Catherine Rampell asks plaintively, “Why should women need
to be seen as daughters before we can ever be recognized as human beings?” I understand her point: she is a proud and
independent woman, not just a decoration in some male’s life – and it almost
doesn’t matter whether the male is a good guy or not. Independent.
Got it. But …
You have no idea who I am if you don’t understand that I’m
Roy’s little brother (Special Forces medic, killed in the Tet offensive). My sister’s Kathie’s thought and experience
is woven inextricably into all my writing about nonviolence and eugenics. Your picture of me is pretty stunted if you
don’t know about my astrophysicist father and my mystical-lit-crit mom. You can’t get at the motives that drive me if
you don’t know about my relatives in the CIA, my pro-labor great-grandfather,
my royal peace-making great-great-grandfather, my mayor aunt, my drunken
uncle. I am hugely proud of my second
cousin, once removed, who wrote a great novel, The Book of Jonah. If you want to know how I think, watch the
quirky twists in my daughter’s blog, www.joyfulcatholicmom.blogspot.com. (And of course, if you go back millions of
generations, one of my distant ancestors was a blazing explosive star, fresh
and hot from the hands of the Lord – who, by the way, is a collateral cousin
through Mary as well as an adoptive Father).
My identity is tied tightly to my family, a sprawling
brawling complex creation.
One significant family detail. More and more, my identity is tied to the
coming generations more than the past, my progeny more than my
predecessors. And it seems that when my
grandchildren describe their ancestors, they will include me and my Irish and
Swedish ancestors – but they will also lay claim to roots in El Salvador, Peru,
Philippines, Africa, and the African-American south. My roots are not Asian or Latino, but my
branches are. With each passing year, my
family and my own identity become more global.
Isn’t immigration a great and wonderful thing?
(Rampell’s article was not about families; it was about
cyber-bullying.)