White is not a cultural background

The Ancestors I Didn’t Know I Was Missing

White is a culture. Many white Americans struggle to see white culture because we have spent most of our lives swimming in it. Like fish in water, what surrounds us can become invisible. I also suggested that white culture has values, stories, assumptions, and expectations that have shaped American institutions and public life.

But there is another side to that conversation.

While white functions as a culture, it is not a cultural background.

For most of us, our cultural background comes from somewhere else.

For most of my life, I thought white or American was my cultural background. If someone asked about my ancestry, I would usually shrug and say I was generic white. A mutt. I didn’t know much beyond that.

My family’s mythology was that we were Norwegian and probably more Native American than our racist grandfathers were willing to admit. Like many family stories, those claims floated around without much evidence. They were simply part of the narrative.

Several years ago, I took one of those DNA ancestry tests. To be honest, I only took it because of the medical information. Knowing my ancestry meant so little to me that when the results came back, I didn’t even bother looking at them for almost a year.

When I finally opened the report, I learned something surprising.

The racist grandfathers were apparently correct.

But it turns out I am mostly British and Irish not Norwegian. So I now joke that I am basically a beer-drinking colonist. The results fit better than I expected.

Later I mentioned this to a historian friend of mine. He laughed and said, “That makes sense.”

Then he started telling me my story.

He explained that many Irish peasants fled to London looking for work during times of famine and economic hardship. Later, many of those same families crossed the Atlantic looking for opportunity in America. He said, “I would bet that’s your family.”

Now there may be a way to prove that theory right or wrong, but I will probably never spend the time to find out. Still, hearing it changed something for me. Suddenly I wasn’t just generic white anymore. I could begin to imagine actual people. People who struggled. People who migrated. People who hoped for something better. People whose decisions eventually made my life possible.

The experience made me think differently about ancestry.

Not long after that, I attended a work conference where I was placed in a small discussion group. There were seven of us. Everyone in the group was a woman of color except for one Black man and me.

We became instant friends.

At one point we skipped a session and spent our time talking honestly about the conference, our jobs, race, society, and life. It was one of those conversations that felt more valuable than anything happening on the official schedule.

At some point I made a joke about being generic white and not really knowing my ancestry.

The group got quiet.

One of them finally responded.

“That’s one of the problems with white people.”

I laughed.

She wasn’t joking.

“You’ll never grow and heal unless you do your own ancestry work.”

At the time, ancestry work sounded a little new-agey and woo-woo to me. It wasn’t language I would have chosen for myself. But one conviction I have developed over the years is that People of Color often understand whiteness better than white people do.

After all, I have spent most of my life living inside the fishbowl. Many people of color have spent their entire lives learning how to navigate it.

So I listened.

Over time, I have become convinced they were right. White may function as a culture, but it is not a cultural background.

My cultural story did not begin with America. It began with people whose names I do not know. People who lived in places I have never seen. People who carried hopes, fears, traditions, and dreams long before they became part of the American story.

Part of learning how to navigate a multicultural society is learning who we are. Not just as Americans. Not just as white people. But as people whose stories started somewhere before America.

For many white Americans, something was lost when our ancestors became white. This was an intentional strategy of the American experience. Distinct histories were folded into a broader category. Irish became white eventually but not fully embraced at the beginning for concerns over economics of immigration. Italians became white. Germans became white. Poles became white. Over time, many of us forgot where our stories began.

Recovering those stories does not solve everything. It does not erase racism. It does not automatically make us more culturally aware.

But it does give us roots.

As one of the women at that conference told me, “You are still the dream fulfilled of someone in your family who came before you. Someone who made a cross-continental journey and hoped for a better life.”

I think about that often. Not because it makes me proud. Because it makes me grateful.

And because it reminds me that before I was white, my family had a story.