Reconnect With Your Roots Overseas

We can choose to ignore or forget our family heritage, but at what price?

• Genealogy
• Better America
• Family Life

Almost every one of us can trace our background to another country.

Sometimes we forget this. For some of us, our family migrations occurred several generations back. For others, mixed-culture marriages by parents and grandparents have diluted connections to any single heritage. Sometimes, painful memories encourage us to disconnect from our personal histories, and sometimes, we just get caught up in the present.

We can choose to ignore or forget our family heritage, but at what price? Our cultural origins are as real as our American childhoods. Celebrating our connectedness to the larger world is a perfectly American thing to do. Not only does it provide each of us with pride and history, but as residents of the most diverse nation on Earth, we can best show the world what harmony among cultures can look like. So take pride in your country and take the time to reconnect to your roots overseas.

How to start? Ask your parents, uncles, aunts, and cousins for leads that will allow you to locate distant family members. Then make an introductory contact, probably with a letter. Find out if they have e-mail. Exchange photos. Let it progress naturally. Will a phone call be next? A visit?

You needn't limit this to family. If you are a veteran, are there people you encountered during your tours of duty that you still think of? Are there exchange students with whom you were once friends? Coworkers from overseas who have moved back home? It is an amazing blessing to have an extended circle of family or friends living in other parts of the world, in another culture. Through them, you can learn much about life elsewhere -- and they can see and learn more about American life in return.

Even if you don't have any overseas connections, think about the nations and continents that are part of your being. How different is life in Africa from that in your suburban neighborhood in Dallas? How would your life be different if you had been raised in China? What if your family had remained in El Salvador? What are the daily priorities of your Scottish cousins? If you can, take a trip to a region of origin for you and discover what traditions may have been huge parts of your relatives' and ancestors' lives. You may find that reconnecting to your roots will influence your life in America in meaningful ways.

From For America

 

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Part of my work as a college professor involved doing research at a history archive in Russia. An armed military guard was stationed there to defend against terrorist attack, though he often lounged near the doorway and ignored incoming researchers. One day, however, he stood at attention, machine gun ready. "Documents," he called out, and I fumbled through my things for my archival pass. "Passport," he barked, and I handed him my American passport. He scowled while looking at my identification. Finally he asked, "Who is singing on the radio?" I listened for a moment and replied, "The Everly Brothers." The soldier grinned, moved his rifle aside and let me enter, sure now that I truly was an American scholar.

-- Roy R. Robson