Finnish Ancestry
This year, I sort of lost something that was once very important to me. I am wondering what the experience and thoughts of others are on this topic.
My Finnish heritage is from my mother’s side, with both of my grandparents coming to the U.S., separately in 1920. Married in 1924, they raised 4 children in Minnesota, in the Northern Minnesota Finnish immigrant community. This community was so isolated that my
Mother’s first language was Finnish, same as all her siblings. My eldest uncle made a point of teaching her English before she started school.
My mother identified so strongly with that heritage, and raised me to value it as well. She had the love of nature, the outspoken ways, the emotional reserve (at least in public) that so many say are characteristic of Finns. I learned only a small amount of Finnish myself, fully identified as American, of course yet always valued that heritage. I still do, yet a few things changed my slant on the matter.
I called myself “Finnish American” on a Reddit once. I was immediately jumped on by several Nordics (not Finns) who announced I did not “deserve”to call myself Finnish, misunderstanding the way that Americans use that terminology. Okay. Guess I go stuff my fat American face with some apple pie and forget the whole thing lol! Maybe I’ll laugh in a big gas guzzling SUV while I’m at it 😁.
Next, maybe a week later I was contacted out of the blue by distant Finnish relatives on Ancestry.com, a great Uncle’s nephew to be exact. A pleasant email chat somehow degenerated into his diatribe against the U.S., complete with assumptions on who I voted for (he was wrong on that, by the way).
Ugh! Finnish heritage is a part of me, absolutely. The immigrant culture my
Mother was raised in, also by extension a part of me. The struggles of my grandparents just to be in the U.S., in the depression, political activists accused of being communists at one point and nearly deported, a part of my family history. I will always respect Finland, but no longer feel the same connection, exactly. At 61, I have lived and will die as an American-American. It occurs to me that no one cares what happened or who was on one of Ellis Island’s last boats. Americans are we are today, and from the vest of the world, little love is lost.