The Great American White Melting Pot
"Eventually we'll all be one shade of European, anyway, so let's do it, Inga."
My kin were just a few in a long line of immigrants to settle Nebraska: some came because of the Homestead Act, others built the railroad. They stayed because this was their Plymouth Rock. This was truly the American dream—the promise of a fresh start, the idea of ownership. Now the American Dream is having a blog read by at least three people not related to you.
In Nebraska, immigrants set up all sorts of townships that most of their own countrymen gravitated toward. There’s Wilber (Czech), Dannebrog (Danish), Stromsburg, Wausa and Oakland (bitterly fighting for title of Swede Capital of Nebraska), O’Neill (Irish), Loup City (Polish), Ohiowa (Dorks) and more.
None of these farming communities are very big; in fact, most are slowly disappearing. If you did the grand tour of these cities, I’d first off call you the most bored person on Earth and possibly mentally insane, and I’d also bet that you’d think each town was incredibly similar outside of that sign at the entrance of town that read “(ethnic group here) Capital of Nebraska.”
There’s really not much difference, at base, between the ethnic groups in big cities compared to the ethnic groups in our state, except it takes longer to go to the other city to go beat the hell out of someone for looking at your sister. In a big city, that march is just a couple minutes away. It’s easier to make the decision to pummel some Poles when you don’t have to estimate how much it will cost you in time, gas and wear & tear on your car to see if the beating is worth it.
Over time, of course, the ethnic divide has narrowed as people of different national backgrounds have crossed boundaries to have babies. My father is of mainly English descent, my mother of mainly Irish descent. In a court of law, I can use this information for the basis for pretty much any insanity defense.
Of course, my mother is only part Irish as her mother’s parents were Scandinavian. No matter what kind of stew your genes resemble, people generally identify with one part of their heritage, and for Rufus it’s the Irishness. Hickman comes from the name “Hickey” which in Irishness means “healer” and in English “Hickey” means “a love bruise from sucking.” So after years of ethnic cross-breeding, Rufus’s name in American means “leech.”
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