The Melting Pot of Identity

I have always thought of myself as American because of, and not despite, the immigrant status of my paternal grandparents. It wasn’t until I took an interpersonal communication class at Erie Community College that I realized that this was not the norm. Before being issued a survey about myself, I had never thought of my family as atypical of the standard American Family. Most of the people associated with my father’s family had accents or only spoke Polish; this always seemed normal to me. The amount of immigrant’s that I had contact with growing up led me to believe that most people’s grandparents were born outside of the United States.

While filling out the survey, we were asked to check a box if we were second generation Americans. This is not a term I had ever heard, let alone associated with my identity before, but it definitely applied to me. My father was the second Pisarski born in America (Although, he had a green card, so that might make me a first generation American. Not sure). Only one other classmate, out of roughly thirty, also checked that box. The rest were all like the maternal side of my family, being generations removed from any immigration to this country.

To me, the melting pot metaphor about America had always been true and part of my everyday life. America was a place where people from all over the world came together to start over. I am an American whose ethnicity is Polish, German, and Irish. Being American has always been my nationality, even though I consider myself to be ethnically Polish, German and Irish. Most people I have met do the same, introducing their ethnicities in a variety of ways regardless of how long their families have been in the country.

Identity, for anyone, is a tricky subject, especially since it is such a fluid concept. Our personal identities are constantly shifting and changing as we have experiences and reflect upon our past and present situations. Add to these complications that we don different identities around different people and it becomes impossible to nail down. Even my name differs depending on which group of people I am with. My college friends all know me as Matt, my High School and work friends all know me as Pisa.

To discuss identity, I suppose the best thing to do is break it down. A lot of a person’s identity comes from their interests. Looking at identity through this lens, I would have to say that my identity is my love of folk music, Wes Anderson movies, reading ‘good’ books, and so much more. To my overall life goal, my love of literature, reading, and writing would probably be the most important. It is because of this love that I am an English graduate student at Fredonia. I have no choice but to think of being a graduate student as a huge part of my identity, because during the semester there is little time for much else besides school (when you’re doing Grad school right, that is).

On top of that, literature affects my future identity as well. If everything goes the way I hope it will, I will be an English Professor (maybe even by the end of the decade. Fingers crossed). If I do become a professor, it will be as important to me as being a student is now. All of this stems from the fact that my father instilled a joy and appreciation of reading in me from a young age. I would refrain from saying that my identity is inextricably tied with reading and literature or even my desired career.

Music is just as important to me as literature. I don’t think that once a person has heard music that a life without it could ever be worth living. I am more scared of going deaf than blind because of this fact. You can still read books when you’re blind, but you can never hear music again if you go death. I can’t imagine what Beethoven went through. Despite this, I am not a musician, nor will I ever be based on the talent (or lack thereof) that I have exhibited on instruments.

Outside of interests, past experiences are also instrumental in forging a person’s identity. As the pool of past experiences grows until death, so does the shaping of an identity. During my formative teenage years, I had to deal with the death of my father. My dad died June 22nd, 2002, shortly after my sixteenth birthday. He went to work like usual, but had a heart attack while he was there.  His death was one of several that devastated my family. At the end of what was about a five year span, my cousin, father, grandma, uncle, and grandfather had all passed away. 

My relationship with my father, while not perfect, was, and is, still extremely important to me. He was my best friend and despite the fact we did not always see eye to eye on things, I hold the lessons he imparted on me with a special weight. After his death they became even more important to me because I feel I have to carry on his legacy and so that he doesn’t regret bringing me into this world. He taught me that generosity, hard work, open-mindedness, honesty, and loyalty are the characteristics of a decent human being. While I try to incorporate all these things into my being, it doesn’t always work out the way that I want it to. I often find myself wondering if I strive to be a good person because I actually want to be a good person, because of the lessons that he taught me or due to his death. I still cannot point to one of those things and say ‘that’s why I try’, maybe its all three. I’m not that great of a person anyway, so I suppose its not that important. Besides these issues, his death shaped me in other ways as well. 

Before his death, I hated cigarettes and tried to get him to quit everyday. When it turned out that they attributed to his death ( they cause atherosclerosis) I decided to start smoking to figure out why it was so hard for him to quit. After a little over six years I managed to quit smoking for the first time. Cigarettes had become part of who I was by that point (yet another fun part of identity: substances we indulge in). The first time I quit smoking, I lasted three years without smoking. Even throughout the last year of non-smoking, I still had dreams about smoking cigarettes. Eventually, I decided I didn’t really have a reason not to smoke cigarettes and started again. I quit again after another two or so years smoking. This time is worse than last time, but its lasted for about six months. I feel like I will forever be, technically, a smoker. When I smell burning tobacco I cannot help but wish I was the one smoking it. Were it not for my father’s death I probably would never have picked up a cigarette. Trying to live up to my idea of his expectations and coming to terms with his death have played a huge role in shaping me.

The third and possibly most crucial factor in my own identity is probably the fact that, as I said, my grandparents were immigrants. Like I stated previously, this has always made me feel more American. My grandparents move here from Poland have always made the melting pot that much more real to me. I’m positive that if they had gone to Australia like they wanted, I would be a much different person right now. Growing up hearing Polish spoken (even though I don’t understand it) was important to me. Hearing it spoken now still calls to mind childhood memories, even though for all I know the speaker is insulting me (maybe that was part of my childhood too; who knows?). Holiday’s with a mix of Polish, American, and German traditions were something I got to experience.

My mother’s parents came from families that had been established in America in the later half of the 19th century. The Ehmke family was rather successful in the small town they had settled in, my Great Grandfather owned his own lumber yard and constructed several of the buildings and houses in town. The Kissinger’s lived in Buffalo after the death of my other great-grandfather ( which was around the time my Grandma was two). Luckily, a blind date brought their two families together before my grandpa left to fight in World War II. My grandpa was always listening to records, cassettes, or CDs and its probably from him that I get my love of music. His last words to me, the day before he died, were “keep the family together”. Maybe he knew I was the designated mediator in fights between my brothers and mother (any formulation of the three of them fighting probably happened). 

Anyways, the eventual arrival of my grandparents in America, coupled with the established family of my other set of grandparents,  has always made me feel more connected to the American tradition than those whose entire families have been here for hundreds of years. I got to experience both sides of the tradition. This ‘multicultural’ upbringing allowed me to experience things that many children are not exposed to. Learning about immigration and how the country was founded by immigrants coupled with stories of bilingual homes made me feel connected to the foundation of America. My grandparents were more like the pilgrims than the grandparents of children whose families were colonists in my mind. I was an American, but I was also Polish, German, and Irish. For a long time I felt that this was my concrete identity.

The importance I had placed on ethnicity was challenged when I met a guy from Ireland. When I mentioned I was Polish, he wanted to know when I moved to America. After explaining I had been born here but my grandparents moved here in ‘52, he told me I wasn’t Polish, I was American. Before this point I thought I was, basically,  just as Polish as I was American. The irony of this, of course, is that it is only in America where we put this emphasis on ethnicity making it part of our ‘American Identity’. 

Based on this, my idea that having immigrant grandparents or parents is a very American thing has been reinforced. The importance that we, as a culture, place upon ethnicity and where ancestors came from shows that our population is one based almost entirely on immigration. Barring Native Americans, even the earliest ‘American’ families will be able to tell you what ethnicity they are and, most likely, the town or city their ancestors came from. Whether we track this for bragging rights of who has been here longer, or because we hold pride in our ancestor’s homeland, the fact that we keep track is enough to show the importance that we place upon where and when our families came here.

This gives us an interesting perspective about our collective idea of American identity. The United States has always, since being established as the United States, had an immigrant population. The pot is real, but people inside that pot don’t want to fully melt. Rather than becoming one, we choose to stay somewhat fragmented by hanging onto these connections to our heritage from outside the U.S. This is why, when asked about ourselves, we divulge the fact that one hundred and fifty years ago, our Lithuanian ancestor settled in Pennsylvania. Its why Dyngus day is a huge holiday in Buffalo and St. Patrick’s day parades are all over the place as a celebration of Irish Heritage in a country other than Ireland. 

The existence of these cultures coming together in America shapes the identity of Americans. Rather than tearing us apart and making us into factions as these issues once did, we celebrate that we have the best of everything. We have the best Irish whiskey, the best German food, awesome Thai restaurants and easy access to an Americanized chinese food. People who are not Irish get just as drunk as those who ‘are’ Irish. People who aren’t Polish are still welcome to grab squirt guns and pussy willows. These are not divisive traditions; they have become American celebrations that welcome anyone who wants to have fun and celebrate that all these cultures are housed under the umbrella of ‘American’. 

Part of being American is the fact that you are more than just your nationality; you have a unique heritage. There is also a solid chance that you traditions from some other ethnicity that your family is not part of, because it looked good to somebody observing it. Just as American is a smattering of people from all over the globe, traditions that make us American are a hodge podge of things that each of these people brought to America. Rather than keeping these traditions they became part of a collective culture, to be shared by everyone.

I think there are several ways through which we can think about both personal and American identity. The most interesting belief I have about American identity is there is not a single, uniform identity that applies to Americans. We all have varied backgrounds and views. Part of being American, to me, is that we are not forced to fit into a certain ideology or strict definition of what it means to be American. The only real requirement is being a citizen. It is not even necessary to live in America to be considered American.

To respond to the question on the assignment sheet of ‘Who ought “we” to be?’, I think we do not really have to be any specific thing to be within the realm of the American Identity. Variety seems to be the American Tradition. Our political system even demonstrates the varied nature of American culture. We have the two major parties, but we also have several smaller parties. There was even a ‘The Rent is Too Damn High” party.  

I feel like this is a good representation for my view of American Identities. Being American means different things to different people, which leads to the formation of all sorts of different identities and views on what it is to be American (even though they may not be at odds with each other like in the political system). There are the major ways in which we think about this, which is mostly Independence, Freedom and our forefathers who wrote the declaration. It has to do with history and tradition. The smaller parties, that might incorporate the larger ones, represent little things that we as Americans think in terms of what it means to be part of this country.

I think one commonality that unites views of American Identity throughout American History is the view of America as a force of good in the world.  From the Revolutionary War to World War II, we have stood up for principles that, at least the government, determine to be American Principles. These usually include fighting oppression, freedom, rights, etc.  Freedom and the rights we have as spelled out in the constitution seem to be common things that people in America value. Most of the wars we have fought have been said to be about these things. Although, throughout our history we have often limited the rights of groups of people (and still do today), America often strives to do better. While the government gets involved in wars that we are told are ‘for the greater good’ the citizens of America often protest when we disagree with their formulation of the ‘greater good’. While citizens do not always agree on these issues, they stand up for what they believe in nonetheless. Trying to do what is right is, at least in American Propaganda, what we have always strived to do. This seems to find its way into the ideological structure of most Americans.

Examples of this in history are the Vietnam War protests, the Civil Rights movement, the current activism for LGBT rights and gay marriage and the list goes on. These are things that people are willing to stand up and fight for. Fighting injustice is something that I think most American’s would rank among the top ‘American Values’ as evidenced by things like the commemoration of Dr. King’s ‘I have a Dream Speech’. Of course, there are still huge strides that have to be taken; progress has been made since the speech was given. Our celebration of that progress is evidence that we value equality and justice in America.

Part of my identity is the music I listen to, the books I read, and my hopes and dreams; the things that I'm interested in and interested in doing. Another part is the way that my family taught me that I should act; the beliefs and values that they instilled in me. The third is my identity and what I think it is to be American. Being American does not pigeonhole us into one particular way of being. On the contrary, we are able to adopt traditions and beliefs that might otherwise be unavailable to us if we lived elsewhere. We can think and believe what we wish. The open ended nature of the question of American identity allows everyone to formulate their own answer. I'm a fan of folk music, a book lover, and an American.

On Being Greek, Jewish, and American

The student who wrote this wished to remain anonymous.

Section 1:  Identifying Myself

Starting off with the basics, I am a 19 year old female college student. As a typical college student, I have been involved with many clubs and organizations on campus including Sigma Kappa Sorority, club soccer, Orchesis Dance Company, and Student Association. On the weekends, I like to do what many college students do when the stress of the week is over and the freedom of the weekend comes over us, celebrate with some festive activities! I have a major in International Relations with a concentration in Peace and Conflict, and a double minor in Spanish and Political Science. I used to have a second major in exercise science, but by the words "used to" it's pretty clear how that worked out. I'm a sophomore, a Sigma Kappa 'til I die, a dance enthusiast, a gym rat and sports fanatic, a daughter, a sister, a girlfriend, a friend, quite possibly an unknown enemy, a Dean's List student, and most importantly the only one like me in the world.

I know I'm a sophomore in college with majors and minors declared, but as you can see with the exercise science major speed bump in the road, I still have no idea what I want to do in this world. With so much pressure from academic advisors and my parents to find what I want to spend the rest of my life doing, I can't help feeling that at the ripe old age of 19, it's okay not to have every answer. I do know, however, that I was put onto Earth for a reason and it is my goal to spend the rest of my life figuring out just what exactly that is. However, I do have some pretty interesting goals in my life. With the obvious first, change the world for the better in any way I can. With my International Relations major, I am hoping to go into diplomacy. Foreign affairs and international relations has always vastly interested me so I think it's pretty cool that I get to study it!

I am Greek. Yes, I am a member of the Greek system; however, I actually am really Greek. My grandparents were born in Chios, Greece, and I am a second generation American. Some people don't even know what their heritage is, let alone celebrate it, but being Greek is actually a pretty big part of my life. I have been to Greece, and my whole family is a pretty typical loud, big, lots-of-food, Greek family. We all speak some of the language and cherish the traditions we have.

I am a Jew. I went to a private Jewish school from nursery all the way to 11th grade, when I transferred to the public high school for various reasons.  I have been to Israel multiple times, and see it as a home. My mother's sister lives there with her husband and four children and multiple grandchildren. The majority of my friends from my private school studied in Israel for 1-2 years post high school, pre-college, as my sister did. I have an immense faith in my Judaism and it is without a doubt one of the most crucial aspects of my identity. I have been a victim of anti-Semitism, disregarding the common "Jew jokes" that seem to always find a way into most of my conversations with others. Being a Jew, in the eyes of some I somehow am personally responsible for the entire Middle East conflict that has begun way before I was even born, an incredibly cheap person, and shockingly have a normal sized nose. Despite all of the digs and minority stabs, I am a proud Jew.

I am an American. Born in the formerly known Harris Hospital, now named Catskill Regional Medical Center, I am a citizen of the United States. I hail from a small farm town in the Catskill Mountains, Bethel, NY, home of the 1969 Woodstock music festival. I'm an incredibly proud American knowing that just from being born on this soil, I have the rights set forth by the founding fathers of this democratic country. I have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and of course the only two things promised in life: death and taxes.

Section 2:  A Significant Experience--9/11
   
On September 11th, 2001, there was a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. Two planes were hijacked and flown directly into the Twin Towers. Many Americans simply hear the term "9/11" and know exactly to what it refers. To everyone, though, it brings them back to a different place. To some it may bring back the memory of a lost loved one taken away from them by the attack, or it may bring them back to being a little kid at the time and not knowing exactly what had happened or what it meant.

For me, it takes me back to being in the third grade and being called out by the principal, walking to the principal's office and seeing my older brother already there sitting next to two other boys who were brothers. I was confused as to why I was called into the office with this group and realized it was because both of our fathers worked in NYC, either on the same block as or in the World Trade Center. Thankfully, mine was the one who works on the same block. We were told our mothers were on their way to pick us up and that there was an attack in the area where our fathers were. Being in third grade, and the youngest of the students in the office, I had no idea what was going on. When my mom picked up my brother and I, she explained that she had not been able to reach our father yet. Not knowing what had happened to him for hours, finally he was able to contact my mother to tell her that he was okay. He was outside the doors of the World Trade Centers and physically watched the first plane crash into one of the towers. Hours later he was able to take a train into a town outside of NYC where we met him and brought him home safely.
   
This experience was extremely eye-opening to me. What triggered this experience into my connecting it to American identity was when we went to get my father, seeing all of the citizens, victims, firemen and others meeting here at this train station, the only way in and out to the site of the attack. The police officers and firemen who were going into the city risking their own lives to try to save someone else’s. I think that made it very clear that in this nation we are strong and when a national emergency like this happens, the citizens of this country really unite and come together to survive and make it through. We can even turn the site of this national attack into a monument, a place where people can come to grieve, realize, or even just understand what happened there and what it meant. People now make Ground Zero a must-see stop if they visit NYC, and I think it's great that we acknowledged it and can turn it into a place of memory, yes of something tragic, but still never forgotten.

Section 3: My Beliefs/Values/Principles & How We Should Define and Understand American Identities--Who Are We and Who Should We Be?
   
I am an American and believe in many of the values that were set forth by the founding fathers who developed and made this country into the great nation it is. The values that all men are created equal, all men have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Not being discriminated or judged upon the color of your skin, the origin of your parents or grandparents, or your faith. Coming together as one people, one nation. And coming together as one being important as to how preserving individual freedom requires collective action. Our pledge to a declaration written when this country had just become a nation, and our preservation and interpretation of this declaration from the day it was written to today. The preservation of human dignity and justice. All of these things are the beliefs, the values, and the principles that were instilled in me and taught to me as an American, and are the same beliefs, values, and principles I hold dear to me as a human being as well.
   
Unfortunately, all of these things are not necessarily always the case. There are hate crimes in this world and discrimination from people that believe that because you are different from them, you are below them. There is injustice and hardships for many decent people who may not deserve all of the obstacles life has given them. But as Americans, what we should have is an equal opportunity to each and everyone one of us. That for each American, all of the beliefs, values, and principles we are governed by and taught and are our rights to have, should pertain to all of us.  Although this country has overcome many unjust things such as the days of African American slaves and the organizations of hate such as the Ku Klux Klan, there is still much adversity we face. In a perfect world, we would have all love and no hate, and equal opportunity for all, but unfortunately that would be a perfect world, and one that we do not by any means live in.

In class, we watched the video of Blanco reciting the inauguration poem “One Today,” and I believe that the text of this video is what our founding fathers of this country wanted and envisioned when they wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. We are recited a poem at every presidential inauguration as a reminder of what this nation stands for, as a reminder of what this country believes, and as a reminder of what this nation is capable of.  A nation where there is complete and true freedom of religion and speech. A nation where somebody whose home life and upbringing can be significantly different from another’s, yet they still have the exact same opportunities. Where someone who grew up poor and in a violent neighborhood can turn his/her life around and get an education and succeed. This nation is great and has potential to become even greater, and I am very proud to say I am a citizen of it.

This class has opened my eyes to so many American Identities that I have never taken the time to think about or analyze before. There are so many aspects to identity and so many big and little things that shape someone into exactly who they are. Reading and analyzing books about different aspects and engaging in debates and discussions showed me that they pertain to all. Even just our class is an example, we all came to class the first day not knowing everyone and were shy to speak up and make our point but as the months went by, we all got much more comfortable with each other and were able to respectfully debate and even joke around with each other. I think that bringing young adults together like that with completely different backgrounds and opinions and throwing them into a complete discussion-based class is incredible. We all learned so much about each other, and I have learned so much more about American Identities than I had ever known and my eyes were opened to a much better understanding and appreciation of it.

Christmas in July

Christmas in July – A Skeptic is Born

 

            When I was 5 years old, the summer going into my first year of elementary school, GM or Chevy or some other American auto manufacturer held a “Christmas in July” sales event akin to the contemporary Toyotathon.  Lately it seems like every month is Toyotathon and every sales event is a once in a lifetime special offer, but such is the way with American marketing.  Make the consumer want it and need it, then tell them they can’t have it (unless they act now!)   Christmas in July TV commercials featured Santa, all decked out in his customary wardrobe, plus sunglasses and a sunscreen nose.  As is typical with Christmas-related car commercials, a fleet of sporty new vehicles had usurped the place of Dasher, Vixen and the rest of Santa’s reindeer fleet.  I have often wondered why no car companies ever made a car called a Blitzen.  I would have bought an Oldsmobile Blitzen based on the name alone.  I doubt car companies have a guy that gets paid six figures to come up with goofy names for their automobiles, but if they do, and if I was that guy, I’d come out with a new reindeer car every Christmas.  My marketing scheme would culminate with the ultimate (and most expensive) luxury automobile, named (obviously) Rudolph.  The Oldsmobile Rudolph.  That’s catchy enough for auto marketing.  It’s better than the Cutlass, which sounds more like a nickname for Jack the Ripper than an American made automobile, and that’s one of the bestselling American made cars ever.  Christianity is huge in America, Christmas is even bigger and the Rudolph would sell.  GM didn’t need a bailout; GM needed more reindeer-names.  It doesn’t even have to be a new car every year.  Instead of calling the “Supreme” version of the Comet the Comet Supreme, call it the Vixen.

            My five year old brain watched some obese geriatric actor in a Santa suit with sunglasses and sunscreen nose tell me to have a “Merry ‘Christmas in July.’”  He assured me that I’d been good this half-year and therefore should treat myself or the one I love to a brand new Chevy Constellation for only $199 a month.  That got me thinking.  Had I been good this year?  Was the real Santa watching me right now?  According to the song and the dogma, when he isn’t staring at me in bed he at least knows when I’m awake…for goodness sake.  But how?  I didn’t see him there.  Once when I was younger (it was probably the Christmas right before “Christmas in July”) I tried to convince myself that when I thought I saw something out of the corner of my eye, it was trailed by a red coat.  Santa had been watching me the old fashioned way: by breaking into my house and peeking around the corner of the area between kitchen and living room.  But I knew it wasn’t really him; that was impossible because that would mean an infinite (or at least a few hundred million) Santas existed to be able to spy on every child in the world physically.  He must’ve used remote surveillance.    

            I hadn’t seen any evidence of him – no reindeer prints in the snow on the roof and no sleigh tracks up there either, and I’d definitely never seen reindeer or sleds fly, and I didn’t see how (or why) some ageless old man in a suit could know everything about me and every other child on the planet.  And how come he didn’t do anything for my parents?  They were good, weren’t they?  As far as I was concerned they were better than I was.  I never saw my dad lie about breaking a window or heard about him splashing three inches worth of water out of the bathtub all over the bathroom floor as a side effect of trying to create a wave pool.  So what gives?  Sure, they don’t want or need the new Ghostbusters ghost trap or the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles play truck, but can’t Santa’s elves make grown-up stuff too?  At what age does Santa stop caring about you?

            And about those elves…I never got a wooden train set or truck for Christmas; I got real live in-the-box toys.  With the manufacturer labels, Styrofoam packaging and everything.  Were the elves that good that they could create exact replicas of NERF footballs and the packaging and the instruction booklet and convince the genuine toy companies that they weren’t infringing on copyright?  Something didn’t add up.  Someone was lying or at least withholding the truth.

            I had to know.  Mid-afternoon on a 90 degree day in July I walked right up to my mom, sat her down and said that I needed to know.  I didn’t want any hypotheticals, I didn’t want to talk about “belief,” I wanted answers. 

            “What do you think?” She asked.

            “I don’t see how there’s any way; it doesn’t make any sense.  I think there is no Santa and it’s you and dad.”

            “You’re right.  Don’t tell you sister.”  But it was too late, my sister (15 months my senior, but we might as well have been twins) had overheard part of the conversation.  She knew of my newly discovered Santa-agnosticism and she decided she wanted to know too.  I don’t remember if I told her directly or if my mom did, but I like to think I told her.

            “Don’t tell the other kids at school.  You have to let them believe.  Don’t tell Jimmy either.” Jimmy is my younger brother and he was 3 at the time.  Even at 5 I knew you’d have to be a real asshole to ruin Christmas for a three year old (or your five year old classmates), so I went on pretending.  I never said I believed in Santa or pretended to believe in Santa, I just kept my mouth shut.  Mostly.

            Eventually there comes a point where encouraging Santa belief is creepy and no longer just letting your child believe something fun.  It reaches a point where it’s lying, disingenuous and damaging.  Almost everyone had that one kid (or small handful of kids) in their class who believed in Santa for way too long.  Usually it led to teasing and ostracism every December.  I had a friend who believed in Santa until 6^th grade.  Late 6^th grade too – like mid-April 6^th grade.  There was nothing wrong with him intellectually or developmentally – he was a normal 12 year old…who also happened to still believe in Santa.  He believed because his parents kept lying to him.  They didn’t just let him believe, they told him to believe. In 5^th grade when I got really fed up with the charade, I flat out told him there is no Santa Claus and that our classmates were starting to think that he was weird for believing it.  He told his parents of my blasphemy and they told him I was wrong.  That’s always struck me as creepy.  At that age your parents are the ultimate authority.  What they say is infallibly correct.  There’s something very weird about parents who after a certain age continually lie to their children about the existence of Santa (or the Easter Bunny or any other make-believe childhood hero) and they are doing a great disservice to their children.  Interestingly, his parents were very religious.  Like, “god is the reason (the only reason) you hit that home run, so you’d better thank him or you’ll never do it again” religious.  Possibly (probably) coincidence, but once you’ve spent the first 11 years of your life believing in (and being lied to about) the existence of a supernatural being that you could actively prove did not exist (or at least prove that he did not visit your house every December 25^th), it makes it very difficult to ever stray from believing in the existence of a supernatural being that you cannot actively prove does not exist.  Especially considering that, unlike Santa, he is spiritual (rather than physical) by nature.

            My initial reaction to the truth was parental admiration.  My parent’s stock went up by an order of magnitude in my eyes on that mid-July day.  The first thing I said (my mom reminds me and the rest of the family of this story every Christmas) was, “so wait…it was you and dad who bought me all that stuff?!  Thanks!”  (She never mentions that I actually said “thanks,” but this is my story and I know I was a polite little kid, so I said it.)  My younger brother’s Santa story is funnier.  He was 6 or 7 and some kids at school had been talking about it, so he came home and he asked my mom.  When she told him there is no Santa, his reaction was melodramatic grief.  “Everything I have ever been told is a lie!” he wailed. “I’ll never believe anything again!” That’s some pretty good stuff for a second grader.  He should have gone into acting.  But those tears were real and he really was devastated.  For me, it was the opposite.  I was more relieved and satiated.  There was no Santa because the world didn’t work that way.  There is no man who flies around the world in one night in a sleigh driven by reindeer (who also fly) with an unimaginably huge bag of toys for every (well-behaved) child in the world.  That worked for me.  I didn’t think of it in quite those terms when I was five, but to me that made sense.

            My brother added a vengeful (and tearful) “where’s Kerry?! I’m telling Kerry!” during his emotional breakdown.  His first reaction was to weep at the loss of a childhood icon and at being lied to.  He was understandably upset that the world didn’t work the way he thought it did.  His second reaction was to ruin it for my younger sister, who was the only remaining member of the household who still believed in Santa.  That’s hilarious to me.  She would have been 4 or 5 at the time, and my mom stopped him from ruining her Christmas too, but it’s interesting where he was coming from.  He wanted to do it out of anger – in his mind at that moment Christmas was forever ruined for him and that was unacceptable, and he wanted to bring someone else down with him.  For me that need to inform still existed, but not out of vengeance or any type of vindictiveness, but because it seemed like the right thing to do.  I never did tell anyone that Santa Claus does not exist (barring the incident in 5^th grade, when a friend was being mocked for it) because I could appreciate the difference between a holiday legend that adults who know better tell kids for a variety of reasons (not the least of which is to get them to behave and finish their broccoli) and actively lying, believing something fantastical or simply repeating misinformation and urban legend unintentionally. 

            I don’t want to try to pretend that at the age of 5 I took realizing and then confirming the truth about Santa Claus, applied it to every area of life, and became an atheist and a skeptic, because that is far from the truth. But it is a good introduction.  It was a long road from July of 1989 until officially considering myself either (or even considering the possibility of either), but on that day the seeds of skepticism were planted and a skeptic was born.

The Face in the Blanket

            Right around the time I finally broke down and told my 5^th grade friend that there is no Santa Claus (and his parents promptly discredited me as an infidel), my Social Studies teacher decided he was sick of teaching Social Studies and it was time for us to watch some supernatural documentaries.  I don’t remember the exact circumstances of it, but I do remember vividly that the videos we watched had nothing to do with the Fertile Crescent or Mesopotamia or anything else we were learning in class.  I also don’t remember what pseudo-academic channel originally aired these “documentaries” and I haven’t been able to find them since, and I’ve looked hard, but I’m guessing it was National Geographic (they have no qualms about airing that nonsense Ancient Aliens series and presenting it as fact and/or something seriously debated and questioned among archaeologists, paleontologists and other scientists, so I don’t feel bad for blaming them for this - even if it turns out I’m wrong and it was a different station).  This was my last year in a public school setting, but I think it’s important to note that the specific story I’m about to relate wasn’t specifically the reason for my parent’s decision to enroll me in Catholic school, it serves as a prime example of public elementary school job-security-as-tenure gone wild.

            The first show we watched was on the Bermuda Triangle.  It was presented in typical sensational hyperbolic television fashion, without any rebuttal from the other side.  The hypothesis was that the Bermuda Triangle was a relatively small area in the Atlantic Ocean where an unusually large number of people have disappeared forever.  The program gave multiple explanations for the disappearances, every one of which was supernatural.  One posited that it was due to leftover technologies from the “lost city” of Atlantis buried deep below the triangle.  Aliens and UFO activity were another “scientific explanation” offered by the experts.  Your tax dollars at work.  A grown man who was paid good money (he was probably in his late 50s then, so I’m betting that adjusted for inflation, in New York State public schools, he was probably pulling down 75-80 grand in 2012 dollars…plus another 12-15 grand in benefits) was teaching young, impressionable 11 and 12 year olds that the Bermuda Triangle is supernatural in nature and possibly related to the lost city of Atlantis.  Brilliant.  And the concept terrified me.  At that age, teachers were right up there with parents in their infallibility.  Plus National Geographic was scientific, right?  And these “experts” on the program were scientists who had spent their whole lives studying this stuff.  None of them would lie to me and this was not a horror program, this was science; it wasn’t designed to scare me (and it really didn’t scare most of the other kids in the class), it just happened to scare me as a side effect.  So it had to be fact; aliens were real and were responsible for the disappearance of hundreds, if not thousands, of people.  I lived nowhere near the Bermuda Triangle, but I was sure I was next.  I did not sleep well that night.

            The next day, my Social Studies teacher was still in babysitter mode rather than paid educator and he decided it was time to introduce a little religion into our public school, masquerading as science.  I’m not talking about any type of Creationism or Intelligent Design argument, no no – this was another pseudo-scientific documentary.  This time the subject was The Shroud of Turin.  This particular program introduced our impressionable and developing brains to the thesis that Jesus Christ was real, he was magical, he was possibly (probably) the son of god, and after he died he rose from the dead and the “energy” from the resurrection had left a daguerreotype imprint of his face and body on the shroud he was buried in.  Not only that, but we somehow managed to find the cloth (over a thousand years after the fact, something the documentary neglected to mention) and could now subject it to testing.  If you’ve ever seen the Shroud of Turin you know it’s not exactly flattering to the late JC, and it definitely isn’t calming, as some Christians try to claim.  And the photographic negative images that the show kept using were horrifying.  Those black and white images of a lifeless face imprinted themselves on my brain and refused to leave.  And they terrified me.  I’m still not sure why; I was raised Catholic and in 5^th grade was still an unquestioning believer, shouldn’t the verification of the existence and resurrection of Jesus Christ be a source of great comfort and joy?  It wasn’t.  I couldn’t sleep – I saw that hauntingly expressionless black and white face everywhere.  In the dim light of my bedroom, I saw it forming in posters on my walls and in wood grain patters on my bed.  That image wasn’t benevolent and it was out to get me. 

I don’t even remember the specifics of the Shroud of Turin documentary.  I just remember the frightening image and that the overall point was that numerous scientific tests had shown that there was a very high probability that the Shroud was authentic.  I also remember that my teacher strongly agreed with the program’s conclusion.  The second night of seeing Jesus’ creepy shroud face every time I closed my eyes and not being able to sleep because of it, I realized I had to do something.  I went to my parents and told them about it.  I didn’t even remember the name of the burial cloth.  I called it “the face in the blanket.  You know – Jesus’ face from when he was buried and rose from the dead…”   Luckily they knew what I was talking about and they (two lifelong Catholics) assured me that it was nonsense.  They didn’t try to tell me that the (alleged) face of Jesus should bring me joy instead of fear or some other religious jive; they instead told me it was a hoax.  My dad told me he didn’t know what “science” show I had seen, but that he knew it wasn’t real science.  I felt better, but still pretty uneasy.  Although sleep came much easier that night, the face still wouldn’t leave my mind.

Arriving home from work the next day, my dad took a library book out of his briefcase and handed it to me.  “Read this,” he said. 

“Looking for a Miracle” I read aloud.  “What’s this?”

“This will explain why your teacher and that show are wrong about the Shroud of Turin,” he replied.

The Shroud of Turin was only one chapter in the book, which featured a full survey of alleged miracles, magical icons, weeping religious relics, reports of stigmata, and other similar fare.  I opened to the chapter on the Shroud of Turin and read it three times, each time growing more assured that this thing was a hoax and I had no reason to be afraid.  The ghostly Jesus face was still in my mind, but it lost its power to scare me because it wasn’t real.  Again, this is all a bit paradoxical for a 10 year old Catholic, but for me at the time believing in an unseen god in the sky was fine – ghosts (and ghostly images) here on Earth were not.

I remember being angry.  My entire class and I were exposed to this Shroud of Turin business in a Social Studies class.  After having read Joe Nickell’s accounts and descriptions of what real scientists, historians, archaeologists, proper testing of the shroud by proper scientists, and even religious clergy had to say in Looking for a Miracle, I realized that not only was there no way that the Shroud of Turin was supernatural, but there was also no way it was even the authentic burial shroud of Jesus Christ.  It wasn’t only bad science, it was bad history, bad archaeology, bad everything.  It was even bad religion in the sense that if it’s fake (which it is) then it’s a false icon and it’s blasphemous.  I again felt the need to explain all this to my classmates.  This wasn’t Santa Claus, this was real stuff.  We were being given inaccurate misconceptions, myths and flat out lies as truth and fact.  This time, I was going to set everything straight.

But the next day at lunch when I started telling my classmates about the truth, no one seemed to care.  It didn’t matter to them at all.  The few students who did care only cared to challenge me, one of them even saying (I really do remember this verbatim) – “Innocent until proven guilty – it’s right until you prove it’s wrong.”  I tried telling him that the opposite is true – it’s wrong until (or unless) the evidence shows it’s right (my 5^th grade version of the scientific method) – but he wasn’t having it.  Now even some of the other kids started to jump in (the ones who “didn’t care”) to agree with him.  It wasn’t about supernatural faces in a cloth or alien abductions in the North Atlantic; it was about the truth and reality.  No one was on my side.  It wasn’t a big deal and the whole thing blew over within a minute and we were back to talking about how many swear words were on the new Green Day album and whose older brother had to album so we could listen to them on repeat, but being on the minority side of debate about supernatural forces, science, truth, and reality would become a common theme for me.

That Joe Nickell book was my first introduction to formal skepticism and the idea that claims of paranormal ability, supernatural forces and pseudoscience could be subjected to real scientific scrutiny.  It taught me to question claims and to examine the evidence for what’s actually there versus what we hope is (or think it would be “cool” if it was) there.

The Majority of Americans Can’t Be Wrong, Can They?

We are a supernatural nation.  Considerably less so than many other countries, yes, but according to numerous polls, a considerable majority of Americans believe in all kinds of weird supernatural stuff.  I’m not sure exactly how these polls define “belief” (or if they even define it at all), but I define it as an active psychological state in which one holds something to be true.  “I don’t know/maybe/there could be/it’s possible” is not belief.  If you don’t know, you don’t believe.  By definition you can’t believe if you don’t know.  I’m not sure how many of the 73% of Americans who said (in the findings of a recent Gallup poll) that they believe in some type of paranormal/supernatural phenomenon (including ESP, ghosts, and telepathy, but not god – god wasn’t considered “supernatural” in this poll…) really meant “I don’t know for sure.” Based on experience, I’m guessing very few.  In fact, other polls measuring belief in various phenomena have included an “I don’t know” column and, like any good third party candidate, “I don’t know” consistently scores very low. 

Despite the insistence of members of the religious right, America was not “founded on the principles of Christianity.”  If anything, it was founded on principles of Paganism, Freemasonry, (not the paranoid conspiracy theory “New World Order” kind of Freemasonry) and liberty.  However, despite the insistence of members of atheist movements and secular groups, it is technically accurate to say that America is a Christian nation in the sense that a healthy majority (coincidentally, also 73%) of Americans identify as Christian.  We generally consider Iraq and Turkey to be Muslim nations, but officially they are actually secular.  We just call them Muslim because a huge majority (99.8% of Iraqis and 98.6% of Turks) identify themselves as Muslim.  If 73 percent of Americans identify themselves as Christian, technically we’re a Christian nation, even if we do not have an official, state-sponsored religion.  While we do not have an official national religion, we do hold to some peculiar traditions and religious tendencies on an official level.  In courtrooms, we place our hands on Bibles, swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help us god – implying that morality and god are inseparable and apparently believing that this hollow act of placing one’s hand on a book and promising not to lie will make someone tell the truth, as opposed to just saying, “if you’re caught lying during this questioning, you’ll be found guilty of contempt of court and/or perjury and could go to jail.”  The whole exercise is rather silly anyway considering the myriad gods and deities that exist in popular and historical religious mythologies.  So help me which god?  The Old Testament vengeful god of the Hebrews?  The New Testament “father of Jesus Christ” god?  Muhammad?  Thor?  Not to mention that if I don’t believe in the Bible, then “swearing” on it makes as much sense and holds as much weight as swearing on any other mundane old book. 

We hold other peculiar traditions for a nation that holds “separation of church and state” as a guiding principle (that phrase never actually appears in the Constitution, but was actually stated by Thomas Jefferson in his now famous 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists, but this is the essence of the Establishment Clause).  Since 1956, the national motto of the United States is “in god we trust.”  This motto was figuratively reaffirmed by Congress in 2011 in a whopping 396 to 9 vote.   Separation of a specific church or religion and state may exist in the United States, but separation of magical thinking and magical beliefs and state certainly does not.  We also went ahead and starting printing this non-denominational, but still highly religious motto on our paper money in 1957 (it had been on coinage since the mid-1800s), another peculiar act, if it is indeed “in [the Christian god that 73 percent of Americans identify with] we trust,” because according to scripture, that god doesn’t like money (although his churches certainly seem to.)

Perhaps most questioningly, we debate over reality and try to change and control reality democratically.  School-board debates in Cobb County, Georgia; Topeka, Kansas; and a handful of other areas across the country over the teaching of the religious based intelligent design in public science classrooms have shown our strange view of reality.  We can debate until we’re blue in the face over evolution vs. intelligent design and we can put it to a vote over who believes what, but in the end, reality doesn’t care.  If, during the next statewide election, New York State decided to add a proposition to the ballot that said, “we affirm and believe that the Earth is the center of the Universe and all celestial bodies revolve around it,” and the vast majority of New Yorkers voted in favor of it, nothing has actually changed (except maybe the nation’s view of New York State’s level of education).  The geocentric proposition “passing” by a large majority doesn’t change the actual nature of the universe.   The Earth is not the center of the universe.  That’s the reality.

This is not to say that evolution or Einstein’s general and special relativity or anything else is the ultimate and unquestioning truth.  They could absolutely be wrong as well.  The point is that even though the vast majority of modern scientists believe that evolution and Einstein and a whole score of other principles and theories are fairly accurate descriptions of the natural world, they could absolutely be wrong and if they are, the nature of reality doesn’t change.  As another example: either an individual is male or female.  Voting on the sex of an individual doesn’t change the true gender and that reality is not democratic.  In America we seem to have this strange view that reality is democratic and that if enough people believe or vote on the reality of something, it becomes the truth.  It’s a common argument against skepticism and atheism: “the vast majority of Americans believe in some kind of god, and the majority (73 percent, remember) believe in some type of additional supernatural or paranormal phenomenon.  The majority of Americans can’t be wrong, can they?”  They can.  In many cases they are, and just because a majority believe (or claim to believe) in something, that doesn’t make it true (just ask the naked Emperor.)

Born in the USA

Have you ever really listened to the lyrics in Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA”?  It’s played at patriotic rallies, baseball games and Memorial Day parades all across the country.  It probably gets played over one million times across the country at various locations every single year on the fourth of July.  If Bruce is getting royalties per play, he should really trade in his “t-shirt and jeans working guy” look for some six-figure Versace suits.  The song is supposed to (and somehow, actually does) inspire patriotic feelings of America-love and how great the country is and chants of USA! USA! USA!  But once you’ve really read the lyrics, it feels kind of strange hearing it at “patriotic” rallies and Yankees games.  The only lyric the average American knows is the chorus and the rest is just poppy filler.  The real lyrics evoke images of a war-hungry, heartless nation that’s as keen to kill the “yellow man” (direct quote from Bruce) as it is to ignore the kids that they send to actually do the killing who get royally screwed up, both physically and mentally, if they make it home.  It’s a song about killing people different than us, for reasons we either don’t or can’t understand (and probably don’t want to), and then trying to live with the consequences.  It’s all because you were born in the USA, and that’s just how we do business.  Not exactly Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA,” an equally goofy American “rally song” but for completely different reasons. 

Although most people probably wouldn’t admit it, I bet they have similar feelings about America as the disenfranchised speaker in Springsteen’s song.   Not necessarily about the oversimplification of war as a violent and fruitless mess (although that’s pretty spot on for Vietnam) or the criticisms leveled at the United States, but most would probably agree in the exact same, “I was born in the USA” kind of mentality.  It’s that same mentality that inspires them to sing-along with the song and wave their flags in ardent patriotism to a song generally critical of what they’re rallying for.  Politicians and pundits constantly prattle on about how America is “the greatest country on Earth,” which always reminds me of parents with a double-take inducingly ugly baby who think he’s the most beautiful creature on Earth.  Sure, to them he’s beautiful.  He’s theirs – they made him.  No parent wants to admit their kid is ugly.  Similarly, no civilized country’s citizens want to admit they might not be the best.  “America is the greatest nation on Earth.”  Greatest in terms of what, exactly?  In education we’re ranked 13th, and that’s according to the very generous “education index.”  If you look at test scores on standardized tests measuring reading, mathematics, and science, the United States ranks 33^rd, 27^th and 22^nd, respectively.  That’s not the greatest.  In terms of freedom, we’re 10^th on the index of economic freedom and 7^th in terms of civil liberties.  That’s not the greatest.  GDP per capita?  Depending on what source you look at, we’re 8^th, 6^th or 9^th.  Not the greatest.  There is one significant factor that the United States consistently ranks number one in, and that’s the size of the military in terms of spending.  We account for 41% of the world’s share of military spending.  Almost half of the money in the world that is spent on military is spent by the United States.  The next closest is China, at 8.2%.  We also spend the most money per capita.  China has about 1 billion more citizens than the United States and we spend over 500 billion dollars more than they do on military expenses (adjusted to like currencies – I’m not comparing dollars to renminbi here).  Maybe we’re the “greatest country on Earth” because we can blast to pieces anyone who disagrees with us.   

Outside of the United States, almost no one considers the United States to be the greatest country in the world.  Generally, only other Americans consider America to be the “greatest country in the world”.  It’s like the parent who thinks their kid is the greatest ballplayer on the team and wants the coach tarred, feathered, and thrown in jail for benching little Samuel.  And that’s the problem; that’s the “Born in the USA” syndrome.  And similar to the hypothetical “geocentric proposition” passed by New York State that I mentioned in an earlier section, everyone deciding that America is the best does not magically make it true.  How many of us would honestly “love” America or become American citizens if we weren’t born here?  That’s my worry about my own American identity.  I was born here so I’m “American”.  It’s really all I know.  But if I was born in Canada (because it’s geographically closest) or China (because it’s the mathematically the most likely), would I be saying that Canada/China is the “greatest nation on Earth”?  Sure, there are a number of poverty stricken and severely oppressed countries where yes, without a doubt, most people would leave the second they got the chance, but out of the large number of developed countries, what makes the United States so great?  Many would argue the ideas of freedom and liberty make the United States so great.  That was true, but how many of those ideals still truly exist in the same strident form that they did when “give me liberty or give me death” was not just a catchy hyperbole, it was a literal demand?  Now we fight bloody battles against our own citizens over what they choose to put into their own bodies (the drug war), we fight bloody wars overseas for phantom weapons of mass destruction or oil, and we haven’t had a free market probably ever but definitely since the New Deal.  We gladly hand our 4^th Amendment rights over every time we fly and in a number of other situations in the name of “safety” or “fighting terrorism” and show little to no concern for the ever increasing presence of the Nanny State.

I don’t think I’ve ever specifically identified myself as an American.  If I did, it was way down on the list and to me has always been more of a circumstance of birth than anything else.  I’m an American in the same way as I have blue eyes and am an uncle.  It’s just something that happened due to circumstance, either genetic or familial.  But that really is one of the things that make America “great”; the (still mostly free) marketplace of ideas that exists all across the country.  That really doesn’t exist in a great number of other places and in many other countries you could be jailed, beaten or put to death for speaking out against the leaders or state-religion.  But that’s just comparison and relativity though.  America is great because it doesn’t stifle free speech (mostly) and allows you to believe what you want (mostly).  That’s giving America credit for not doing something.  North Korea is worse than America because of the ways they oppress their citizens, but should America get credit for not doing the same thing?  It’s like saying that the creepy looking guy on the subway is a great person for not violently robbing you because another creepy looking guy in a different subway car does violently rob people.  The actions of the other creep don’t make this creep less creepy.  Maybe he was going to rob you at the next stop but you got off at a particularly busy station.  Or maybe he was going to rob you but something about you specifically kept him from doing it, like maybe you look similar to his sister so he didn’t rob you, but he did rob a different person who looked like someone who used to bully him in high school.  You don’t know. The point is that he should get no credit or be considered “great” (or even good) for not doing something horrible. 

On the other side of that same coin, America (or any government) should not be given credit for or be praised for things that already exist.  For example, many (myself included) are quite pleased with New York State for granting homosexuals the same right to marry as heterosexuals.  That’s fantastic.  But that’s a right that already should have existed; New York is being praised for once being homophobic, exclusionary, and discriminatory, but not doing it anymore.  That’s not something they should be praised for.  That’s like praising your assailant for no longer assaulting you.  The same thing is true for civil rights.  It’s fantastic that African Americans have the same rights as everyone else in the United States and thankfully we’ve evolved enough that I believe that very few people would argue against it.  The problem is that African Americans always had those same inalienable and undeniable rights as everyone else.  Those rights were forcibly and violently taken away from them and then slowly given back after much politicking and violence.  Repealing the racist and disgusting Jim Crow laws in the 1960s was met with great praise (rightfully so), but today a good number of Americans look upon that with a sense of national pride and cite that as a reason that America is great.  Once violently enslaving, oppressing, and ignoring the rights of an entire race of human beings and then deciding to no longer do that and to now treat them as human beings is not “great.”  I don’t believe America (or any other government) should get credit for giving back rights that they once violently stripped away.  Gay marriage and civil rights are two extreme examples of the multitude of things that already exist (like “free speech”) and are attributed with great thanks and pride to government for granting.   

So I don’t know if I’m American because I was born here or if I’m American because I really like America.  Certainly I stand behind the ideas in the Constitution and celebrate them daily.  Compared to quite a number of other countries, I would definitely say that I did hit it lucky by being born in America.  My concern is that those ideas are gradually becoming a small voice in the national consciousness and the worse off the rest of the world is, the better we think we are.  The government of North Korea committing some abhorrent act against its own citizens or enacting laws creating an even more oppressive style of government does not somehow make America freer, but a troubling number of Americans (rightfully) look upon them with pity but (oddly) look upon Uncle Sam with admiration and a sense of national pride just for not doing the same.  I fear that for too many Americans, their national identity is simply unshakable pride and unquestioning loyalty to their government, and for no real legitimate reason other than circumstance of birth.