I’m posting this again for St. Patrick’s Day 2022. Have a Happy Emerald Green Day!
Many an American has taken that soul-searching, family-roots-searching trip back to the home country to see if they can find traces of fellow descendants who grew up on the other side of the Atlantic. Some are just happy to see the land of their fore-fathers.
Here I will tell you about Sean Canon, who as far as I know does not exist, but there is a good chance that someone very similar to him does indeed. He is a third generation American. Recently retired and traveling with his wife who is also recently benefiting from her Roth IRA. His family is said to be from County Donegal, Ireland, so I imagine him landing in Carrickfinn which is less than an hour away from where his great-grandparents where born.
The first blade of grass that he sees once he leaves the airport is a marvelous, shimmering green. Like a precious stone, in glimmers in the sun. « No wonder, Ireland is nicknamed ‘ the Emerald Isle,’ » he gratifyingly says to his wife, Trish.
They remark that they’ve never seen so many green coats adorned by women in long red hair. « They certainly know how to show it off ! » exclaims Sean, a redhead himself. « I’ll have to get myself a green coat too ! »
Less glamorous to Mr. Canon, is the milky, painfully pale skin that he has loathed all of his life, especially as a teenager. To be surrounded by so many summer sun cringing lads like himself makes him feel like maybe it isn’t so bad. He feels sense of belonging. And it feels great.
Trish, his wife, of half Ashkenazi and half Italian background, cannot share in his rejoicing but none-the-less is able to point out facial similarities to her husband of the passer-bys they encounter. « Look at that guy’s chin, it’s just like yours. »
« And that guy over there, we have the same nose, » Sean says in a whisper, trying not to attract too much attention. He continues scanning over the faces. He sees someone who looks like his brother Brian, another like his cousin Eric. A sense of belonging fills his chest, rises and lifts his cheeks. He is wearing a light smile and feeling happy.
Actually, the only time when he feels different is when he has to open his mouth. If I start to speak, then I will give myself away, he says in a tiny voice to himself. They will know that I’m not really fom here. He seriously hesitates to say anything at all. His ears happily basking in that warm, light-hearted sing-song of the Irish brogue. He feels embarrassed to open his mouth and spew his American monotone sluggish garble. But, eventually, one must speak ! So, he does. And it goes fine.
Looking for a place for breakfast, the next morning, they walk past numeours businesses sporting Irish family names : McDaid, Gallagher, Bonar and O’Donnell. They go to the library which has a geneaolgy section catering to people like them because the yearning lost souls traveling back to the mother land are so many. They ask for the whereabouts of the Canons and are thrilled to learn that yes, there are indeed plenty in County Donegal. There are different spellings, some more Irish, others more English, but they all are basically the same name. His name, Canon, is an anglicized version of the Irish surname O’Canainn. But the name can also be spelled O’Cannon, Cannin, Cannen, and there are many more.
« There’s a jewelry store that sells beautiful claddagh rings run by a man named Canon just down the street, » adds the genealogist, giving Sean a friendly tap on the shoulder. « Don’t be cheap. Buy your wife something fancy, Canon ! » They all share in a warm laugh. It feels good to be a Canon in Donegal. It feels good to be a part of it.
*
I, too, went on a trip to the home country: Ireland. Like, Mr. Canon, I craved something that would feel like family. However, because of my physical appearance which screams Middle Eastern more than Irish, it was a different experience.
Like Sean, I too, admired the higher-percentage-than-what-I’m-used-to population of redheads (in green coats) and that stunning emerald vegetation. (It’s one of those things that you cannot take home in a camera. You just have to see it for yourself!). Like Mr. Canon, I was also accompanied. I was with my mother, who will tell you, like Sean, that she is 100 % Irish. Noses like hers, we saw plenty.
Unlike the Canons, though, we did not get around much. Due to my mother’s serious knee complications we were limited in our outtings together. The most adventurous thing we did was go to a supermarket. Like probably countless zealous Irish-Americans before me, I got super excited when I saw potatoes and read that they were grown in Ireland. « Irish potatoes ! » I cried out to my mother. And, of course, I had to buy them, bring them back to our hotel and cook them.
You see, our family experience of immigration was due to that infamous Potato Famine in the mid 19th century. So, really, there was no reason for me to get giddy about a potato. If anything I should break down in tears when I see one. But I don’t. I think they’re great.
Leaving that supermarket with the sexy potatoes in hand, I saw that it had begun raining. Hard. We weren’t too far from our hotel, but I wanted to be sure about the way back before dragging my snail-moving mother out into the wet muddy mess. I walked up to the closest major street. A taxi-driver pulled over, assuming I was looking for a ride. He rolled down the window. Sitting at the steering wheel was a guy who didn’t look like the red-haired, pale-skinned Sean Canon at all. Just like myself, he wasn’t quite White. My guess was Bangladeshi or somewhere nearby. His accent did not sing, like Sean’s great grandfather’s either, rather it hopped.
And then, suddenly. There in the pouring rain. I had a flash of realisation that came on like a tsunami wave. Filling my mind with enough water/ ink to fill, at least, 100 pages.
I was not naive. I knew that, as a tourist, I was experiencing the best of Ireland. Everybody was polite. Everybody smiled. But, just passing through a place and living the every day grind are two distinct experiences. I had heard enough about racism in northern Europe to know that people who looked like me or the taxi driver would never be completely accepted – regardless of their accent. In that moment, I saw the Brown Asian man, obviously a foreigner from his accent, and felt a sadness combined with a feeling of comradery. We both knew what it was like to not belong. To be treated as the other. To be apart and not a part.
I was suppose to be going to the country that my people came from : Ireland ! Wonderful, beautiful, loving Ireland ! The country of my blood. My folk. My kin. But, unlike Sean, I could never feel that belonging that he experienced. My physical appearance would always win in the eyes of the Hibernians. I didn’t have to live there to know this. I had already experienced this in the U.S.A. and in France.
I bet you’re shaking your heads now.
Shame on you, Mecca, you’re thinkging. The Irish aren’t any more racist than anybody else. No worries there. I totally agree. Racism is found wherever the offspring of Adam is found, as the Egyptians call humans sometimes.
(As a side note : I did go to a country once, where, for the first time, I looked like, or at least, thought, I look liked everyone else. It was Lebanon. The streets were abound with fair-skinned, dark haired ladies with dark deep-set eyes like my own.)
*
So, if I might as well be a Bangledeshi taxi cab driver, is there anything Irish about me at all ?
I like to think so, but the Irish in me can not be seen. Only heard.
Two Irish traits I have come to mind. They make me think of the home country because I notice them in all of the Irish with whom I have worked :
1. My deadpan dry humor.
I am known to say outlandish things with the straightest poker-face. Or make a droll observation using a monotone voice.
2. My dark or morbid humor.
Yes, sometimes, when things are bad, I mean really ridiculously horrible – you just have to laugh about it. It’s either that or scream. (The Hibernians have known lots of hardship. I really don’t know why we say that the Irish are lucky. Is it wishful thinking ? Dark humor ?)
The Lady Bountifuls I know just kill me when they go on a trip to a « poor » country in Asia or Africa, come back and tell me : « They are so poor over there, but always smiling ! Always happy ! We should really follow their example. We are so lucky. We have so much. »
I just shake my head. Duh ! What do you want them to do ?! Just stop functioning and spend their days crying ?! They don’t have time for that. Being visibly depressed is a luxury in a way, reserved for the wealthy, or people who have time to spend mopping around.
Like singing the Blues or Mountian Music, laughing about or making morbid jokes about hardship can be therapeutic. The Irish, who have had more than their share of difficulty understand this perfectly. Well before the potatoes were destroyed by blight, the Irish were suffering intense injustice. They were singing, making dark jokes, laughing and smiling (and praying, of course). There was so much of this, that, I guess that it just got into our genes. And travelled over the Atlantic to America. And so here I am today, Friday March 4, 2022, laughing about the way I limp around because I just fell on my coccyx. Of course that’s not the best example, but it is the most immediate one I can find.
*
I will bring it to a close with the fate of those supermarket potatoes. When I got them back to the hotel I learned that they were a very firm variety of potato. « Hard like the hard-headed Hibernians, » I joked with my mom.
I love this kind of potato, because, it is great for making French fries. Which, of course, are Belgian.
Mecca O’Canainn * March 5, 2022
Pardon My France 