Racial Identity

When my great grandparents (dad's mother's side) came to the US, they left a country known as Germany. They identified themselves as Germans. They had the surname LaRue. To visit where they came from, I would have to go to France.

When my grandfather was brought to America, he came from a country known as Germany and was identified as German. If I were to visit where he originated from, I would have to travel to Poland. Also, my dad swears that his father's story of his kidnapping from an estabilshed and respected German family and subsequently being brought across the Atlantic to be held for ransom is probably phony. He seems to think that his father was actually a Jew escaping German persecution, probably a Rothchild or a Rothman who shortened it to the Germanic Roth.

My mother's father is Norwegian for several generations. We'll just leave that one as is.

Her mother is a completely different story. My maternal grandmother would claim to be part just about every single European ethnicity except English or Irish. So that side could be anything, but I'd put my money on English with a surname like Pierce. Probably some Irish in there too.

I grew up being told I was a Norwegian/German. I could be a French/Polish/Norwegian/English/Jew. Some might consider me a European mutt. To trace it all back with any certainty, I should probably call myself African. Or maybe it is safest just to consider myself a modern American. I can state with very little doubt that I am human. Everything else is just lines on a map.