Having names in America is a tricky business. Many of our ancestors came here with an eye towards reinvention, which made it the perfect opportunity for a name-change. No matter how many times I'm asked, it still makes me smile: "Is Doucette 'French'"? Oh, hell no. "Doucet" is French as all get-out, but "Doucette" is a totally American creation, reflecting our past desires for assimilation and fitting in. Quickly. It's a dangerous prospect for an immigrant not to pass as an American citizen for very long. We know too many cultures of the world not to be hip to foreigners.
Belonging here is mostly a matter of choice that's not from any particular country, culture, ethnicity, or religion, related more to geographic proximity to the nearest overseas nation than anything else. San Francisco has a large Asian district because it is a western hub for Americans traveling to Japan. Miami has a vibrant Cuban community because of its relative close distance to that country; ditto with generations of Haitian boat people who landed in Florida. I can fly to Ireland from New York quicker than to any other major European country (besides Greenland and Iceland) and most American cities, which directly informs the strength of the Celtic-informed cultures of my ancestral home of "New Scotland" and the Northeastern seaboard.
But for parts of my family, their move towards an American identity was more circuitous and convoluted, with large doses of deceit mixed with insincerity. It was the perfect combo for my cousin and my old friend from college. Dave came from a Polish-American father with a phony Irish-sounding name, and both of them are heavy drinkers, just like their fathers before them. They briefly played together in a downtown darts league (my boyfriend and my two cousins who are siblings), until they blew that by fighting in the cobblestone streets of downtown New York City late at night, after one too many.
Still, we were blown away by the reveal that my cousin had changed his name without even telling us. He invited us to a party held by an Irish association that's a popular social club for many Irish-Americans, one necessitating proof of Irish ancestry, which was much harder than he could manage with a dark Indian mother who resembled Pocahontas more than Colleen. That was his gentile line from his maternal side: a mother with more native heritage than anything else, and she'd die an early death in his 20s from the drink before she'd openly divulge the truth about her ethnic origins.
We approached the table at the social club with the guest list, repeating my cousin's name a few times, only to get puzzled looks and shaking heads. Nope. He wasn't on the list! My cousin must have saw us from inside the banquet hall, because he yelled out as he ran over to us: "It's under 'Burke'!" Uh, duh. You could have told us you made the reservations in our name. How were we to know? He quickly checked us in, then pulled us aside. We didn't understand him. He didn't go by the name Berkowitz anymore. Okay...we were still waiting. He got impatient with us."You need an 'Irish' name to get into the club!" Haha! That's funny, 'cause Dave isn't even all that Irish. He's a Polish-Indian mixed with German and Italian.
No, no, no. We still didn't get it. Finally, he coughed up the truth. This time, he leaned in closer to us, seated across from him at the long banquet table with fresh beers, lowering his voice. "I changed my name." What?! Dave was furious with him. "You stole my fucking name so you could drink in a bar?!" Kenny wanted to bartend (i.e., drink for free) at the local chapter, so he felt it was worth it. Besides, it fit his personality perfectly to be a such an outrageous liar, but this was just so fucking surreal. I loved our Jewish family from my father's side. This was bullshit! It was like he cut off an entire branch of our big family tree, and we were bleeding all over the place from the cut. Fuck...what a dumb drunk fuck!
Dave jerked his thumb at me. "She's the one with the Irish grandfather, not you. And besides, she's been to Ireland. You haven't." And that was true. "Yeah, you're 'more Irish' than me." My cousin admitted to us. "That's true." It was a dubious distinction amid so many loud red faces that packed the Brooklyn hall. Uh, yeah, we're not exactly extinct, are we? Take a good look around. Still, he had a point. He was as European-American as probably half the fuckers in the joint, and he could drink most of them under the table any day or night of the week. Heck, genetics is a wild game. Maybe that big dumb fuck was onto something. Maybe he was an Irishman more than anything else all long. It was still funny, though: an Irish Norman name of French origin, stolen from an upstate Polish-Indian. It was just crazy enough to be American.
