What Makes A You?

Both of my grandmothers are about the coolest old ladies I've ever known.
We call my mother's mother Grandma Thatcher, and if there were a Medal of Honor awarded for mothers, she would have it. This woman has seen the spectrum of sorrow and hardship in the bitterest of hues, but has never failed to give her greatest efforts to the service of her family, friends, and strangers. She loves as if she's never been hurt. And I realize that's a hackneyed expression, but it's something I admire about her and hope to emulate throughout my life. She's lived everywhere, owned a dog named 'puppy', and bottle-fed a raccoon kit. But most-importantly, she raised the woman who is my mother. I believe it's a series of miracles that build a family, and she is one of them.
Also, I'm pretty sure she's the only woman over 60 without a 'poof'. Grandma's got some great hair.

On the other side, we have Grandma Bingham, my father's mother. Let's award her the Nobel Prize in Literature, Medicine, and Economics. I'm not kidding. She's a nurse, a teacher, a writer, a reader, a world-champion of scrabble, and can go to the market with Grandpa and $5, and come out with 10 loaves of bread, 25 lbs. of potatoes, and a #10 can of Tang -and 19 cents to spare (oh, and Grandpa). She's taught nearly all of her grandchildren to sing and play the piano, and has instilled in all of her posterity a love of music.
Is it respectful to use the term 'spitfire' when referring to one's grandmother? Because I mean it with all respect. Grandma Bingham is as stubborn as a person can be, some of which she credits to living with Grandpa, but most of which we credit to our Norwegian blood. Grandma Bingham knows everything there is to know about family history and our greatest of great, great, great uncles, four-times removed. Each time we get together, she entertains us with stories of our strong-willed progenitors, my favorite of whom was a Nordic Paul Bunyan-esque viking type. As the story goes, he was hunting one day when he was attacked by a bear, had his face clawed off, and was left nearly dead. He made it out alive, but he was so ticked at the bear for almost getting him, he went back into the woods and killed the thing with a dagger.
~Insert Norwegian national anthem here~


But guess what?
This post isn't actually supposed to be about my grandmothers. It's about identity. More specifically, it's about the identity we inherit and the identity we make for ourselves, whether they can and should be reconciled, and for whom the choice of claiming an inherited identity is an option.

Today I was reading a few articles about a man named David Matthews and his book, titled Ace of Spades. I won't talk in depth about the man or his book, as I have never met him, nor have I read more than a few excerpts from his works and cannot attest to their quality or lack thereof. But I do find his story fascinating. In short, born to a white Jewish mother and an African-American father, David grew to be of a racially ambiguous appearance. Under the social pressure of his Brooklyn schoolmates, he felt he had to claim an absolute racial affiliation and, perceiving a social advantage, chose 'white'. The book details his struggles with choosing an identity, and his eventual choice to identify as 'black', after 20 years of living 'white'.

Race has always been an intriguing concept to me. First of all, I think all different kinds of people are beautiful and interesting. Second, I find it fascinating that something so simple as physical appearance and/or country of origin can cause so much contention. In his book, Matthews mentions Tiger Woods who, the author argues, is identified publicly and treated as 'black', but actually self-identifies as "Cablinasian" (Caucasian, Black, American Indian, and Asian). Many people, including David Matthews, Tiger Woods, Barack Obama, and countless others have discussed the difficulties that arise as a youth tries to reconcile their self-identification with social perception and the pressures thereof. Most people of 'multi-ethnic' or 'mixed-race' backgrounds today prefer to clearly outline their cultural heritage (à la Tiger Woods -"Cablinasian"). But this raises some questions in my mind: At what point is a race or ethnicity considered part of your cultural heritage? Surely, as discussed above, it can't be limited to appearances. And who has the option of claiming multi-ethnicity?

I grew up hearing my grandmother's stories of our ancestors, proud in their culture and true to their heritage. I am 5th generation Norwegian through my Grandma Bingham, and my three other grandparents are of American Indian descent (different tribes and different magnitudes). We also have a lot of English, Welsh, Irish, and some French, Russian, and Spanish in our family. Sounds like some painfully common genealogy, right? Why is that? Does a multi-European descent carry less inherant identity, because we associate it with a generally homogenous history of pilgrimage? I'm pretty sure that if I were to identify as 'Norwegian-American', or even 'Norwegian-American-Indian', I would come off sounding facetious.


My sociology professor told me that race has no genetic basis whatsoever (that is a different discussion altogether). If that is the case, does the right to claim racial or ethnic heritage lie with the kind of blood that runs through your veins, or the family legacy you share? If it is the latter, you may put Africa on the list as well. My third great grand uncle was a young man named Gobo. Gobo was of African descent and orphaned at a young age (under what circumstances, I don't know), and subsequently adopted by my great grandparents. He was unfortunately murdered some years later in an Idaho range war. But for the duration of his life, he was family. This is an especially interesting concept from a Latter-day Saint perspective. Having been sealed to our ancestors, and knowing the reality of this bond, family connections are undeniable, often transcending blood. And we traditionally feel very connected with those who came before us. Gobo Fango lived over 100 years before I was born, and we don't share a drop of blood. But I've always been fond of him and his story, and he was dear to his family, my great-grand realtives. I consider us family.

Can and should a person create an absolute identity, based primarily on their racial heritage? What is the significance of a blood-line and who has the right to claim it -and to what depth? As usual, I'm leaving you with a lot of questions and very few concrete ideas. You're welcome. But at the very least, you got to meet Grandma Bingham and Grandma Thatcher, Viking Paul Bunyan, and Great Uncle Gobo.