We Missed The Boat

Parent Cafe
41

One of my children’s grandmothers suffered from severe depression for about 20 years and committed suicide before my kids were born. Even the most cursory search into family history would reveal her illness and the manner of her death.

It was up to my husband and me to decide whether and when to share this information with our children. And after they learned about it, it was up to them whether and when to share this information with others.

I would have been greatly disturbed if they had been forced to confront this information too soon or to share it with others against their will because of a school assignment.

42

"
I don’t understand the reluctance, either. Good or bad, it’s our family history. And we are not responsible for what others did, but the bad is part of life. I think I would want to know."

Not every person, or even every culture shares this view. In Japan every Japanese family has a Koseki, or family registry - which is legal document in which all family members and their statuses are recorded. It serves the same legal function as a birth, marriage, or death certificate all rolled into one. Most names are entered in black ink, but if you are either convicted of a crime or have suffered serious mental illness your name is entered in the family Koseki in red ink.

If you have any red ink in your ancestry your marriage prospects go way down. When a marriage is proposed between members of two respectable families the Kosekis are exchanged, and the pedigrees are examined with every bit as much diligence and scrutiny as is applied by horse breeders on a Kentucky thoroughbred farm. And if there is even a hint of red in past generations,the wedding is off.

Employers used to demand to see the Koseki of prospective employees too. But a law was passed about 10 years ago making it illegal for employers to demand the Koseki.

43

Another factor is if there’s any evidence of burakumin descent or even suspicions of such as they were long heavily discriminated against as they are in many ways the equivalent to the “Untouchables” caste in India:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burakumin

44

The reason they teach history the way they do is a combination of things, mostly expediency with more than a bit of politics thrown in, too. If you teach about the civil war and give out dry facts, that states started seceding in 1860, that sumter was shelled in april 1861, that this battle happened then fought by this brigade and that general, it is all clean and cold…but if you start delving into it, it gets messy. Then, too, we have the standardized tests, AP US History to me is not history, it is a bunch of facts regurgitated for a standardized tests, I took history in college, had some damn good teachers, and the AP didn’t represent those classes whatsoever, teaching history for multiple choice or fill in the blank tests is not history.

One of the biggest things it robs is that history ultimately is about people. Arnold Toynbee spent a lifetime with his great ‘circles of history’ stuff (which I think is nonsense), when the reality is that history doesn’t repeat itself but people do. You can’t personalize history, but you can use personal stories to teach it in school. It drove my father nuts, who survived the Great Depression, to hear people in recent times talk about how it wasn’t so bad, how the ‘tough times made people stronger’, how it in some ways was a great time, and he was ready to literally strangle the people who said that…it is why the books of Studs Terkel should be used in history courses, because they tell people’s tales, you learn about what WWII was like, you learn why someone could go from being a KKK Grand Dragon to being a civil rights activist. School history that I had covered the period from the end of the revolution until Washington took office as “well, the colonies won the war, after 1783 they existed under the articles of confederation, didn’t like it, came together and created the constitution”, mentioned some of the people, mentioned the federalist/anti federalist divide, they mention things like the Great Compromise, maybe mention the slaves being 3/5 of a person, but it is so shallow it is ridiculous. Among other things, they avoid (deliberately) that the country was in desperate times, in large part because it was a confederation of states (which sort of lays lie to the claim that states rule better, if that was better, we should have stayed Briitish), they also make it seem like it was this clean process, when it was contentious, the anti federalist walked out of the convention, there were rebellions going on, and the battles being fought then are still being fought today, and quite honestly, if they actually taught about that period, they also would realize that claiming anyone knows ‘what the founders wanted’ is ludicrous, because they couldn’t agree on much (put it this way, the people who wrote the constitution and were the key people who wrote the constitution, wanted to minimize state power for the most part)…

we get the idea from history classes that everyone in the colonies outside the ‘scoundrels’ who were Loyalists were all die hard patriots, when at any given time only about a third the population fully supported independence (it was about 1/3rd fully supporting, 1/3 supportive but didn’t think it could be won and feared the consequences, 1/3 were loyal). We also get the idea that the army went hungry and begging because the colonies were too poor to pay the soldiers and provision them, when most of it was because the continental congress had no authority to tax and the colonies, especially the wealthy ones, refused to tax themselves to support it…but that would be controversial in some quarters, so they make it seem like the country didn’t have the resources to fight, lot easier.

It came to me the other night, there was a report on NPR about a proposed Mosque in Bayonne, NJ, and this woman got up and gave this long harrangue against Islam, how a religion doesn’t do what Islam does, etc. By her name I am assuming the woman was Catholic, and did she ever read what people thought of Catholics in the US and the ‘threat’ they posed? Did she ever read about what her own church and others did in the name of their faith that was just as brutal? When Santayana gave his famous line about history, it doesn’t just apply to decision makers, it should apply to us all, if you know history you can learn to see what is going on…which likely is why they have gutted school curricula in terms of history and civics and turned it into points on an AP test or state exam sigh

45

Of course, even the reason that the states seceded is not universally agreed on. Despite what [original source documents](Search | American Battlefield Trust) say, people still argue about whether the primary reason was slavery, or some more generic states’ rights where slavery was not the main one.

46

Please don’t do that. Most people don’t know enough about names to be able to tell which religion the immigrant ancestor with that name was. Once they got here, people intermarried with other ethnic groups and faiths. Other people converted or lost their faith completely and became atheists or agnostics. You really cannot tell what faith someone is from his/her name.(Heck,all that you can tell about their ethnicity is that they are probably PART X.) Additionally, do you know whether the woman was married? If she is and is using her H’s surname, you really cannot tell anything about ethnicity let alone religion.

47

A large part of that is due the local elites’ strong state of denial of that historical fact despite ample firsthand documents documenting slavery as a key part of the “States Rights” argument in many southern states and how such elites perpetuated this by omitting and strongly discouraging/punishing K-12 teachers who attempt to even touch on it.

Several undergrad classmates and colleagues who came from such southern states have recounted their local K-12 schools reinforced this denialist attitudes among their local governing elite, school board members, school teachers/admins, neighbors, and parents.

It was one of the reasons why some felt leaving their home states and attending an LAC like Oberlin was necessary even if they had to keep Oberlin’s radical progressive lefty reputation away from their parents/neighbors* and later, to never return after graduation.

*Much more easily done when I was an undergrad as that was the time the interwebs only started to become popularized in the home and many parents couldn’t be bothered to research school reps deeply.

48

John Jakes - I wonder if you are actually talking about the North and South book and movie trilogy. I have never enjoyed History either but those movies did Peak some interest. I believe I have read everything he has written. The series that he wrote with a title you mention is outstanding. I absolutely love the Saga that goes on and on and on. I found the knowing that it is fiction I was questioning many of the historical facts in it and was researching while reading. Surprised to find how much I enjoyed it.

Edited to add: just looked it up and the Kent family chronicles was a 70’s mini series based on John Jakes books including the one originally mentioned

49

I subbed in the 2nd grade today as an aide who assisted an autistic boy. Imagine my surprise when Social Studies time came and I looked up on the white board. There was little old New Orleans on a map with several rivers emanating from it’s area. Yup…The Battle of New Orleans and the War of 1812 was covered for the next 30 minutes. Not a hot topic for 8-year old kids but they’ll get used to it.

Our ancestors did have access to a wealth of records besides family photos and oral histories. They could delve into city and county directories, birth records, baptism records, school yearbooks, marriage records, US censuses, state censuses, naturalization applications, family bibles, Civil War records, Revolutionary War records, social clubs newsletters, passenger ship information, and records from their homeland.

I mentioned serfs because I discovered that it was illegal for my ancestors to leave their village without their noble’s permission and he owned their tiny garden plot and house. They were also under the rule of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. That meant when a boy turned 18, he was forced to serve in the A-H army for the next 10 years. Because he was of a different nationality, that meant he went up to the front lines to serve as cannon fodder. The smart ones ran away at age 17 and found their way to America. That’s what I never learned in school and college. I can give you other examples from just my family’s history…Purges, epidemics, reasons why they settled in certain cities in the US, etc.

50

A friend sold the family farm after her parents died. For the IRS form, she had to come up with a cost basis. It was bought in 1848 for two male slaves (not the words they used) and a hog.

Coming from poor European stock (three grandparents) and a reservation born tribe member (the other one), there is little family history pre-1900. Forty years ago when I had this assignment in elementary school, my grandparents had just cursory knowledge of their ancestry. Other kids’ presentations were way more thorough and interesting.

51

Even the simplest thing can go awry.

Take my own “what does your dad do for a living” project in fifth grade. (Way back when dad’s worked and mom’s stayed at home mostly but that could be easily worked around.)

Sounds so easy! So many doctors, lawyers, small business owners, teachers, work here, there, thither and yon. Draw a picture of the place your dad (mom) works at. Present it in class.
Easy!
Except me.
Dad: No,. I can’t tell you what I do (he didn’t say that specifically but I got it years later…)
. And I work in a small white non-descript building. Here, take a piece of paper and voila! a paper cube of where I work…here–we’ll draw lines on it and make doors and two miniscule windows…
Me: And what the heck am I supposed to do in front of my class for this project? (again, not real quotes).

Overall a horrible experience as a fifth grader at the time.

52

My father’s oldest brother was regarded by my paternal grandfather and the rest of that side of the family as the embarrassing “black sheep” of the family for being expelled from university in the '20s for violating university rules for offenses which would be par for the course for many party-hearty US undergrads concentrating on the beer/partying double majors.

That expulsion caused him to be disowned by said grandfather who also forbade his name to be mentioned in his presence.

After being expelled from university, said uncle joined those applying to the earlier classes of the Whampoa Military Academy and was accepted as an officer cadet in one of their earlier classes. This part wasn’t too much of a surprise considering his university background made him one of the most educated applicants in that incoming class. However, his roguish outspoken nature and penchant for hijinks didn’t endear himself to the higher brass once he graduated as a junior officer and by 1937, he was on the edge of being cashiered in disgrace as a company commander.

Only the Marco Polo Bridge Incident which sparked the Second Sino-Japanese war saved him from being cashiered in disgrace as the war meant the Nationalist Chinese government suddenly needed every academy trained officer they had…even those with a roguish outspoken rep as my uncle.

From that point, he fought the Japanese as an infantry officer and in time, received promotions to the point he was killed in action as a senior field commander sometime in '43-44. Unfortunately, despite his subsequent honorable combat record, my grandfather never reconciled with my uncle before his demise.

@TonyK

Out of curiosity, which part of the Austro-Hungarian empire were your ancestors from and when did they emigrate?

53

@jonri-
Given the town we are talking about, and the way the woman was talking, her accent, way of speaking, I would bet a lot of money she was Italian and likely was raised Catholic, I am from that background and the inflections in the way she speaks English tells me she grew up in an Italian family, probably blue collar, and in Bayonne that almost certainly means she was at least raised Catholic. The fundamental point I was trying to make was she didn’t know her own history, she was saying all these foul things about Islam as a religion, how religions don’t do things like that, promote hate, kill people, and more importantly, that Catholics through history both promoted violence in the name of their faith and also were often the victims of that kind of hatred and fear mongering, the nativist battles in NYC in the mid 19th century were to a not small amount between earlier protestants and the Irish Catholics coming to the US because of the famine.

54

History is often in dispute, for a lot of reasons. In terms of secession, the states right argument is still proposed, but there is a fundamental problem with that, and it is in the timing of it. If it truly was over the tariffs and such that would’t allow the south to sell their cotton to England or the feeling like the northern government (as they saw it) wouldn’t let them build industry in the south and the like, those issues had been simmering for years. The states started seceding in 1860 after the election in November, 1860 (S.Carolina was in December, a month after) and they openly said it was in fear of Lincoln abolishing slavery (which he had gone out of his way during the campaign to say he was not going to do),it is very hard to claim states rights when the fundamental issue was fear of the abolition of slavery, the other issues cited had been around for decades, and as they say, if s. Carolina seceded one month after Lincoln was elected, it is kind of hard to deny cause and effect, especially given the words of those seceding. Schools love to teach that the Civil war wasn’t about slavery, pointing out that lincoln wanted to save the union above all, but what that leaves out that founded or unfounded, the states seceded over fear of slavery being abolished by Lincoln as president, and later on the only requirements for the southern states to return to the union was to swear allegiance to the union and give up slavery, and the war went on for 4 years.

55

@cobrat

They were from Bohemia. None of them were forced into the army at age 18 as that order was suspended. As soon as the travel restriction was lifted, three brothers left with their families for the US in the 1860’s and 1870’s. Their village had a population of around 1,000 at the time. Today, after three wars and emigration, there are only 90 people still living there!

56

Czech speaking? (versus German speaking)

The declarations of causes of secession written by the seceding states’ governments in 1860-1861 make it more than obvious that slavery was the biggest reason for secession, without having to argue about timing, generic states’ rights, and what not.
http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/primarysources/declarationofcauses.html

For example:

57

@TonyK

I read an interesting court case a while back about an American-born son of parents of Austro-Hungarian nationality who happened to be visiting his relatives in his parents’ hometown in the summer of 1914. The war started just before he was due to return back to the states and as he was close to military draft age, was prevented from leaving by empire military draft officials despite his vehement protestations of being American-born US citizen and his never declaring alligiance to the empire.

No matter, he was drafted and ended up serving in the A-H army for the duration of the war and ended the war as a Lieutenant promoted from the ranks. Despite all that, he still attempted to sue the successor state to the Austro-Hungarian Empire for conscripting him in a US court and filed his suit accordingly. From what I recalled, it was ultimately dismissed due to lack of jurisdiction of the US court and the fact the Austrian state was unlikely to be willing or in any position to pay considering the war’s effect on the finances of the Austrian and other successor states to the empire.

Also, one Jewish older HS alum and client had a grandfather who was conscripted into the Imperial German Army in WWI and had a photo of him in uniform and a few medals.

From the uniform, it seemed his grandfather rapidly got promoted to a senior NCO rank which is impressive considering he was a conscript and the prevailing anti-semitism within Imperial German society at the time.

58

@ucbalumnus: They were Czech-speaking.

59

Some countries have jus sanguinis citizenship or nationality (by descent / bloodline) and consider descendants of their citizens or nationals as their own citizens or nationals for the purpose of various obligations of such, including mandatory military service. If Austria - Hungary had that citizenship or nationality policy, it is not hard to see how that can happen.

In World War II, Japan apparently had a similar citizenship and nationality policy and conscripted US-born Japanese Americans who happened to be visiting Japan and got stuck there when the war started. Example:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/08/us/veterans-in-focus-7-brothers-world-war-ii/

60

If you have some dreadful secret in your immediate family tree, the correct thing to do is to lie about it. There is no extra credit for giving the teacher an honest report.