Irish people refer to their civil war as "The Troubles", in a shy euphemism that reveals the gentleness of a warm, kind, generously hospitable people aghast at the suddenly vicious violence that broke out, assisted as it was by outside economic interests. False divides in homelands are disturbing to live under, because it implies that families cannot live together, similarly constructed as the fair people of "The Emerald Isle" are. I have ancestry from Galway and County Tyrone, which, in centuries gone by, would have presented me with the unenviable task of choosing sides before military zones were demarcated by England, familiar as these lines are now, but hard still. Who would you choose? Which side? Your Protestant son and his family, or the Catholic boy living just outside of Dublin? Why did we ever have to choose?
It's the same around the globe, like the same epic battle fought between Cain and Abel we repeat in these disordered histories around the world, as walls built to separate instead of unite. We've seen it throughout time: The Berlin Wall, The Great Wall of China, and a wrongly-felt nation of Korea now split as "North" and "South", just as the U.S. was once divided, too. When will we learn? Mothers and fathers said goodbye to sons and daughters who fought and died in the wars of wealthier people vested in key government positions, far above the grunts sent to fight conflicts that did not always benefit them back home. What would you do?
Who actually wins in these wars? Not us! On my last trip back to "Eire" (it was a big fat New York family trip, let's just leave it at that for now), we were blessed to have a border crossing that was told to us gently, knowing the changeover only when we stopped for gas and got British Sterling back as change, instead of the Euro that marks the currency for the Free Republic of Ireland. Scotland was recently given the chance to switch to an independent nation through a legal vote but declined, and I can't say I blame them as a people. England is far wealthier, like Puerto Rico's relationship with the United States. Would you cut ties with us quickly? Certainly not, and neither would a savvy mom like me who only wants what's best for her children, economically and otherwise.
You haven't seen poverty like the kind that we saw as Americans visiting in Ireland back in the day. My first trip to Ireland in the 80s was like a time machine trip; a country so poor, they still used the local bus to travel with their chickens in cages to sell in the markets of the bigger towns, like the sawdust strewn quickly and cheaply on the floor of a Brooklyn supermarket in the far-out neighborhood of Kensington that was such a long subway trip away from the big city, no one at my first job in publishing ever heard of it. That's changed, though the character remains the same, because genuine pockets for natives never really appeal to out-of-towners or hipsters, and if they do, it's short-lived.
But that's not our commitment to these homelands we love so much as immigrants. When my father and his wife came up last year for a brief visit, we went to Louie's for Sunday brunch on a day that was as briskly cold and sodden as those of "The Green Island" itself. He'd asked for a quiet spot without music because of his poor hearing (a genetic disorder I share with him), and I instantly felt at home. One of our friends from Clarkstown South worked there as a waitress when we were in high school, and it remains a great local spot.
Our waitress was Irish, as was obvious from the lilt of her brogue. We fell into conversation easily, as we are wont to do here among family and friends, similar in tone to the pubs ("Public Houses" for short) we know so well overseas. She explained a little bit of her life to me, as the parents looked over the classically seasonal menu; she chose to have her sons born on American soil so they would know the the gift of freedom as dual citizens, and it was one of the most beautifully-said, softly-spoken words of progress I have ever heard.
She went on to say that her life wasn't problem-free living in this new reality. Her husband struggled with his work Visa during her boy's senior year of high school, and we laughed over the difficulty of securing a driver's license through the careful navigation of all those Irish turn-abouts, with its level matched only by New York's requirements for a learner's permit. Poor kid! Her husband stayed with her oldest son throughout his last Irish school year while she remained in New York with her other children, working her part of their family.
She'd knew they'd get by as a family, what with her husband spending time with her boy in Ireland, and her here to keep their family foothold in both lands, and I immediately thought to myself "That's it!". This is the solution that each and every American has longed for: assimilation without regrets, the preservation of culture without the taint of "foreigner" to dull our united hearts, for who could choose better? How do you split your body and soul in half? You don't! Now, with better immigration laws and fairer practices for recent emigres, we're no longer forced to choose between siblings, or children and their grandmothers, because we can keep our families together.
We really can have it all.
