My Family of Immigrants

I have gotten pretty deeply into researching my family history over the years. While it’s amazingly easy today to uncover facts about my ancestors, there is very little left of the story that threads those facts together into a tangible life story. There’s especially little left of the story of their immigration into the US.

In an American Studies course in college, I learned that the first generation to immigrate to the US tries to preserve their culture, spawning areas like little Italy and Chinatown. The second generation wants to discard and hide their heritage – fit in – be seamlessly “American”. And the third generation is curious – they want to know about their heritage, traditions, and the family origin stories. I’m that third generation, and as for many of us – few stories were handed down about how we got here to the US. The reason our families were leaving their ancestral homes to make a new life.

I was inspired by the way Henry Louis Gates, Jr. tells the stories of each family’s history on his show “Finding Your Roots” (check it out on PBS), weaving current events of that time in with each family story, highlighting the why behind each move across the world – filling in the cold and impersonal facts of the various records found online. So, I started googling the different years and countries that were my ancestors’ departure points from Europe to the US.

I don’t know why it was startling to find that they left in the wake of great famines, recession, mass poverty and war. Throw in the massive fire that destroyed an entire city in the US where one family member had settled, and it’s all starting to sound a lot like the evening news.

It puts a different spin on their memory somehow, to know that they were poor, suffering and fleeing for their lives. It makes it easier to see their stories on the faces of today’s immigrants, coming to the US to escape those same threats.

I wish we all knew all the details of our own family immigration stories. ALL of us. How different would the conversation about immigrants be today in our country if we did?

Thank you, God, for all of those who continue to welcome the stranger, feed the hungry, and provide comfort and care to those most in need. And thank you for those who welcomed my family, and for each opportunity you give me to return that grace to another. Amen.

Diana is a founding member of Peace Church.