Hyphenated American

Returning from the "big city" after a medical procedure and listening to the car radio there was a discussion concerning hyphenated Americans. One listener called in asking if it would be possible to drop the hyphens and everyone just be American. I think that regardless of the hyphen, everyone who is a citizen is an American.

But that made me think of my heritage. I suppose I could be hyphenated as an European-American.  But what part of Europe best defines me? My family name is French, and I have enjoyed going to France and learning about my French background. However, as I continue my study of my origins and the gene pools from which I sprang, I have learned that I am English, Welsh, French Huguenot, and German. I have never thought about being Welsh, French Huguenot, and German. But there they are, my ancestors who have given me my genes and my DNA.

In the process of tracing family origins I have found that there are knights and dames in my family tree. There are Oxford dons and people noted for writing scholastic or academic treatise. Taking no particular pride in all this, I suspect some of the knights were rascals. All of them seemed to wear out their ladies by making them bear up to twenty children.

Well, not only have I been to France, I have also been to England. My maternal heritage is English. In fact, my maternal great-grandfather emigrated from England. When in England, notably London, I felt at home. I suppose being English is more of me than being French. On my paternal side almost all the antecedents I have found are English who came to North America as early as the seventeenth century. On my mother's side there are antecedents who were part of the early Massachusetts Colony, presumably Puritans, or what are later known as Congregationalists. I remember my mother using that word a few times.

All of that history, however, does not change the fact that I am an American, not a European. If I can trace my family history back to seventeenth century in Massachusetts, Virginia, and Maryland, and if my family has a history in Mississippi, Iowa, and Minnesota, there is no European left in me. The hyphen does not work for me. But, I can understand why people who trace their ancestry to the dark times of involuntary servitude and second-class citizenship want to identify themselves by race and ancestry. I respect all that. However, I served in both the Marine Corps and the Army with many men of various ethnicities, and I never thought of them less than comrades who served the American people.