Immigrant

http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/immigration/tour/

Each new generation thinks they have the roughest immigrant story ever. Mass murder? Pshaw! That's nothing! My Chinese Mom caught AIDS and died from your hospitals' bad blood transfusions! That's an actual true story by the way: a Asian bookkeeper I worked with years ago didn't want to believe that my family had any difficulties at all, because I'm "white". She kept repeating how I had a "rent controlled" apartment as an example of my so-called "white privilege", which wasn't actually true at all. I found the listing on Craigslist out of sheer economic need, and it was rent-stabilized when I lived there, which is entirely different than inheriting some fixed rate kind of deal. 

My people don't get those kinds of breaks handed to them, ever. But, true to her ignorance, she shut down when I tried to talk her through a tiny (and easily accessible) fraction of my actual family roots. I gave her a brief bit about my maternal New York story; a simple-to-follow story about Italian and Irish immigrants that's easily looked up online or at Ellis Island's interactive computer. Just type in "M-E-R-C-A-D-A-N-T-E" liked I did in five seconds, for my great-grandmother's passage to America. She sputtered and stumbled over that, but's typical for a generic office environment filled with strangers. I may be Ivy, but she sure as fuck isn't, except she doesn't know how many levels my people passed on the way up to get there, because she thinks she's had it tough, and she has. We all have. That's how you become an American. 

If she couldn't handle poor Italian farmers and the Irish potato famine, she sure as fuck can't handle the Acadian genocide, or the innate racism behind the hunting and mass destruction of Metis folk, which is anyone of European and Native American ancestry (GASP! "Mixed" races getting along peacefully!!), which pretty much covers my father's early American Dutch, English, and French Canadian ancestry. I felt bad for her, but not so bad that I didn't remember that my grandmother told me she cried every day for years walking home from school, because people shouted "Guinea!" in her face as a little girl, or that people spit at my grandfather for being a lowly "Mick", as every door in the city slammed itself shut in their faces, when they had to quit school as children of "The Depression" to work in factories to support their entire family.

http://cahiersdufootball.net/blogs/teenage-kicks/tag/no-irish-no-blacks-no-dogs/

It was so bad for my grandmother, that she changed her name from "Angelina" to "Ann", pretended to forget all of her native Bari tongue (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bari_dialect), and removed her kiddie earrings that marked her a "dago"; my mother never got over the stigma behind baby Italian girls with earrings. And so, she has never pierced her ears. I had to go with my friend's British step-mom to the mall at 15, and get it done myself. Or the fact that my great-grandfather never found work again, after refrigeration closed down his job as an Iceman in the city (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_trade), forcing my brilliant grandmother to quit elementary school, which she also cried over for many years, because all she ever wanted was to be a teacher or nurse. That's how much she loved to learn. She also helped him to collect his route's fares by riding up and the dumbwaiters for their fares, as a little girl. But it worked out. She became the MANAGER at her factory job by 20, or something extraordinary like that. I know, because I've seen the old black and white photo of her all dressed up and standing over one of her employees, who sat in a chair beneath her for their work portrait. I'm not even getting to my grandfather's long ConEd experience, or his tours on Vaudeville to earn a buck or for his Brooklyn family, or my Dad's small-time hustles as a shoe shine boy and pool hall player.

I hope you fucking choke on one more true life story from me this weekend, Cindy, as you read these real words about my researched and verified American Immigrant background. It's not some fucking  joke I made up to make you feel bad about yourself, you fucking idiot. You worked against me every single day in that bullshit office, while I worked my ass off overtime (and without pay) to cover all of your fucking asses, because I was the only Designer/Production Artist/Art Director in that fucking company with any real skills to earn us money, so that your fucking family, and your teenage kid's illegitimate kid, could fucking eat, because you're a fucking tourist to me, shithead. Choke on it, and if you don't like our hard times here, or our real life coming-up tales of woe, go the fuck back to Communist China. I'm sure they'll work you hard to kill you off in some forced labor camp, because you're one in a billion to them, and as such, easily expendable. Go fucking choke on it, bitch. That's my fucking Lady Liberty in the harbor.

And a "Happy Mother's Day" to you, as well. Bitch.

http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2011/06/the-distance-to-the-past.html

for Ann

https://www.libertyellisfoundation.org/passenger

It Came From Beneath the Earth

Life, growing in different directions.

Like a sci-fi movie from the 50s, sometimes nature is a trip to behold. Take a look at this odd assortment of roots and bulbs that I walked past a week or so ago, growing out in tremendously interesting ways. 
I couldn't have conceived of it as a piece of fiction if I tried!  
Wild, America.

Springing up and out.

Profuse root system at work. Does that look like a bear claw to you, too?

Mrs. Reilly's Soda Bread

Katie Reilly is in the house!

You know me; I'm always looking for really good food, and traditional Irish fare is no different. I look for excellent, fresh ingredients that are written in a language that's easily understood. You know, "real food" 
as my Mom would say. So a recent grocery store trip was no different than other day except for one special person: Mrs. Katie Reilly, and her infamous Irish Soda Bread. 

The label on the back was my first tip off that I had indeed found something very special. There are no artificial ingredients added. 
Like, none. Don't believe me? OK. See here for yourself:

Real ingredients, with no crap added into the mix. Wow!

And so I put it in my basket, and went on my way...or so I thought. 
At home, I found another surprise underneath the store's adhesive label that I carefully pulled off, so as to not tear the bag. It was the real story of an actual woman named Katie, her clan, and how much her food and her kitchen meant to them as a group.

Buried treasure! "Arrrhh!"

It was an unbelievably good find, what with the plethora of fake brand names that flood store shelves nowadays; the openly desperate manifestation of many a rich corporation, in an industry that seeks legitimacy and the money that goes along with having the real thing. 

But if living in an actual Irish/American town like Pearl River that also has strong Dutch, Huguenot, and Native American roots has reaffirmed anything for me, it's that you can't steal someone else's history for very long. You either have it or you don't, just like Mrs. Reilly.

Behold: the best soda bread I've ever had.

If you still doubt the power of authenticity in a world chock full of posers, let me close it down for you, finally. It was so good that I bought one for my exceptionally finicky Mom. She ate three pieces of it in a row, and she usually has a cup of yogurt for her afternoon tea. That's right, my dear readers, it passed "The Mom Test". Put that in your pipe and smoke it, "Irishers". Enjoy!

Happy St. Patrick's Day 2015, to you and yours.

http://www.myveronanj.com/tag/atie-reillys-original-irish-soda-bread/ 

http://www.celticpassions.com/about_katie_reilly.html