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COYOTE ARCHIVE
Dick Prosapio aka, Coyote is a member of the TMC Advisory Council, ceremonialist, psycho-
therapist (ret.), author, leader of men's experiential workshops, & Co-founder of The Foundation for Common Sense. He lives with his wife and daughter in Stanley, NM
For more info about Dick Prosapio, visit his web-site:
Spirit/ Earth Path
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Hyphenation, a Bridge or a Barrier
by
Dick Prosapio © 2003
I was watching a PBS program recently in which several gay couples were reported to be investing in, and working on a project to re-hab housing for themselves in a low income black community. Among the complaints the residents had was that, "These people have money and are fixing up these houses and we can't afford to do all that kind of fixing."
So one of the problems was not that the new comers were bringing the neighborhood down but that they were bringing it up! Nobody mentioned racism or sexism or economics.......the problem didn't seem to really have a definition, not a clear one at any rate.
But what stood out for me was the constant use by both groups of the "hyphen" when they referred to each other; the terms, "Gay-Americans" and "African-Americans" were used in every conversation between and within the groups, in private or in public......and what I noticed was that it seemed it was the constant use of the hyphen that kept the differences alive. It led me to wonder if, in service of keeping everyone apprised and appreciative of ethnic roots, this hypenization of America is really acting as a way of keeping us distanced from one another.
As an Italian-Irish-Scotch-Dutch-possiblyGerman-and......maybe Viking-American should I feel very different from you if you identify yourself simply as "American"? Would it be the same kind of reaction one might have when you discover that a Californian is not necessarily a transplant from the Middle West?
"That's it?" I'd be tempted to ask. "You really are a native? How rare." or, "How dull." Etc.
My fathers mother and father came over from Italy and the first thing their kids, who were born here, wanted to do was become American. "Forget the old country!" they'd tell their home sick parents, "You're in America now, we're Americans." I'd ask my mother if she thought of herself as Irish or Scotch or Dutch or what. She'd say, "I'm American that's all." My father would say, "Italian" (pause) ".and I'm American" would come later. But I had begun looking for an identity that was more substantial, something with more history and mystery than just being an American. I mean, in those days everybody was "American". This was even more true for my kids. So much so that the typical teen quest for identity began to exclude being an American at all and include being whatever the "Roots" declared or implied. If my oldest teen daughter were asked, "What are you?" She would respond, "Mexican." identifying with her mother's side which was more easily defined. Years later, as she became more sure of herself she would add "American" to the reply. "Assimilation" was kept at arms length with a hyphen.
I don't know if this is true in other countries; are there American-Canadians? American-Mexicans? Usually Americans who decide to move to France, for example, became "American ex-patriots" but did they call themselves American-Frenchmen? I never heard the term.
Don't get me wrong, I think the hyphen thing has its place, but its use these days as an automatic ID seems more a way to say "I'm different from you." than a way of saying we are all in the same boat.......or at least, in the same country. I wonder if those people in that neighborhood-in-transition could have been brought a bit closer to working together if they had both been acknowledging one another as "Americans" rather than versions of Americans as delineated by their particular hyphens.
By the way, when I'm filling out one of those forms that asks what my ethnicity is, since I was born here, shouldn't I check "native-American"?
Dick Prosapio ©2003, All Rights Reserved
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