Quote:
Originally Posted by Vermilion Villager
Who says I am?.....FYI my heritage is German and English. I have Native American relatives via marriage.
Also....seems you are very much OK defining a symbol of someone else's heritage as a toothy smiley face with a feather sticking out of the back of their head..........
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It didn't seem negative to me. I do not understand this at all. We grew up in very German Columbus, Ohio and we named our firstborn Gretchen. We chose the name because we felt the German heritage and yet some folks told us her name was too "dutchy".
I don't think they liked our choice. Her name brought to mind to us, the festivities where people wore dirndles and lederhosen and danced the polka and it brought to mind the dozens of families we knew with four syllable last names that were German and it reminded us of the German language we heard still at family gatherings. Our church; Evangelical and Reformed for one of us, was called German Lutheran back then. We had several family members who worked at one of the large breweries that were a solid part of the economics of the south end. Naming our daughter Gretchen was a way to say we belong to the tribe of German people who live this life in Columbus, Ohio.
I don't think if we saw a person of Irish or Italian descent wearing a dirndle to a costume party it would be anything but a compliment to our heritage. I just don't understand any of this. I have tried so hard to see it from the other side. I do not understand.
We Americans are a wonderful mixture of many cultures and ethnic groups. I can feel it very strongly here in The Villages.