it’s superior. At that point, I pointed out that it was just good old human randy and horny behavior, and they are a random byproduct of it. They don’t like me much afterwards.Sigh.
Ha, ha, ha! I have mentioned that to people as well… all those people “blending,” like the Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens in the early, early days, and everybody everywhere since then. It’s silly to proclaim one is better. In this post I was pointing more to the other side. I also think it’s silly to agonize when one is worse. Just because I am mostly descended from my own colonizers does not make me bad, or responsible for the pain. But it does make me responsible for educating myself and not thinking my privilege is due to my own superiority.
Yes. A fascinating subject. Ancestry confirmed my belief of much Scandinavian heritage
I have a little bit of Scandinavian heritage. I assume you mean genealogical research, and I like that perspective. I think I would be more convinced by genealogy research than DNA, but maybe that’s because I am older and think of blood samples as technology. What does blood really mean, after all, when families are largely products of their environment. And my father is adopted! I enjoy the thought exercise of imagining what forces led people to move around and mix as they did. For example, Pedro has Congolese and Ashkenazi Jew in his DNA. So his idea is that the Spaniard that eventually came to the Americas must have had ancestors who came to Spain from Africa and the Middle East – or perhaps did a lot of trading around the Mediterranean.
Good sense, Crystal. My thoughts were based on my size and the dupuytrens contracture which is known as the Vikings’ disease; and my paternal grandfather from Yorkshire where there are many Viking graves.
Oh fascinating to be able to make conjectures based on contractures. 😉
Nice alliteration 🙂
Tsk tsk… All this, and no Italian in sight. 😉 Not taking it lightly, the heritage, just in the joking mood. I’d rather not know. My suspicion is that my ancestors were not spread enough. 😀
I know! No Italians. What the heck was wrong with my ancestors? ha ha
I can’t help but wonder what people would say about their true origins. I suspect many would be surprised! My Dad has researchwd our family history many generations back. When new “matches” connect us to others on his Ancestry site he digs in. Severalyears back we had a big family reunion with new family members. Many came to join us that day and we remain connected. I tend to think that, while I love welcoming new members into our orbit, the “family” that matters most to me is the one I choose. Sometimes there’s a blood connection and other times we are drawn together by an invisible thread. Bonds are as strong as we make them.
I love this so much Bonnie. I wrote about it a very long time ago: https://crystaltrulove.com/2008/04/30/chosen-family/
Chosen Family is more powerful for me than actual family, and I think it’s because of the nature of my actual blood family. We weren’t particularly close. We didn’t do a whole lot together. There are a couple of people in my actual family: my cousin Debbie, my mother, my brothers, that I am (was) super tight with. But I consider them my chosen family, which is better.
I’m happy to hear about your chosen family. I’m also so happy about the new blood ties you have found through genealogy. That’s so very very cool!
What interesting conversations and genetic data.
I send my patient’s back to Genetic Counseling every few years or so to update their genetic mutation profile (mostly for cancer and heart disease in my line of work).
As for me, right now, I am just ashamed to be part of the modern American culture and do NOT identify with the insane behavior of 30% of the country. Sigh ….
I have not, and probably will not, submit blood for DNA but who knows what may happen and if I change my mind.
Thanks for sharing!
Oh Laurie, I love that you have stopped by and that this got you thinking about interesting conversations. I find such marvelous patterns in the world sometimes. And this time it was a group of people all regretting some aspect of their blood line. How very interesting that is. Just fascinating on a social science level. Like your shame (and mine) to be embedded within a culture that is an international embarrassment. I feel like apologizing to all the other countries suffering because of the chaos this administration has wrought.
What an interesting post, Crystal. I’ve been interesting in this subject for quite the while. We started out testing through Ancestry trying to find out about H & E paternal grandfather being French Canadian Mi’kmaq, we were told. I have a folder full on family information on both sides except my mother’s. So much was lost during the last WW. I know I’m 11% Ashkenazi which surprises me not at all. Mom ran the best guilt trips in the world. Dad always said he was Dutch, Irish and the devil. My grandmother had the Irish side, grandpa the Scot side and the devil came from my dad. He bore no resemblance to his father in temperament. I identify as German because it was the primary language I for my first 5 years and where I originated. It was hard coming here at the end of the war. People were not nice, even to a child. I’m with Lou. I consider myself 100% mutt. They make the best dogs anyway. I feel no better or beneath anyone else. I think wars are to keep us moving so there is less inbreeding. It’s important to mix. Makes us so much more interesting that way. Be safe out there. The crazies are loose. Too much of something.
I laugh with Pedro that he is more “typical American” than I am. I’m pretty much western European. But Pedro is a true Heinz 57 – with heritage seriously scattered around the globe. I am jealous. You are right, the mutts are the best pets, and often the more robust and resilient. People who are dismayed to find that their heritage includes a group of people they don’t like are amusing to me. I’m pleased to have more Neanderthal heritage than many other people. My DNA can be traced way way back to a whole different line of humanoids, which is super super cool. But I have heard people who dispute this kind of finding in their own records because they think homo sapiens are better than Neanderthals. Oh for gosh sakes, that is so silly. But it never stops: that impression that one group is better than another. It’s millions of years later and have we learned to stop that – no. Many people think those who live in the Southeast US are inferior to those who live elsewhere in the US. And that is equally silly.
I’m with you all the way on this.
That is sooo fascinating… Maybe I should do it, though technically, I’m Flemish, French, English and Breton. But then, who knows…
Be good Crystal