WHAT NATIONALITY ARE WE ANYWAY? (Biographical)

In World War I, people of German decent apparently were not treated very well in Minnesota.  Most people think of Minnesota as being occupied by Swedes and Norwegians, but southern Minnesota is largely Germanic.  Up until World War II, there were towns like New America where only German was spoken.  My mother came from a small town in southern Minnesota called Owatonna which had many people of German heritage, and, in fact, her mother was brought to this country at the age of one and a half.  As things began to heat up again with Nazi Germany in the 1930s, my mother apparently grew concerned.  She took me aside when I was maybe five years old or so and said that if anyone asked what nationality I was, I should just say I’m American.  That’s all they need to know.  As time went on, she repeated this to me.  Well, I wasn’t a very bright kid, and I really didn’t know what our heritage was.  When you are surrounded with people with names like Schoen, Hartelt, Wagner, and Mierke, that’s just the way it is.  It never occurred to me that our antecedents were German, and who knows what nationality Doe is, anyway?

So sure enough, at some point in the early grades, the dreaded question arose.  The teacher went around the class asking each student what nationality they were.  Of course, there were Swedes and Norwegians but also a sprinkling of others like Jugoslavian.  I was very fond of those who said they were Scotch-Irish.  When the teacher came to me, I dutifully said that I was American.  Of course, the teacher responded, “But what are you really?” or “Where did your ancestors come from?”   So I would go home and ask my mother what nationality we were really, to which she would respond, “You just tell them you are American, that’s all they need to know.”

This cycle went on several times, and I got more and more embarrassed.  Finally I couldn’t take the heat any longer and when my turn came I said, “Scotch-Irish ”  I was not aware of it, but, since my first name was Bruce, no one was going to call me a liar.  And that’s how I became Scotch-Irish.