#Immigration DNA Test

[reginaofdoctorwho]

am trying SO hard to not start a new language on duolingo but like. i am LOOKING

#i currently have a 255 day streak #i'm learning spanish (also taking classes for that one) french latin and i have a korean tab but i haven't used it #i gave myself a goal of learning spanish to a passable conversation point by next year #because my sister is pregnant her husband is from spain and they decided to raise the kid speaking only spanish at home #because of studies showing that children in the US that learn english as a second language don't tend to pass on the first #so 3rd generation theoretically would not know spanish #i am getting like 2000 xp per day even with the new duolingo update #if i do add another it'll probably be either irish german or japanese #i know my college offers japanese classes so that could help later #which is also my plan for french #plus it would be reinforced whenever i watch anime or w/e #but my family has german and irish lineage #on my mom's side it's like 86% irish then mostly german i think? and my sister took a dna test too and we're around 56% irish #and about 33% german #non of that matters but like. on my mom's dad's side at least it was only a couple generations from immigration #her grandma was first generation from ireland and her (grandma's) husband was either a child of german immigrants or a german immigrant #which we have a ww2 war story about him. he was already in the us then and he was so fucking angry #because apparently his boss ruined his chances of fighting nazis #but that's it's own story #sorry *its

[facednatest]

Face DNA providing DNA immigration testing services. Our results are accepted by the USA Borders Agency. Our laboratory follows the AABB regulations for immigration DNA testing and will handle everything for you with ease.

#Immigration DNA Paternity Test #immigration dna testing near me

[dailycyprus]

Interior Minister instructed civil Registry and Migration to deny the issuance of birth certificates

Interior minister tells Civil Registry and Migration Department not to issue birth certificates when there are ‘clear doubts’ over paternity

Interior Minister Nicos Nouris has informed the administrators via letter to hold off on issuing any birth certificates in cases where staff may have doubts over the paternity of a child until new legislation can allow sampling DNA from alleged fathers. According to local media, interior minister has given instructions to the Civil Registry and Migration Department to deny the issuance of birth…

View On WordPress

#Asylum Seeker #Birth Certificate #Cyprus #DNA Test #Featured #Immigration #Interior Minister #Migration #Nicos Nouris #Nicosia

[yourlocal-lichen]

okay now I'm curious.

context: (white) USAmericans have this tendency to take a DNA test to better understand their cultural heritage. then they make whatever result they got (50% Scots-Irish, 25% German, 12.5% French, as a common example) and say that they "are" those things. this is a common topic of conversation, sometimes people will even say something like "are there any Germans here" and they don't mean people who were born and raised German, they mean people who were told they were German by a DNA test.

now, I see this a bit from an outside perspective (my family is culturally French-American because my mother is a French immigrant), but it seems to me like they take this to a cultural level. I've heard people say things like "my family's Irish so St. Patrick's Day is very special to me" without it seeming like they know anything about the day they are celebrating. it's a cultural identity, but their familial culture is no different from their neighbors with a completely different genetic makeup.

for anyone who wants to participate, here's a poll and please please PLEASE reblog and tell me your deeper feelings about this this is something I feel strongly about for no particular reason. please say where you are from (to your comfort level) and why you chose what option, at least.

I think this is a deeply interesting conversation with many different avenues of thought (immigrants trying to hide otherness with descendents regretting that, what does cultural identity mean if not your blood and how does that intersect with this idea, the general concept of the "great American melting pot"; to name a few)!! I'm even doing a teacher thing and giving you examples PLEAAASE circulate this and tell me your thoughts no matter where in the world you come from

#horatio makes polls #cultural identity

[phoenixyfriend]

The way that a person's individual experiences of diaspora into the West can color their interpretation of three Jedi's collective and individual responses to outsiders asking about their planet of origin.

Oh my god I just. This is going to be very American-immigrant of me but listen.

The inherent trauma of being raised as part of a diaspora population without a fixed, concentrated community in an area that strives to have you conform and assimilate, bleaching yourself of all cultural roots. The desperation to cling to a home, an origin, because of how untethered the average White person is, in places like the US and Canada and Australia, so if you have any knowledge of a Home Country you cling to it. That kneejerk "I am not one of you, I may pass as 'normal' but I am foreign, I am Other, I am not you" that exists for those of us who immigrated young but were raised in the Home Culture, inasmuch as our parents could manage.

Many Americans cannot fathom the idea of not taking pride in Where You Come From. So many are unmoored in that sense, and substitute pride in their City or State, with cultural histories that are so much shorter. So many can't process the idea that balancing Where You Come From with Where You Are as anything other than an act of survival in the face of violence, because for so many, that Pride In Cultural Background is something that was stripped away generations ago, willingly or not.

(I can't speak for all, especially not non-white folks, but I'm sure there are related-but-different takes.)

So the idea that the Jedi can prioritize "I am a Jedi" over "I am from This Specific Planet" and it not be an act of violence or survival is unfathomable to people who cling so strongly to things like... dna ancestry tests and the barest fragments of what they can collect.

And I'm obviously coming at this from the perspective of someone who loves the Jedi, who fully believes in their specific messages and ideals, who trusts that they do do their best to keep their members tethered to their home cultures (Ahsoka's hunt on Shili, Barriss and Luminara's tattoos, Depa's piercings), but that the Jedi still prioritize "I am a Jedi" as their culture.

But. I think that, a lot of the time, when I see a Jedi take offense to "okay, but where are you from?" questions in fic, it hits a weird button to me, because... there are definitely real-world communities for whom that's a hot-button question, an insult, an act of racism, of Othering. Whereas my experience has always been excitement to share that no, I'm not from here, thank you for asking. Thank you for noticing that my name is Not This.

Is it different for human Jedi than it is for twi'leks? For Jedi of the galactic majority instead of an oppressed class? To what extent does a fic writer's relationship with the experience of diaspora impact this aspect of the Jedi, and how they react to other's questions of their origins?

(Please engage in good faith and be polite, thank you.)

#Jedi #pro Jedi #Phoenix Talks #united states #America #culture #diaspora #emigration

[jessaerys]

five hyperspecific near headcanons?

(THIS IS SO LONG SORRY. YOU KNOW WHAT I AM!!!!)

gonna take headcanons here to mean “stuff that is entirely not canon” so these are (varying levels of unfounded) personal canonverse facts i’ve come up with as i write him: 

i.

has special interest in space / cosmology / astrophysics / astrobiology / space exploration etc etc etc. (extremely self indulgent of me but i love to have fun) it used to be very all-consuming when he was little and not afraid to want things. 

it was eventually demoted to the backseat as his focus shifted towards his studies so by the time we meet him in canon it has been fully repressed into something he considers childish (though i’d like to think he found an excuse [perhaps through a case] to keep correspondence going with the brightest minds at the SETI institute and they have ocassional videocalls where he pokes holes in their theories on the origins of life he insists it is simply mantaining connections that may one day prove relevant. it is a productive use of my time agent gevanni do not question my methodology) 

when i think of near i think of saint-exupéry’s the little prince and his watercolor illustrations of a little boy on a little round planet -- actually, a lil exerpt:

near is very little-prince coded in his curiosity and love for humanity and golden heartedness and deep mysterious melancholy – he is sad and he doesn’t know he is sad!! to be a cosmonaut is to be an observer, unmoored from the world, not quite of this earth. which actually leads me to,

ii.

he is from nowhere/belongs to no-one/ has no past and no land to return to.

he was in a couple different orphanages since he was a newborn and any paperwork he could’ve had got lost in the shuffle: it was roger who named him nate river just to have something on the records; his oldest memories are from wammy’s, the first person he ever loved was L, there’s never been anything else for him.

i know “has no racial identity” seems like a cop-out but i actually find it interesting to set him up so that he is unlinked from such a basic experience of community in modern society. because of his albinism there isn’t even a melanin scale to point him in the right direction; his looks are very racially ambiguous (ie. 3a/3b curls, very slight/partial double eyelids, etc), his parents untraceable. if he ever took a dna test it would confirm a thoroughly mixed background of many different ethnicities due to european immigration – but he has never taken a dna test because it would mean he cares which means he would have to think about what other people have and he doesn’t which would mean mourning a loss. and there is no use having feelings about that which he cannot change; no use looking back. mello looks back, and look where that's landed him--

(tangent: in contrast mello’s troubled background in the wartorn balkans until he was relatively older (5-6) and his reconnection with his birthplace in croatia after he left wammy’s is a crucial and defining pillar of his identity (personal canonverse courtesy of local mello phd haver @firebuggg) so this is yet another contrast between them. but we do not have time to get into that)

(tangent number 2:

L to mello in private: why does it matter? the war is behind you. looking back slows you down

L to near also in private: how can a detective know anything if he doesn’t first know himself?

near and mello ages 5 and 7, in their minds: i am the only one who understands L)

actually near's john silver slay is thee most important characterization touchstone for me tbh whenever people give him a backstory it just weirds me the fuck out

what do you mean he remembers his mother that would mean being An Individual and Not A Child Soldier !!!! he is wammy's perfect little grooming blank slate thank you very much

iii.

as a baby he was SO cute SO round SO feral. beautiful glowing cherubic marmalade-eyed biting screaming wildchild. wary as a cat with a talent for finding hiding spots inside the walls and so very autistic. an enfant terrible!! this is possibly why he moved through so many foster homes before wammys. 

for a couple of years until age, like, 5, the only people he felt comfortable enough around to speak to in coherent words were L and later mello* 

his method of communication with the rest of the teachers / caregivers / other children was opening his mouth and unleashing the most terrible banshee shriek a 3-4-5 year old could unleash upon god's green earth

through the rest of their childhood known annoyingest older brother on earth mihael "mello" kheel was ocassionally able to figure out how to unlock a Near Nuclear Meltdown, though it was a very rare occurrence as soon enough near graduated to going stiff and heavy on the floor wherever they tried to make him do something he did not want to do. and good luck getting him to move without lifting him corpse deadweight style. garden. hallway. classroom floor. middle of the stairs. he is and has always been a willful little thing !!!!!!!!!

i'm protected under the awning of this readmore so this is My City Now here are some exerpts courtesy of @firebuggg and yours truly

(sequential)

(not sequential)

*(unfortunately, this meant he was accidentally straight up accidentally twilightzoning mello for at least two years after being introduced to each other because what mello kept hearing was [functionally mute kid who usurped your number one spot, exclusively when nobody is around to hear it]: No One Will Ever Believe You) 

iv.

this one’s kind of stupid but i think it’d be funny if wammy’s DOES adopt kids out occasionally possibly from the bottom half of the L successor ranking in order to keep the facade of being an orphanage and not an unethical human child experiment (perhaps to wealthy people who want to skip the bureaucracy of going through the proper channels. you know how it is) (it also makes such a good boogeyman: if you don't get in the bath roger will give you out for adoption !!!!!!)

anyway once feral baby near escaped containment when there were prospective parents over browsing the (available) children and a couple was completely charmed with him and they, as is the fashion of wealthy people to do whatever the fuck they want, took him out for a lovely walk/car ride/park visit/ice-cream sundae, all sunny and warm and sitting on the young woman’s lap, getting loved on, hearing, “would you like to come live with us little one?” 

when they bring near back they are informed that unfortunately near is very much NOT up for adoption (someone definitely gets fired over that one) (dfsddfsdjfdfj)

this gets LEGENDARILY joked about by mello and matt and their popular kids entourage until they leave wammys. this definitely did not give near any complexes whatsoever

anyway once when the three of them are adults it comes up when they’re in the middle of joking around and it triggers yet another round of relentless Unadoptable Near teasing until matt and mello drive the joke right into the ground where it wheezes a last breath into an increasingly awkward silence as they Realize,

v.

ok lighting round:

had L survived as near grew into his teens they WOULD have had an EXTREMELY contentious mother-daughter relationship

much like mello he too has a deep well of unaddressed (repressed) rage within him (like sam winchester. sorry for bringing supernatural into this)

people often write that near only eats bland/white(?) foods but i think being vegan suits him also it's funny as hell. not out of any ideological motivation he was just an extremely picky eater and also do you think that frail body could handle meat. if he could get away with it all he would it is raw fruits and vegetables (chopped into small cubes)(note: this is not bland, just insane)(it’s the scampering rabbit in him) 

extremely at risk of developing a smoking habit. that boy can fit so much tension in his little body do you think his developing teenage brain would not immediately latch onto the treacherous instant clarity and peace of nicotine

5. did i mention repression. did i mention the absolute terror that seizes him at the thought of experiencing desire/hunger/longing/want. if you made it this far have a reward:

#i cant even put humorous tags on this sorry i imprinted on a secondary character from famous 2003-2006 manga death note #you cannot possibly comprehend how embarrassing this is to me and yet with my clown shoes i tread onwards #nate river #near dn #death note #meronia #mihael keehl #mello death note #brothercrush.txt

[ancientorigins]

Curious about your roots? Clues are likely hidden in your surname. A last name could hold the echoes of historical events or reveal a fascinating connection to significant eras, unveiling a family's historical narrative.

The evolution of family names has been impacted by immigration waves, wars, and cultural shifts. From DNA testing to online forums, scientific and social strands weave our heritage.

#names #heritage #DNA #ancestor #ancestors #genetics #settlers #ancient #history #ancient origins

[burningchandelier]

My mom got a DNA test done and it didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know.

Ukrainian Ashkenazi. The Wiseman Family.

We know where we come from.

We went as far North as we could when there was nowhere safe for us in Eastern Europe. We made a home for ourselves in Lerwick, Scotland. Scotland, the only country in Europe that has never expelled Jews, kept us safe for a while, but a poor family could only live at the end of the world in the Arctic Circle for so long. There were too many fishermen and not enough people to buy fish.

Between wars, we went South again, to Germany. We didn’t stay.

I am grateful every day that my great-great grandfather could see that there was trouble coming for his family. He sent his four children and wife to Canada and followed the next year. So many of us did not.

We found a place in Toronto where we watched what happened to our loved ones in Europe. We forgot Hebrew. It was easier that way.

My great-grandmother kept secrets:

Her first daughter, born out of wedlock, was raised by her parents as one of their own.

Her second daughter was told that her father was dead, rather than divorced away (it was a different time— divorce was shameful, death was inevitable).

Her job was mysterious. Officially, she worked for the state department as a pay roll clerk. I don’t know why any pay roll clerks would have traveled to Russia during the Cold War, but she did many times.

The secret she kept the longest was her heritage. As far as anyone knew, she was a severe Scottish immigrant and fiercely proud of it. Only my mother, her favorite, had suspicions.

When Granny Annie Wiseman died, she left everything to her favorite granddaughter. The money, the house, and everything inside it. Every memory of who we are.

Years later, my mother fell in love with a Jewish man. They raised me together. I had the privileges and the pains of knowing who I was. I carry our family burdens and I honor them.

Someday, I will name my daughter after the woman I never met who passed our heritage to me through the simple and brave act of survival. Her assimilation kept us alive. Her secrets got me here. She left the breadcrumbs that let us find our way home.

We know where we come from.

#jumblr #jewish heritage #jewish history #family history

[cogitoergofun]

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul vetoed a bill days before Christmas that would have made it easier for people who have pleaded guilty to crimes to challenge their convictions, a measure that was favored by criminal justice reformers but fiercely opposed by prosecutors.

The Democrat said the bill’s “sweeping expansion of eligibility for post-conviction relief” would “up-end the judicial system and create an unjustifiable risk of flooding the courts with frivolous claims,” in a veto letter released Saturday.

Under existing state law, criminal defendants who plead guilty are usually barred from trying to get their cases reopened based on a new claim of innocence, except in certain circumstances involving new DNA evidence.

The bill passed by the Legislature in June would have expanded the types of evidence that could be considered proof of innocence, including video footage or evidence of someone else confessing to a crime. Arguments that a person was coerced into a false guilty plea would have also been considered.

Prosecutors and advocates for crime victims warned the bill would have opened the floodgates to endless, frivolous legal appeals by the guilty.

rie County District Attorney John Flynn, the president of the District Attorney’s Association of the State of New York, wrote in a letter to Hochul in July that the bill would create “an impossible burden on an already overburdened criminal justice system.”

The legislation would have benefitted people like Reginald Cameron, who was exonerated in 2023, years after he pleaded guilty to first-degree robbery in exchange for a lesser sentence. He served more than eight years in prison after he was arrested alongside another person in 1994 in the fatal shooting of Kei Sunada, a 22-year-old Japanese immigrant. Cameron, then 19, had confessed after being questioned for several hours without attorneys.

His conviction was thrown out after prosecutors reinvestigated the case, finding inconsistencies between the facts of the crime and the confessions that were the basis for the conviction. The investigation also found the detective that had obtained Cameron’s confessions was also connected to other high-profile cases that resulted in exonerations, including the Central Park Five case.

Various states including Texas have implemented several measures over the years intended to stop wrongful convictions. Texas amended a statute in 2015 that allows a convicted person to apply for post-conviction DNA testing. In 2017, another amended rule requires law enforcement agencies to electronically record interrogations of suspects in serious felony cases in their entirety.

“We’re pretty out of step when it comes to our post-conviction statute,” Amanda Wallwin, a state policy advocate at the Innocence Project, said of New York.

“We claim to be a state that cares about racial justice, that cares about justice period. To allow Texas to outmaneuver us is and should be embarrassing,” she said.

[highpriestessarchives]

Expectations: In Which Diverse Stories Have Extra Criteria

CW: mentions of racism, brutality, colonization, more of a vent post than anything informative

As much as I don’t like it, I feel as though the best way to start this off is to provide context on my own background. I’ll get to why I don’t like it in a moment, so bear with me. I’m a first generation born Filipino American. My parents are from Tarlac (and a DNA test shows that we also have lineage traced back to Northern and Western Philippines as well some Central & Eastern and Southern China), and they raised us in a semi-traditional Filipino fashion. They didn’t teach us the language in fear of us being made fun of by other Americans, but we did grow up eating the food, respecting our elders, and practicing Filipino Catholic traditions that my parents grew up with in their homeland.

Needless to say, the remarks that followed me into my adult life have pulled my resonance with my heritage in every which way. To other Filipinos and other Asians, I looked part white, and they would ask for pictures of my parents for “proof” that I wasn’t. True story: I remember one of my college friends grabbing my phone and showing her friends in an “I told you so” manner, as if my race was some mystery for them to crack. It wasn’t. I fully told them from the start that I’m Filipino. My Titas would tell me that I looked “mestiza,” and how many young girls in the Philippines would want to look the way I do, and I didn’t know how to explain to them that I started hating how pale I am because of how other Asians would assume my race because of it.

At the same time, my non-Asian counterparts (yes, majority of the people who made these comments were white) would assume that I was some hodge-podge of all Asian cultures. I remember my high school teacher showing us a Vietnamese medicine commercial (this was a class on medical malpractice, and, if I remember correctly, she wanted to show us how medicine is advertised internationally), and she walked into class saying, “The only one who might understand this clip is Rory.” She’d used my deadname at the time, but you get the idea. Jaw-dropped, I had to say, “I don’t speak Vietnamese. I’m not Vietnamese.”

I know, what does this have to do with writing? We’ll get there; don’t worry.

Around 2018, the term “decolonization” entered my realm of awareness. I would see other children of immigrants from all over the world dive into their heritage and continue their ancestors’ practices. Thinking that this would be a genuine way to connect with my roots (I had, and still have, a complicated relationship with the Catholic Church, so I was excited to hear about other Filipino faiths), I began doing my research. At the time, I had a sizable following on TikTok, and I would post entertainment-only sort of videos regarding my spirituality and craft, and I even had to put out a video explaining why I didn’t go into more detail with the Filipino aspects of it. I wasn’t as learned with it as I am now, and I was afraid of the criticism and backlash others would have towards it. In hindsight, I really shouldn’t have given a sh*t, but the internet, as we all know, is cruel.

See, I use my writing as a way to connect with myself and other people, mainly. Yes, I have a story to tell, but a majority of my purpose is to discover and process my own emotions and findings. I use what I observed in society and how I grew up as well as what I learned from my own research. I won’t go into detail of the racism Asian Americans face nor the brutality we have endured over the years; frankly, if you are not already aware of it, Google is free.

Still, my work seemed to be followed by one main criticism: this isn’t yours to tell.

There were a myriad of reasons behind it. I wasn’t born in the Philippines, I’m white-passing, I wasn’t raised with anitismo, other marginalized groups have it “exponentially” worse, etc. I’d be lying if I said this didn’t affect my writing. I froze. I grappled with what I was “allowed” to tell based on all of these criteria. I’d pull up article after article of what I learned in hopes to justify the reasons for including certain aspects in my work; but because of my own upbringing, it never seemed to be enough. What’s worse, a portion of these criticisms completely dismissed the aspects of racism that Asian Americans have spoken up about time and time again (once again, because other’s have it worse or because there just wasn’t enough awareness about it for it to be “valid.”)

Imagine that. We read of thousands of iterations of medieval fantasies from white authors, thousands of European fae romances, thousands of Greek mythological retellings, and treat it as the default. There is no question of whether the author is Greek or Gaelic enough or if their ancestors played a huge role during the medieval era. Hell, my first published work was based on Greek and Celtic mythology, and no one talked about my race then, whether it was about how white I look or how I'm not white at all.

But gods help us if a minority doesn’t fit the ultimate minority model while telling their stories. To be honest, this was why I started disliking the need to talk about my background; it has begun to feel as though it is more to provide credentials rather than to satiate genuine curiosity from other people.

Yes, I do recognize that I wasn’t born in the Philippines and that I was raised Catholic, but I’ve come to terms with how I feel like that is okay.

First of all, if we want to hear from more diverse writers, we cannot keep projecting this “model minority” expectation towards them. Otherwise, it will discourage other diaspora writers, such as myself, from connecting and relaying their heritage in fear of not being “[insert marginalized group here] enough,” whatever that even means at this point.

Secondly, our history is full of movement, whether it was by our own will, such as my parents’ decision to come to America, or if it was forced upon us by our oppressors. As such, those raised outside of their homeland only further enriches our culture, not dilutes it.

To filter the perspectives of or to project your own biases towards diaspora writers is to promote the narratives of the colonizers. We are valid, and our stories should be, too.

#writingcommunity #writing #writers of tumblr #writers on tumblr #writers #writeblr #writers and poets #writerscommunity #writing life #poc author #diverse reads #diverse books #filipino #filipina #poc writer #creative writing #writer #writerslife #writer stuff #novel writing #on writing #writing community #authorlife #authors of tumblr #author #author life #author blog #author speaks #diverse authors #authors of color

[richincolor]

New Releases

Sometimes in dark moments books can allow us to escape to other worlds, other times and lift our spirits. Here are three new releases this week to help give us comfort during this dark time. 

When We Become Ours: A YA Adoptee Anthology edited by Shannon Gibney & Nicole Chung Harper Teen

Two teens take the stage and find their voice. . . A girl learns about her heritage and begins to find her community. . . A sister is haunted by the ghosts of loved ones lost. . . There is no universal adoption experience, and no two adoptees have the same story. This anthology for teens edited by Shannon Gibney and Nicole Chung contains a wide range of powerful, poignant, and evocative stories in a variety of genres. These tales from fifteen bestselling, acclaimed, and emerging adoptee authors genuinely and authentically reflect the complexity, breadth, and depth of adoptee experiences. This groundbreaking collection centers what it’s like growing up as an adoptee. These are stories by adoptees, for adoptees, reclaiming their own narrative.

The Search for Us by Susan Azim Boyer Wednesday Books

Two half-siblings who have never met embark on a search together for the Iranian immigrant and U.S. Army veteran father they never knew. Samira Murphy will do anything to keep her fractured family from falling apart, including caring for her widowed grandmother and getting her older brother into recovery for alcohol addiction. With attendance at her dream college on the line, she takes a long shot DNA test to find the support she so desperately needs from a father she hasn’t seen since she was a baby. Henry Owen is torn between his well-meaning but unreliable bio-mom and his overly strict aunt and uncle, who stepped in to raise him but don’t seem to see him for who he is. Looking to forge a stronger connection to his own identity, he takes a DNA test to find the one person who might love him for exactly who he is―the biological father he never knew. Instead of a DNA match with their father, Samira and Henry are matched with each other. They begin to search for their father together and slowly unravel the difficult truth of their shared past, forming a connection that only siblings can have and recovering precious parts of their past that have been lost. Brimming with emotional resonance, Susan Azim Boyer’s The Search for Us beautifully renders what it means to find your place in the world through the deep and abiding power of family.

Sleepless in Dubai by Sajni Patel Amulet Books

In this hate-to-love teen rom-com from the author of My Sister’s Big Fat Indian Wedding, Nikki, an aspiring photographer, accompanies her family on a trip to Dubai to celebrate the five days of Diwali in style. It should be the trip of a lifetime, if Yash, the boy next door–with whom Nikki has a rocky history–weren’t on board. Oblivious to the tension, Nikki’s matchmaking family encourages Nikki to get better acquainted with Yash. Turns out a lot can change on a 12-hour flight beyond just continents. But can betrayals and conflicting ambitions be set aside long enough for the two teens to discover the true meaning of the Festival of Lights?

#new releases #weneeddiversebooks #young adult books #ya lit

[facednatest]

Are you aware of the importance of immigration DNA tests?

An Immigration DNA paternity test is required if a family immigrates to this country, as well as documentation proving their relationships, such as birth certificates or school records. FaceIT DNA Technology provides the best Immigration DNA testing, noninvasive prenatal DNA testing, Paternity DNA Test in Atlanta, and Y-Chromosome DNA testing.

If you want more information then click here Immigration DNA testing near me.    

#immigration dna testing near me #dna testing philadelphia #Immigration DNA Paternity Test

[alatismeni-theitsa]

It is natural for humans to place importance on our ancestry and ethnic origins, its just human to want to be part of a bigger story. Last summer I visited my great-grandparents homeland and got to see the village they grew up in. Seeing family farm and talking to people who knew our family was incredibly touching and made me feel deeply connected to the country and to our history. I mean, my ancestors lived and toiled on that land for generations, long before the current borders existed. Our time in the US is recent and short in comparison. So I don´t think one can entirely dismiss the importance of heritage and ancestry to the individual.

That post didn't dismiss the importance of heritage at all. It just said that your blood alone won't make you less culture-shocked or better adapted than other people, when you have little to no contact with said culture. No one discouraged ancestors of immigrants against contacting the culture. I'm very happy about your good experience and I find it natural for locals to get excited and happy when finding out a person hails from their area.

There's a variety of reasons some nations care a lot about their grandparents' area/country and others do not. I've found that mostly people from the US feel strongly about the old place of their family. Perhaps it's the feeling people have in newer nations. I guess it was a very big thing "leaving for the US" instead of "leaving for Portugal", "leaving for Germany", "leaving for Egypt," and so USAmerican families hold the old land dearest in their hearts.

In fact, USAmericans seem to have their lineages recorded better than many other countries. (Exempt are the cultures that do ancestor worship or have similar practices) Someone does need to tell me if USAmericans think every person in the "old world" has a written lineage and we are all constantly proud of what our ancestors did, and have a deep connection to how awesome our 3rd great-aunt was.

The truth is, most of us don't give a fuck. And yes, I'm talking about 3rd-4th gen. immigrants (and sometimes those of refugees), too. People migrate through countries and areas all the time, and yet this feeling is not as strong. I will tell my experiences in a while.

But in general, I haven't seen the same strong feelings in European, Middle Eastern, and African friends. (there are always exceptions and this is my personal experience) For example, Greeks (who live in the freaking Balkans, where we know no one is a 100% anything) rarely talk about their ancestry and if they do they just say "hey my grandma was from X place" and the rest of us say "cool" and we continue with our lives.

A few might remember their family history because of a heroic ancestor or because their family had epic drama. Greek refugee families from Minor Asia tend to remember their "lost fatherlands" (dir.trans.) because the trauma of the 1920's is still palpable in the family. But this is a different flavour of longing than what I hear from USAmericans.

"It's just human to want to be part of a bigger story" you said, and I agree, but this idea doesn't seem to have the same impact on many nations.

Enter: me. <3

I've never visited the places/countries my great-grandparents and grandparents came from, and where 3 of my grandparents grew up (when they died they hadn't been to these places for 50 years minimum each). I have a famous Greek uncle, the cousin of my grandpa, whom I never met. I always saw him on TV but our lives never intersected and... well my life went on.

I don't feel a tangible connection to these people and lands. I mean why would I? I'm a complete stranger to them. Part of my line couldn't been in Egypt for 14 generations and I will never know (well unless I take a DNA test) but even if I learn it won't impact my life whatsoever. What am I supposed to do? Go to Egypt and walk through Cairo shouting the surnames my dead family members had? My family could be only in Greece for 50 generations and I still wouldn't care. 😂

On the Greek and foreign places my great-grandparents (and even half my grandparents) are from: I definitely don't consider myself part of those specific cultures and subcultures. Once I had to Google what type of language one country spoke (I knew the language name cause..geography). I couldn't even imagine myself living there without serious social adjustments. It would be nice to visit and learn stuff about the local culture, for sure, but I would feel like a tourist still.

Two weeks ago I saw a woman from the village of my great grandma in the market. We exchanged a few "ah ok you're also from there, cool!" And that was the end of it. What else are we supposed to say? There was no ✨ deeper connection ✨ or something. Why would I care about their opinions on family members from 100 yrs ago - only in case they remembered them - whom I never met and I don't know if they'd like me?

(Funny story, a Greek friend of mine thought her grandma was from Austria and it turns out she was from... Thrace 😂 She just was in Austria for work for a couple of years. This didn't impact her interaction with her grandma at all 😂 I don't know how but it was a very short conversation because we just didn't care much)

Also last year I commissioned a traditional clothing piece in a village very close to my grandpa's village in Greece and not only I didn't know the terminologies for that village but also for my grandpa's village. The complete stranger on the phone had to tell me that stuff and explain to me the importance of each piece and how the villages separated themselves through clothing. (I also accidentally offended him with how I called a thing). Sure I can imagine my grandpa living there, but things have changed there since the 1930s. Houses, markets, roads, these are not the same things he saw when he was there.

My dad just shrugged when he saw how the village (in another country) my other grandpa is from today. I didn't feel a magic spark either tbh. I deeefinitely don't know shit about the place. We have more of a connection with the old refugee families in our area than people from that village.

Blood alone won't familiarise me with these cultures and subcultures. I have to go through the learning process like every other foreigner. A Chinese immigrant (to name a place from far away) living in these cultures for a decade now has a better understanding and connection to them than I do today. It would be nice if someone from these places remembered my family but I don't think they do. It comes off as desperate - in my case - to say "Remember this family who lived here a hundred years ago?" What is the average person supposed to know 😂 I don't even know the old families in my own hometown. I know some surnames, alright, but people personally? naah..

Ofc sometimes people remember their diaspora relatives and they keep in touch, so when you go to that country you have still a "root" there to familiarize you with the current culture.

My family is not the golden standard but I gave examples to demonstrate how people can view ancestry.

I don't disregard the strong feelings about the place of origin. I don't think it's a negative thing to want to find out what happened in your family. But locals can get uneasy when someone from a family that hasn't stepped foot in this land for 3 generations comes around, and think they will fit right in. The locals can tell the cultural difference, even if they remain silent. One example for Greeks is... the Bachelor show - of all places - and for Italy one episode from the series White Lotus presented this situation accurately.

That doesn't mean locals don't feel happiness or affection for that person. I know I'd be happy if, after 3-4 generations I saw my diaspora cousins up close and we talked about Greek stuff. It would just be a cringe if they pretended we didn't have any cultural differences and that Greece is today exactly how their grandparents left it. I guess most people just ask for a reality check + empathy with the locals when someone comes from abroad.

Guys, if you are not from a recently-founded country what are your experiences with this?

#gives me suggestions on how to tag this #answered #ancestry #diaspora

[aiteanngaelach]

vaguely unrelated but this is what gets me about americans claiming to be irish because of distant ancestery and dna test and whatever. whilst ye have the privilege of declaring yereselves irish based on literally nothing (and being really fucking annoying about it too) non white irish people are brutalised for saying they are irish. every single immigrant in this country is more irish than any plastic paddy bitch. whilst tiffany who did a dna test and found she was 9% irish or whatever is rebranding her whole personality to circle around this, Black irish people are being attacked for calling themselves irish. Black irish people who have been living in ireland their whole lives, their parents whole lives, their GRANDPARENTS whole lives, arent allowed to call themselves irish. EVERY SINGLE IMMIGRANT IN IRELAND HAS A RIGHT TO BE HERE AND A RIGHT TO BE TREATED WITH THE SAME RESPECT AND DIGNITY SHOWN TO EVERY OTHER IRISH PERSON

#and before youre like oh your just making people up #i know a guy from mayo and he. his father. and his grandfather have lived in ireland their entire lives #and people ask him non stop where is he actually from because he's Black. #and every irish american is like fictitious tiffany lets be honest here

[nerdylilpeebee]

Yeah lol and Europeans can trace their ancestry to Africa, is it then okay for them to "go back" and colonize Africa? Do you know the difference between colonization and immigration? Like, do you even have a fucking clue?

Israel is a stated ethnostate and AGAIN lol this idea of "landback" when it comes to Israel is ahistorical whitewashing, and the fact you're getting all DNA testing about it also gives it a lil fun racist spin. Oh dna determines who gets what land now? Like. You would have fit in explicitly in Nazi Germany but suuuure

First, all humans could, if we consider that theory true.

Second, that is much different than being able to trace your lineage back thousands of years to a land your ancestors once had, but were driven from (they're the Jewish Disapora for a reason, fuckstain).

Third, and??? Being an "Ethnostate" does not make a country illegitimate. Believe it or not, quite a few countries can claim the same. It might be a stupid concept that will result in hardship and inevitably xenophobia, but all you're doing is pulling an ad hominem by bringing it up here. It holds no relevance to whether or not the Jewish are natives to that area. You're just trying to make them seem as evil as possible (AGAIN).

Fourth, really bitch? XD so why are the Palestinians the natives? Could it be because they can trace their lineage to this land? Ooh, how about the Native Americans to America? They're natives because they can trace their lineage back to the people who once inhabited this land, right? Same with literally every group dubbed a native ever? My gods, you fucking Nazi, how dare you try to insist their DNA gives them the right to live there. UwU

You're fucking stupid, anon.

Fifth, you're the only one mentioning "landback" here, Hun. It seems to me you're the one who needs to remove your head from your ass.

#tvp discourse #arab israeli conflict #hamas #israel #palestine

[bighermie]

Sexual preditors and pedophiles are rejoicing!