Do you have a sense of your own history?

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I think it was Malcolm X who used to say that if you have no history, you have no identity and can't assert yourself. He was talking about the black community of course.

I was wondering whether you feel in touch with your history as individuals - are you fascinated by your own ancestors? And do you think your awareness (or disinterest) in your history has been good or bad for you overall?

I do have a fascination for history in general, and my sister recently dug up some info about our family in the 1930s, which interested me a little, but I don't know that it gives me any confidence or assertiveness. As far as I'm aware I'm very much geared up to the here and now and the future, as if I could be the same if I had no history. Of course studying history has taught me a lot about how people can behave and about the sources of cultural conditioning, but I don't think that's what King had in mind.

I agree that family historical knowledge is a very important thing and adds trememdous stability to a persons life and in fact researching the family tree can easily become a special interest for many people.

my ancestry is very diverse.

as with most europeans, my national heritage doesnt stay put for long, as i backwind. my scandinavian blood splinters up, some remains in scandinavia, other lines go down into central europe, as far south as austria.

on my dads side, i have a spanish grandmother, who insists we have royal blood, from somewhere, i should find out more about that. her lineage, according to her, has stayed in spain for quite a while.

my dad is born in peru, my granddad is a mestizo, and i know theyre traced both quechua/peruvian native/"inca" heritage, and african heritage through slavery in the carribean, escaped/freed slaves who came to south america.

i have no idea where in africa they were from.

That sounds like me. My late grandfather was an amateur geneologist and the the further he got was 1600's in Ireland - as they came to to America.

But everything else way too complex. Mom is 100% European (English, Scottish, Norwegian, Swiss, ???)

Dad is 1/2 mestizo (based on the region - Aztec-ish) and 1/2 Spanish - from Madrid - like you, they were very proud of the Spanish side - and claimed to be royalty.

I guess the most definitive description is: American! Everything else has been diluted and my dad left when I was young - so I've always had a very middle America life.

With regards to history - I LOVE history and love finding out where my family plugs in. We have been part of the westward migration, the dust bowl, revolutionary war, the civil war, WW II, Korea, Vietnam, San Francisco during the 60's, Silicon Valley during the 70's and 80's, the stock market crash of 2008...

So - I feel pretty proud when I have all that running through my DNA.

This is an interesting topic to me.

I shun everything family history wise aside from a very small few details I might occasionally get interested in, but it is rare...but that has alot to do with how I 'see' family because of my own reasons.

I shun most all history to do with people in general until it gets to around ancient times or near at least to ancient times, then I am very interested.

I like learning facts in history but only for the sake of knowing facts - I do not admire any of it or feel connected to it hardly at all.

I don't think it's great that things are like this with me - but it's how it is.

yeah americans have that "thing" where, unless your a native indian, you will be curious about where ELSE your from, be it europe, asia, africa
europeans usually seem content w being norwegian, or danish, or german or irish or whatever, and seem less interested to trace their heritage. if they do, many of them will find that european populations have moved around and mingled more than what they think

and hm, maybe its a common thing for spanish people to claim royalty? see thats why im gonna ask my grandma more about this, see if i can get some specific names,

And it must be genetic because for expedience sake - I just tell people I'm Spanish. (I look 100% Spanish). I don't go bragging about the royalty but I do mention Madrid.

And I named my daughter Isabella. Hmm????

again, a benefit from being american as i see it, since you can easily pick an identity that you know you also belong to.
i am norwegian, cus im born here, and "norwegian" is an ethnicity, a pretty stationary one as well, compared to other races, they havent migrated that much around and never been conquered (except for during ww2)

i am "half spanish" tho. going all "half norwegian half half spanish half peruvian" gets tedious.
but i always have a real home feeling when im in valencia, where the spanish family lives.
ive gotten to know the neighborhood, and i could navigate the city. me and my brother did our "test" once, and crossed the whole city on foot, from the beach. took us a day, but it was a good experience. we're used to small norwegian towns, we had no idea the city could continue.. and continue.. and continue, like that
(we both knew, logically, but on foot, its different!)

never been to peru. i know my family there lives in el callao, lima. you tube it. its one of the baddest ghettos in south america :S
i dunno my relatives there, but i know they carry guns :S
if they suddenly invite me, im gonna be veeery nervous about visiting them

I have no sense of my own history, the past seems like a foreign country and another person to me.

Blacks in the US might generally do BETTER, as a group, now if they forgot about some of the low points.

ZEGH8578,

A LOT of people in the US are like that. EVEN american indians! After all, there WERE different tribes that might have been almost as different as different races. At least one could have blue eyes, but I think MOST had BROWN. Some looked very different. They had different customs, clothes, etc.... As for the danes, et al, you're wrong. Some DO care.

I am 1/4 French and very proud of it. My GF came from France when he was six years old, then died when my mom was six years old. So, I didn't grow up with the French culture. Sad

I have one German great-grandmother. The rest of me is English and Irish.

My nan did a lot of research into the family history and there is some interesting stuff that you'll find. I forgot most of the stuff but I still can remeber some of the information she found out.

as far as i know, blonde hair and blue eyes are "genetically restricted" to northern europe, mainly scandinavia, and has "spread" from there.
but you ARE correct in that what we call "native americans" as one nation, are indeed many nations, many languages, even many language families.
meaning, theyre as diverse as europe or africa.
not very surprising tho, if you consider the actal fact: the americas, africa and europe are all continents, and continents have an enormous diversity in people and cultures.

im absolutely positive, that there would even be blatant racism among the native tribes, even now, but especially before white man came and "united" them by erradicating them

the inca and aztec empires are good examples. these had a nationalism similar to other empires "we are civilized, they are savages. we live in houses, and use roads, they live in the jungle, and follow little jungle-paths"

even today, in the amazon jungle, native amazonians who have had a long time of contact w the surrounding world quickly gets dressed, and addresses their neighboring tribes as "savages" "wild men" etc

My roots go back one of two possible ways - either Scotland or Ireland, a few generations back, working class migrants. I'm not ashamed to be of either race, and I expect I'd be proud of it if only I knew which it was. I like both, and the Welsh, and I guess I'm proud to be English - I've had a strange empathy for Ireland since before Clannad, though I didn't go there till much later.

Some claim the indians WALKED to America from other lands, when the continents were together. Frankly, I was SHOCKED when I heard of some indians having blue eyes. You are right, it is apparently just a caucasion trait, but these indians were not.

BTW They DID fight one another. Hey, EVERYONE has! Indians, american indians, Blacks, Asians, AND Whites fought one another! I don't know how ANYONE could say differently. In my short life, several black tribes killed other black tribes(And even black americans have attacked other blacks needlessly), the cubans, argantinians, russians, etc... have attacked one another. The vietnamese fought. The tiwanese and chinese have postured, etc.... HECK, Great Britian attacked ireland! What is up with THAT!?!?!? GRANTED, that didn't TECHNICALLY happen in my lifetime, but some of the fallout has.

Where in the world did you guys get your american indian history? Some book for sure. Go read it again, please.