Happy Birthday, Statue of Liberty

[filkertom]

Dedicated on this date in 1886.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Those of you here in the US -- where did your families come from? Mine is Polish and German on my mother's side, British by way of Canada on my father's.

Comments

[jmthane.livejournal.com]

My mom's side - Scotland, with possibly a one-generation stop in Newfoundland. My dad's side - Germany, France, and the rest of the British Isles.

[brithistorian.livejournal.com]

I understand what you're saying here, but the way you said it, the sentence about your dad's side of the family kind of makes it sound like you're saying Germany and France are part of the British Isles. This amuses and pleases me greatly! :-D

[brithistorian.livejournal.com]

With the exception of a couple of Choctaw and Seminole indians several generations back, all of my ancestors came from England/Scotland a long, long time ago. One of my cousins started work on a family history and managed to get back to an ancestor who served under Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans (as a Major in the Engineering Corps).

[drzarron.livejournal.com]

Mother's side of the family is from the Netherlands, PERIOD. My mother was the first person in her family EVER born outside of Rotterdam.

Grandfather and Mimi came to the US in the 20's. Grandfather had been an engineer for Fokker aircraft. He got hired away by Hudson and they moved to Detroit. Mimi always was a waitress and a bartender for awhile. She was the lead waitress at then Lindell AC in Detroit and knew all the BIG sports guys... Wilt Chamberlain, Gordy Howel, Al Kaline and more.

Dad's side is more of mix bag. Grandmother was all Scot, moved to Texas as a girl. Grandfather was half Scot, then a mix of German and Irish.

Grandfather started as a telegrapher on the railroad then moved up in the newly forming AT&T. Daba always kept house, until my Dad, the youngest, moved out when she took off her apron, handed to my Grandfather and said, "Your turn". My Grandfather did the lion's share of the cooking and gardening from then.

[jcw-da-dmg.livejournal.com]

We're not really sure on my father's side, but the best guess is the German lowlands with some English. My mother's great-grandfather came over from Hamburg.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

My mother is first generation Irish-American. Her dad sailed into New York Harbor in 1910, and her mother came to Boston in 1912.

My father's family has been in North America somewhat longer, and like yours has a strong presence in Canada. Dad was born in Canada, his mother in the US, and that's about the way it's been for the last few centuries. It's been something of a crap shoot which side of the Great Lakes the next generation would appear. My patrilineal line traces back to Peter William Gawne, who came over from the Isle of Man in 1821. He initially came to New York, but later found that he could get land in Canada based on his father's service in the Napoleonic wars.

Speaking of the lovely lady of New York Harbor, do you know Cathie Ryan's song, The Back Door? It's about illegal Irish immigrants living in New York City, and includes this line:

Give me your poor, your tired, your hungry.
The exiles of your teeming shore.
Words carved into stone, and the hearts back home,
But not meant for the living anymore.

[darrenzieger.livejournal.com]

There's a lovely song by Julie Gold (of "From a Distance" fame) called "Goodnight New York) which is a meditation on her mother'sassage "through the harbor of hopes and of dreams," and her own responsibility to live up to the promise of that experience. It appears on one of the Bitchin' Babes albums, one of her own albums, and was covered by Nanci Griffith (who for some reason added a chord change that I don't like). Very moving, one of her best songs. Seek it out.

[darrenzieger.livejournal.com]

Typical Ashkenazi Jewish on both sides. Russian, Polish, German.

I like that my kids have a completely different heritage on their mother's side - Irish Catholic/French Canadian (with a little native American thrown in a few generations back).

[smallship1.livejournal.com]

I met a traveller from a species' grave
Who said "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the ocean. Near them, by the wave
Unclaimed, a glimpse of what might be a crown,
And then a hand, whose arm the waters lave,
A beacon holds, its flame long dark and dead,
Its message drowned in sea-borne murmurings,
Its makers likewise drowned, its meaning fled.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"Love it or leave it," "Red Bull gives you wings,"
"One nation under God," "George Bush was here."
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The world-encircling seas stretch far away.

[isolde-deely.livejournal.com]

mom's side - English and Scottish
Dad's - German - Hessians from the Revolutionary war, who deserted and stayed here in America...

[archiver-tim.livejournal.com]

Half Irish, Half French with about a fifth of Scotch in me.

Us Ryan kids tend it identify with Irish heritage, where my dad later in his life let us know he identified more with his mother's side of the family. She died when he was young and spent a lot of time with his Uncle Henry Rae's family. Rae is an Americanization of MacRae. On my mom's French Canadian side, both of her parents were born in the US, near Bay City, Michigan. Those parents came from near Montreal. Heritage goes back to the French coming to what would be Montreal starting around 1620. It looks like native blood may have been mixed into the family around the mid1800's, I could be one-sixteenth Indian.

[sdelmonte]

My father was born in the Sudetenland (currently the western half of the Czech Republic) and came here after WWII.

My mother's father was Polish, her mother from Transylvania (currently Romania).

[ludzu-alus.livejournal.com]

Dad's side: Latvian. My grandparents came here in 1945.
Mom's side: English/Welsh/mutt by way of Canada.

[jss]

Dad's side, from Germany and Poland; Mom's side, from Poland and Russia. All four of my grandparents were US-born; I don't recall if their parents were as well, though for at least some of them I doubt it. (Of that generation, I only met my mother's mother's father, who died when I was 5 or 6.)

[raven-ap-morgan.livejournal.com]

Heh. Totally Heinz 57. When asked my nationality, my guaranteed answer is "Terran".

Raven

[mythdude.livejournal.com]

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Sounds like a Green Lantern oath.

"In darknest night to brightest gleam
Give me those seeking a noble dream
To seek shelter from evil's fiery scorch
Stand with me, and my golden torch!"

Not bad I say. Especially on 4 hours of sleep.

[mythdude.livejournal.com]

Oh, and my lineage is all over the place! On my Mother's side, we have Cherokee, Italians, Germans, and British. On my Father's side, It's primarily Irish. That's why whenever I'm asked what my nationality is I quote Casablanca.

Major Strasser: What is your nationality?
Rick: I'm a drunkard.
Captain Renault: That makes Rick a citizen of the world.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Scots-Irish by way of England on my father's side (in the 1740s); Louisiana Creole on my mother's (as she always put it, "I'm a little bit of everything, so don't you go being prejudiced against other races, because you've probably got some of it in you.")

[peachtales.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I usually go with the most recent imports, since otherwise it can get super-multi-layered (like probably most of us). So, in the spirit of keeping it simple:
Swiss on my dad's side
American via Ireland and Germany on my mom's

[ladystarblade.livejournal.com]

Mom side: blond-haired, blue-eyed Swede all the way until a dark-haired Scot married into the family two generations ago.

Dad side: solid Irish (grandfather born near Cork City) with a few strains of English here and there. I have relatively close blood kin still living in County Cork.

[joshbrown.livejournal.com]

Let's see, my dad's parents were both born in England (as was my dad). My father's parents were from somewhere in Eastern Europe (Russia? Poland? Lithuania?) and my father's mother's parents were from Vienna.
My American grandparents were both born in the US. My mother's father's parents were from Bialystok, and my mother's mother's family was from White Russia.

[snowishness.livejournal.com]

My Mom's grandparents are from Poland.
My Dad's are from, as he says, "a whole bunch of little countries that don't exist anymore." Also known as former pre-Soviet Union.

My favorite story to do with our immigration has to be from my Mom's side. Apparently before leaving Poland they decided they would meet up again in America. Well, half the family went to South America instead of the US.

[gavroche42.livejournal.com]

Russian/Polish Jewish; Transylvanian/Romanian/Hungarian Jewish; Holland; Alsace-Lorraine; UK; and possibly some Choctaw which hasn't yet been proven, or disproven.

[bayushisan.livejournal.com]

Swiss nobility on my dad's side of the family. Actually one of ancestors founded New Bern, North Carolina. Apparently there's a statue of him and everything there.

Scottish nobility on my mom's side of the family. Clan Oliver (real clan, I did the research). They were awarded nobility for bringing olives and their various applications to Scotland.

[lizreay.livejournal.com]

French-Mohawk from Montreal, Irish-Scottish-Swiss by way of the golden door. :)

[maiac.livejournal.com]

German all the way back on my mother's side, except my great-grandmother was Swiss. Scots, Irish, and German on my father's side. In 1995, my oldest sister found out the "Irish Catholic" Cowans were actually Scots Methodists, until our great-grandfather married an Irish Catholic and converted. When I visited Scotland for the 1995 Worldcon, I decided that the Scots genes predominate in me -- at least whichever genes influence personality and sense of humor.

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

Ashkenazi Jewish--Eastern European, that is.

By way of Canada on my father's father's part.

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

Father's side: Anglo-Welsh. We can trace the family back to the mid-14th Century (let's hear it for accurate church records!) Dad came over in 1952 to get away from England's post-war depression.

On my mom's side, mostly Irish with some German. My first ancestor (that we know of) in the Americas came over from Ireland in the 1870s.