Meredith Cotter Post #1

I have an Irish and Italian ethnic background. My mom is 100% Italian and my dad is 100% Irish which puts me at 50/50. In terms of identifying myself, I never really took to one side more than the other, although I always believed that my personality tended to be most like that of my Irish relatives. I always loved my heritage for it’s rich history on both sides. When asked I would say I’m Irish and Italian. Since early childhood have always observed a difference between my two sides of my family. As typical as it may seem, my mom’s Italian family is always loud, they’re always cooking and they could be fighting one minute and hugging and kissing the next. They are always very ‘touchy-feely’ and warm. On the other hand, my dad’s Irish side tends to be a bit more standoffish. Although the love is certainly there, it is just shown in a different way. It’s not so much in your face. I always took this difference as simply different groups of people behave a certain way, and the reason they behaved a certain way was because they were of different heritage fixed with their own traditions, history, culture and customs. No one ever told me per se, but it was normal to me, having grown up with an equally, yet very strong, Italian or Irish influence coming from either side.

For me, school and teachers taught me the more liberal ideas concerning race and ethnicity that always made more sense in my mind. Schoolteachers always advocated equality and working to fight racism of any kind. While on the other hand, my family offered the more conservative viewpoint. With my old-fashioned grandparents handing down their views to their children and exposing them to me, allowed me to see the much more clinical point of view on issues such as immigration (legal and illegal), domestic policy regarding minority groups. Although I disapprove of their outlook, I am thankful that I have been exposed to it because I feel its important to see other sides of issues, and it gave me the opportunity to take the opposing side in debate and voice my own views.

My views have changed overtime because the more I study (especially Unites States History), the more I see how complicated these issues really are. I always had the ‘cant-we-all-just-get-along’ mentality but the actual delving into legislative documents, reading first hand accounts of both the victims and perpetrators of racism as far back as the colonial era, and studying the complex formation and violent struggle of the Civil Rights Movement, Gay Liberation Movement, American Indian Movement, Feminist Movement and others revealed how this was in no way a simple process.

I have never had first hand experience with racism or directly witnessed an act of racism. It was something more exposed to me through media and pop-culture like T.V. shows and movies.

-Meredith Cotter