Who's Your Daddy?

Watching Queen Elizabeth II open the Olympics, it struck me that she keeps her throne because she is queen, not only of proper English gentlemen, but of black Zulus in Africa and brown-skinned Arabs in London.

Our U.S. team is made up of athletes who come from many different backgrounds and are in varied shades of white, brown, and black.  We say America is “the melting pot.”  It was not a bland brown mixture but a kind of stew, where our varied people kept some traditions from “the Old Country” while in a broth where we all speak English and proclaim our “individual rights”.

Unfortunately, some people do not want to add chili to our British beef and Irish potatoes.  I think it will make the dish more tasty. 

When I moved to Chicago, I heard old people talk about “the Old Country.”  My in-laws came from Denmark, and where many people in the next neighborhood had parents or grandparents from Poland.  Wally’s parents thought they were thoroughly Americanized.  They never spoke Danish at home, and my mother-in-law spoke with contempt of the “Pollocks” and old women who wore babushka.  Yet she treasured her Royal Copenhagen china and celebrated Christmas by baking “julekaka”.     

Growing up in Texas, I never heard the phrase “the Old Country.”  In Texas everyone considered himself a “Texan”, as if God created Texas at the same time he created the Garden of Eden and made Baptists the younger brothers of the Children of Israel. 

In their false pride, Texans are like the French.  When David and I were in Paris, the hostess at our hotel refused to speak English.  The guide at the Pantheon did not feel any need to communicate with foreigners.  That is changing.  By 1992, when I made another trip to Paris, the young people staying at the hostel came from all over Europe.  They all spoke English; none spoke French.

The French had to learn English to talk to the Japanese tourists.  Like the Poles and the Hungarians, the Japanese learn English, but not French.  

I am just glad that I was born an American and that English has become “the Language of the World.”   None of us can choose our ancestors.   Each of us must become the best person we can be, regardless of our background.  Also, recognize that whether others are “bad” or “good” does not depend on where they come from. 

The fun of watching the Olympics is seeing athletes from many countries competing against each other – and learning that many of them come from very different backgrounds.  A young woman born in the U.S. is on the team from Iceland.  A blonde Brit competes for Kenya. .

And how did a that Danish tennis player get a name like Wozneiack?   Historically all Danish names end in “sen”.   (After being married to one for 27 years, I joked that “All Danes are sinners.”)   Then I married a Pole, with a typical Polish name sending in “ski” – and discovered that a first-generation American, whose parents came from Poland and never learned proper English, was a wonderful husband!   

As for the Olympics, I am glad when an earnest young American wins at medal.  I also cheer for talented athletes from other countries.  I hope that this time a few medals will go to young people from some of those 81 countries whose contestants have never won a medal in the Olympics.