Armed Liberal

As I prepare some comments on Israeli WMD’s to put up over at Winds of Change, it occurs to me that my own heritage becomes something that I should disclose, to allow readers to make a judgment on whether my own ethnic or religious affiliations might have something to do with my positions (I don’t think they do, but I don’t necessarily get to make that call).

I’m a mutt. When asked, I typically identify myself as “a Californian”.

My father’s family were German Jews who left for the United States in the late 19th Century, but they didn’t practice, and I’m not sure if my father was even bar-mitvah’ed. His own spiritual affiliations were much more Eastern, as befits his personal beliefs…which can best and most simply be described as Beatnik. I read my first D.T. Suzuki book at his house when I was a young teen, and his circle of friends included a preponderance of jazz musicians, poets, and horseplayers.

My mother’s family were in part Hispanic, with a strong mixture of Native American and some random other strains that changed as I listened to the oft-changing stories of my various relatives. Like my father, my mother stepped away from her family and their culture as fast and hard as she could; she never spoke Spanish in my presence, and to my knowledge can’t. She has reinvented herself as a Southern California charitable figure, and a strong participant in her nontraditional Eastern religion.

The feature common to both of them was their efforts to personally step away from their heritage and to reinvent themselves as Californians.

As a child, the strongest adult figures I remember include three men who worked for my father, and who had a strong role in raising me when my divorced parents were otherwise occupied. Each was a senior blue-collar worker, at the boundary between management (my dad) and labor (the teams that worked for them).

Robert (never “Bob”) was a sandy blonde from Kentucky who made sure I knew all the lyrics to “Tennessee Stud” by the time I was ten, introduced me to Bob Wills and Johnny Cash, and explained to me as he bandaged my hands after a fight at school that you never hit the hard parts with your hands, you used your forehead, elbows, or better still, a hard object you picked up close at hand.

Theodis was from the back country in Louisiana, where his black – never “Negro” – sharecropper father had raised ten children on hand-me-downs, help from the church, and damn hard work. Theoidis’ main lesson to me was that no matter how hard or smart I worked by myself, the job couldn’t get done unless everyone on the team helped. Five of us kids were hired one summer, to pick up trash and sweep the concrete slabs on one of the jobsites, and as the son of the boss, getting the work done somehow became my responsibility.

Joe was one of Theodis’ brothers, and I’ll save him for last because he took special responsibility for me. Joe showed me that a man works even when he’s tired, and goes home when he’s done, not before. When I was hungry he showed me that a belly full of water would hold you for a few hours until he could take me out to eat – it wasn’t until much later that it occurred to me how that lesson had come to him and what it said about his growing up and how present hunger must have been. His family ate damn well, and sat together every night at the table for dinner, talking, and didn’t eat while playing or watching TV or walking around the neighborhood, and so does my family now.

Somehow, my own heritage is – in my mind at least – a crazy conjunction of all these things.

In West L.A., old Jewish men want to introduce me to their doctor daughters.

In East L.A., people approach and address me in Spanish.

I’ve been pulled off of the San Diego – Los Angeles train after a 140 mile bicycle ride down there because my skin was dark, I was unshowered and smelled, and when asleep I couldn’t respond to the questions of the Border Patrol agent.

When I lived in Paris with my first wife, everyone was convinced that I was Lebanese.

In Wisconsin with my second wife, everyone thought I was down from the rez. (they thought I was Native American)

In Corsica, everyone was convinced I was Corsican, and when I went on to Sardinia, everyone there thought I was Corsican too, until we checked into a luxury hotel where they were convinced I was an Arab.

I’ll admit to enjoying this confusion.

Somehow I see it as an advantage, but as a Californian I – like many of my compatriots – believe in the power of reinvention, and that I’m not a slave to my heritage – or heritages, in my case.