Multi-ethnic families have a wide range of humor that's either entertainment or weaponry, and like any other family, we use it as both. An old family joke snapped sharply into focus for me through, of all things, an episode of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, starring an actor I didn't know named Adam Beach. On the show, he was newly transferred to the unit and partnered with Ice-T's character, who naturally assumes he's Hispanic. "Yeah, just the other day some guy asked me if I was Mexican!" No way! Haha!
Growing up, we called my cousin Michael "The Mexican" for growing a cheesy, pencil-thin 'stache that practically begged us to mock it. If attention was what he wanted, he got it. Everywhere he went, we yelled out a chorus of bad Cheech and Chong accents. "Eeyyy, greengo! Whatchoo doin'?" had us rolling around, crying tears of laughter. "Essaayyy! How's it hangin', hombre?" Me and my bro thought it was a funny game, but in their tough Brooklyn neighborhood, a gentle taunt could become a barroom brawl later on, after a lot of beer was consumed.
His older brother would sneer "Spick" at him constantly, once he figured out that his younger brother could actually pass as Hispanic in some heavily Puerto Rican neighborhoods, which chafed him raw because in his family, he was the outcast for passing as white. It was shocking at times, too, especially during his first growth spurt. He'd go for the annual family Christmas portrait to be asked how long he was in town visiting his own family, like a down-on-his-luck relation come to spend time in the big city after his parents divorced.
"You know 'Ree (my childhood nickname), I know I come off as some big 'tough guy', but sometimes it really hurts my feelings", and I could totally see why. He'd arrange to meet his family at the local pizza parlor for dinner, only to be asked by the hostess where he wanted to be seated, with his family waving him over from the table they sat at, right in front of the waiter's face. It always felt like a put-down to him; like an unwanted interloper in his own childhood home.
The Sears family portrait in their living room showed four small, dark people with a giant-sized "white dude" standing behind them almost cropped out of frame, towering thinly above them all. It wasn't a wonder to me, as much as it took me aback, that he'd chosen to identify as Irish-American as an adult by changing his name and marrying a very Irish girl from Staten Island. It was the only place, among all of New York's ethnic groups, that he felt he could fit into, especially in the context of an inherited alcoholism that killed his parents. It felt easier for him to pass as just another Irish drunk.
But when our family got together, or if it was just him and his brother around, there was no question that, like Adam Beach, we weren't Hispanic at all. European....yeah, maybe....and then there was something else that was less available to us on surveys, questionnaires, and medical forms at the doctor's office. That "something" was a someone: his mother who'd left the reservation a long time ago to marry his Jewish father after they met at a corner bar in Brookyln, running from an upstate New York tribe of just 67 people, led by her abusive chief of a father, according to her often slurred telling. No one knew who we were. Not really.
So, for today: here's to all the "hybrids", "mixed bloods", "mutts", and "half breeds" of the world, plus all the other ethnic blends we have that testify to a legacy of love and marriage in this country that is so distinctly American. This one's for you, cuz. Ironically, after so much separation in their lives, the brothers are the only family they have left, and they remain the ONLY Celtic Jewish Indians from New York I've ever met. Thanks for being Metis like me, before we even knew there was a name for it. And thanks to all the brave actors like Adam Beach for representing a history that so often gets taken away by someone of European descent. I really appreciated seeing our funny ethnic reference on a major network TV show, my brother. It was a first.
Here's to all the other "firsts" out there in the world like me, representing a genuinely original, distinctly American ethnic minority. This time is ours.
