1. The Aftermath of St. Patrick's Day in South Philly
2. The Signing of a Treaty with Members of the Lenape Nation
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I find the celebration of the patron saint of Ireland, St. Patrick, a baffling and confusing experience in America. On the one hand, Irish-Americans are more Irish than Irish on this excuse of a drink fest; and on the other hand, this is the one day in the year when Americans of many stripes get to partake in a vulgar celebration of their white ethnicity in general. Everyone who cares to is dressed in kelly green t-shirts, adorned with green mardi gras beads, four-leaf clover top hats, and a Guinness emblem somewhere on their person. And being of Irish descent is not of importance here: rather, this is your chance to explore your gritty, post-Mayflower immigrant, underdog, deeply ethnic whiteness, whether you're a bar-hopping elite college student or an extended family roasting hot dogs on the BBQ grill in your back yard. As long as the beer flows, that's all that matters.
And what can be better hangover medicine than a genuine Philly Cheesesteak from Geno's in South Philly. Mind you, you're coming from endulging your real or imagined Irishness to having a greasy experience with your real or imagined Italianess, mindlessly consuming your real or imagined working-classness and feeling proud -- for once -- of your real or imagined whiteness.
So, then, there is a line around the block to get that cheesesteak at 3 PM on a Sunday afternoon, because we will never forget!!!!
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Just hours before I biked past Geno's, I witnessed a blessing ceremony performed by members of the Lenape Nation at my church. A representative of each group signed a treaty committing to our renewed relationship with each other and the land on which this city stands.
The Lenape are the people who have lived in this geographic area for, hmm, the past 10,000 years. The reason why you may not have heard of them before is that they were forced to go totally underground in order to preserve their identity, language and culture. It is just now that they are becoming more public again.
Being in the presence of Native Philadelphians at Tabernacle United Church this morning, where people of many ethnicities were present -- but most of us of European descent -- gave me a sense of our varied histories of immigration and displacement, our complicated and shared history of oppression, extinction, exploitation... In this space, healing and reconciliation were on the top of the agenda, in addition to honoring our ancestors, especially the ancestors who have kept this land for us.
As it turns out, I'll be hiking in the woods with a Lenape name tomorrow morning: the Wissahickon. Glorifying the sacred ground on which we stand is, indeed, a sharp contrast to the grit and grease of the rest of the weekend's goings-on. Or is it?
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2 Kommentare:
Thanks for these thoughts, K. I am a long-time St Patrick's Day celebrator, but of a rather different kind. My mother came to NY as an 18-year-old to join her aunts and other family who travelled to the US looking for work, adventure, a new start. Ten years later, her baby sister joined her when she turned 18.
Our whole clan has remained active in the greying world of Official American Irishdom. (Ever wonder who the "Ancient Order of Hibernians" are? Not us, but kinda.) My mom has been president (and held pretty much every other post) in the Tipperarymen's Association of NY, and has been active in lots of other organizations, cultural, social & charitable, as well.
All this to say that St Patrick's Day for us was serious. No plastic green hats or green beer. Yes, you wore green, or (better) your Aran sweater or plaid skirt. You marched in the parade, dignified, 6 abreast, and did not roll your eyes at the drunken crowds who never tired of greeting the contingent with "It's A Long Way to Tipperary", the whole route, from 45th to 86th street and across to 3rd Avenue. It was about history, and culture, and pride. It was never about our "ethnic whiteness," for sure.
And yet.
We always invited our friends to march with us in the parade; they were always welcome. After all, the bigger the Tipp contingent looked, the better, right? And these were, as you say, Italians, Germans, Welsh, what have you--looking to have their fun, and a piece of the Irish for the day.
But I will never forget the year we were massing on 45th street, and a friendly, cheerful, sober black man asked to march with us. We cannot have been the first contingent he asked; there were at least 3 others between us and 5th Ave, from the direction he came walking. He was met with extreme awkwardness and insecurity, until someone in charge (or wearing a marshal's sash anyway) told him no.
I am still ashamed of that day. Debates about banners aside, my gay friends, their supposedly objectionable qualities invisible to the crowd, were always welcome to march with us. This man was not.
I hope wherever he is, he might forgive us someday. And that when someday it's me in the sash, I might make choices to be worthy of his forgiveness.
...sangerinde
Hey sangerinde, I never got to thank you for your thoughtful and revealing response to my St. Patric's Day post.
What you wrote has been with me ever since -- both the celebration of one's origins, the acknowledgment of the land of one's ancestorial memories, as well as the blindness to the all-encompassing nature of that celebration.
And interesting also the dynamic that binds together certain groups of European immigrants to America, which is distinctly different of the kinship felt between other immigrant groups. In this case, the kinship many people feel towards the Irish has made Irishness universal, non-ancestry-specific, where all kinds of European orphans find comfort in an imagined homeland -- and yet the true universality of this archetypal home is as yet unrealized, as your story shows, and embedded in the racist dynamics of the unresolved oppressor/oppressed dynamics passed down through the generations.
Perhaps something to examine together, with a pint of Guinness!
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