#it's like smth that gives me a sense of identity. as silly as it sounds | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

usertiff · 9 months

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i thought you said once you were jewish but you talk only about being indigenous and white?

sorry for the delay in answering this i had to mull over how strange it was at first to have someone like analyzing my ethnicity or remembering aspects LOL but im going to assume possibly you're someone struggling with your own identity or smth??? and answer

but tbh if you're looking for help with rediscovering being jewish, i am not the one to ask and the reason for that will be clear below. if you need help reconnecting to indigeneity however, that's a different story.

long story, bc i weirdly am giving u way too much background info for an anon LMAO but a tldr is included

to begin, my ethnicity is as follows: norwegian, german, chatiks si chatiks, niitsitapi, and well, ashkenazi jewish

so, yes, i'm ethnically ashkenazi jewish on my maternal grandma's side (indigenous on my maternal grandmother's side as well, my great grandma was jewish, my great grandpa indigenous). however, i was not raised with the knowledge of it. i did some digging, talking to my my grandpa, my mom and my aunt's (who knew all along but are gen x'ers and a boomer, and just... didn't really care at all except my mom and one aunt who also felt kind of sad about it), and they all said the same thing: my great-grandma chose to whitewash us (and therefore didn't even tell her kids, including my grandma, until later in life) because her mother and father did as well, for mostly safety reasons, but also fitting in reasons, because where i live was where most germans settled. (like for example, my paternal ancestry is literally just norwegian and german. my dad is half norwegian and german lmao, my paternal grandma immigrated from norway, and my paternal grandfather's was like a 2nd-gen immigrant or smth, they came over quite awhile after my cousins side of the family came over a loooong time ago idfk it's stupid i dont really care about all that.) and it might be silly to some but it was important to my grandparents i guess, especially because one of my grandpa's was a general(??? something???) in ww2.

TLDR anyway, long story short, my grandparents hid who we are, didn't raise their kids as jewish neither in religion nor even by telling them their ethnicity til they were older. SO i don't feel comfortable claiming my jewish ethnicity? like... idk it is weird because since finding out i am jewish, i feel this weird sense of heartbreak that 1. i partially don't know who i am, 2. that my grandparents were so desperate to fit in they literally hid a major part of themselves, 3. i lost out on a lot of culture because they simply chose to omit this part of our lives, idk i could go on???

so while part of me wants to try and reconnect what it means to be jewish, there's another part of me that feels uncomfortable doing so, as if ... idk... like i'm not allowed? it's a much different feeling than being indigenous and reconnecting, especially because i grew up knowing i'm indigenous and already having bits and pieces of that culture.

unnecessary information of me rambling on below

and as for my indigeneity, there wasn't really any hiding the color of my great-grandpa's skin. even as our genes have been passed down through my family, while some of us (me, a few cousins) ended up white as hell (for me it's thanks to my snow-white scandinavian/germanic father) others, such as my sister, have my grandpa's complexion, his eyes, his hair. it's beautiful. it sounds privileged as hell to say this, because i understand i have white privilege to the max, but i am a lil jealous of my sister. she's just so beautiful in my eyes, and really represents the ancestry in my family. it's lovely to me.

anyway, congrats, u have way more info than u needed

#answered #about #stop talking tiff *#this feels weird to actually EXPLAIN publicly but ??? here i am

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