The question has never been about Gods ability or His willingness. I know He can. I know He will. The question is will He do it for me.

Fraud

I heard a quote today that touched me in a very deep way. I was watching the TV show on BBC that is the British equivalent of "Who Do You Think You Are?". Basically it is a show that helps to trace family genealogy.  The gentleman on the show always thought his grandparents were Scottish from the lowland areas of Scotland, mainly the Glasgow area. After some research, he discovered that his family was from a small town call Mull, located in the Scottish Highlands. Evidently there is a cultural difference between the two areas and he was referring to how it felt to associate himself with the "Highlanders".

On his long drive to the town he said,

"I've always thought I was a bit of a fraud by aligning myself to them (meaning the highlanders) rather than someone who has a blood claim to be from here (Mull). I'm aware somehow that it's locked into my DNA."

Now, all my life I have struggled with my cultural identity. My mother was a fair-skinned redhead with light green eyes and freckles. Her ancestors are Scottish and English. She was raised as a Mormon. My father, on the other hand, was a dark-skinned, brown eyed, large prominent nose and hair as black as night. It is said, according to Ancestry.com's DNA testing that my father was Spanish, Taino Indian and Portuguese. But, his grandfather was a Sephardic Jew, secretly practicing, also known as "conversos". His grandmother, a Spanish and Taino Indian Catholic. The Taino Indians are the natives that inhabited the Caribbean Islands when Columbus arrived. They are considered by the American Government to have been eradicated by disease and war, (thanks Columbus). We know that is not the case and at this time the Puerto Ricans are still trying to get validation of the Taino bloodline so they can get benefits, etc.

So, the problem is this....when I was growing up, I would hear my cousins say that they were Puerto Ricans (PR's). Well, that made no sense to me because as far as I knew I was Spanish and English. I remember asking my father about this...he blew it off as if it was unimportant. (Little did I know, my father was also struggling.) What I didn't understand at the naive age of 13 is that there was a level of shame that my father felt for his  PR heritage. Now, he was not aware of the Sephardic Jew issue yet. His parents spoke Spanish, so he assumed he was only Spanish. Case closed. He knew they came over from Puerto Rico in the late 1800's, to Hawaii to work in the sugar cane fields. Then, by ship to San Francisco in 1904. He was the first male in the family to be born in America. He never spoke Spanish in our home because we were Americans. I can understand his logic, so I never questioned it. My cousins, on the other hand, spoke Spanish, understood it, sang it. I felt a strange disconnection with them, as if our familial relationship was somehow untrue or fake. Everyone else in my fathers family had married within the guidelines of race and ethnicity. But my father had a liking for American girls.


On top of all that...my father and his brothers played Hawaiian music. It was a MAJOR part of our growing up experience. Most holidays and family gatherings were spent eating PR food and the brothers' singing and playing Hawaiian music. As a kid, I identified more with that than anything else because it was such an integral part of my life experience. But, we were not Hawaiians.
So, what am I? What race? What ethnicity?
It's similar to the children of blacks and whites. Because their skin is darker than the average white person, culturally, they will probably consider themselves black. Does that mean the white half ceases to exist?


In my fathers' later years he used to sit in his chair and rock, and cry. It was years before he ever told us why. He had sensed, in his life, a longing to know who he really was. Late in his life he had memories of his grandfather standing in front of the window, his Torah in his hand, tassel's hanging beneath his coat, swaying back and forth. He was praying. He thought, "Was my grandfather a Jew?"
My father struggled immensely with wanting to know the truth, because he was raised as a Catholic, not a Jew.  Such confusion. He prayed and prayed and asked God to reveal the truth to him. After many months of searching and praying and reading his bible, my father felt he had found the answer. Shemaiah, the son of Obed Edom.....Levites that served as gatekeepers. He was a descendant of a Jew. Now the history of the Jews states that as they were run out of their own country they migrated west to Spain, and the northwest areas of Africa, mainly the Canary Islands. We know they came to PR from Spain with Columbus as were many Jews at the time. After all that was how King Ferdinand took care of the Jewish problem.

So, now I'm really confused. I'm a Scottish, English, Portuguese,Taino, Spanish, French, West African, but NO Jewish DNA. (I checked). As with many bi-racial people, there is a bit of an identity crisis. Which nationality should I claim? Which should I identify with? This might sound silly to some. You might say, "Well, just be yourself!" Problem is...I don't know who "myself" is. People are generally proud of their family heritage and join groups and go to summer festivals held by various nationalities. Many times I feel my identity is tied to my race. Especially lately with all the racial tensions in the world. Everyone is taking sides. I don't know which side to take.

I feel like a fraud, trying to pass myself off as something that I don't look like. People have stopped
me and asked me what nationality I am because they can't tell by looking at me. I'm a true Heinz57.

(Update: After receiving my results from Ancestry DNA it's official. Not even a smidgen of Jewish)