Assignment Writing 3
Race and nationality are both, it can be argued, social constructs. Identifying with a certain country and giving oneself an ethnicity is largely influenced by one's community. When half of one's family lives in another country with its own unique culture, this identification becomes more convoluted--as does one's definition of family and obligation. My interviewee's mother is Caucasian, and his father is Vietnamese. His father's entire family still lives in Vietnam, and this certainly influences his definition and description of family. On a surface level, my family tree is characterized by a series of divorces and deaths in my parents' generation that is only mimicked in his mother's side of the family--the side more ethnically similar to my own heritage. Among his mother's siblings, we see the presence of stepmothers and fathers. This phenomenon exists in my family tree as well, on both the matriarchal and patriarchal sides. The differences between our genealogies are more obvious on my interviewee's father's side. His father has six siblings; my mother only has three, and even this seems like a lot to most Americans. However, it is difficult to assess whether the multitude of children in my interviewee's Vietnamese family is culturally influenced, as he does not have a remarkable amount of cousins on this side of his family. The "custom," if that is what it is, does not seem to have carried to the present generation. More telling than the simple makeup of the interviewee's family tree are his feelings towards its members. Except regarding his "nephew," whom he carefully mentioned, saying that he hardly acted like an uncle to the child, my interviewee showed very typically American views about his obligation toward his family members. The exes of his uncles were excluded from his idea of "family," they as were not blood related to him. Only their children, who shared at least a tenuous blood bond with the ego, were given names--cousin--that expressed a primary relationship. My genealogy reflects a similar tendency; if I am not blood related to a once-family member, they receive names like "Uncle's ex-wife," or "Cousin's mother." Perhaps what is most interesting to consider, especially considering my interviewee's ethnic background, is how he feels toward his overseas relatives. Recently, he made a trip to Vietnam to meet all of them, and in talking to him, it is apparent that he feels his Vietnamese heritage to be extremely important to him. However, this may be the nucleus of his connection to his Vietnamese family-- their representation of his ancestry. Not that this is a bad thing. Plenty of people can't explain why they care about certain members of their family, other than that they are kin. Certainly, understanding the importance of maintaining Vietnamese culture, which my interviewee shares with his Vietnamese family, is more in common than many people have with their relatives. Still, the fact remains that, perhaps due to their recent meeting, or their distance, or some other factor, my interviewee feels more of a connection, rather than an obligation toward that side of his family. As much as race is socially-defined, nation is a construct, and ethnicity is a choice, there do seem to exist some characteristics that mirror these certain lines, at least within this case study. It is impossible to generalize about a people from one person's feelings and family tree, but it is interesting all the same to observe differences and similarities. In this way, people can begin to understand the psychological and social dimensions of split genealogies, and the difficulties of dual ethnicities.