Several years ago I took a class from a colleague titled Sociology of Family Tree. It was an interesting exercise on how to weave the larger context into the family history. I have since revised parts of my family tree including a wider perspective including Red Lining (very relevant to my Chicago family) and the changes in immigration laws in the early 20th Century. Zerubavel has a book "Ancestry and Relative: Genealogy, Identity, and Community" that is a good resource. Christine Sleeter has several books and a web page on critical family history. Her web page is https://www.christinesleeter.org/critical-family-history. I think it is important was use explore our own identity to make sure we move beyond nostalgia and try as best as possible to reflect the larger social currents including the uncertainties. I am enjoying your reflections, thank you for sharing.
Thanks for the reference. I'm a true novice when it comes to the actual genealogy work, though I have a little more practice putting family history into a larger context in memoir. There is a lot I still don't know about Czechia and about Czech towns in Nebraska. Appreciate your insights!
Good wishes on this journey! My own grandmother got on a boat in Pusan in 1923 (when my grandfather came to get her, 17 years after their betrothal and his arrival on the mainland U.S. She knew, then, that she was saying goodbye forever to her mother, father, many sisters, and extended family. She had a strong sense of adventure, I'm told. Also, there's nothing like an occupied country to provide incentive to depart.
That is quite a family story. I don't have evidence whether Karel/Charles ever saw anyone in his hometown again. But since quite a few of them seem to have immigrated together, I guess he felt like his village came with him. Of course I'm now thinking about all of this alongside the tragedy yesterday in Texas.
Let's face it: most people would never leave their homes if they didn't feel they had to. A month after my grandmothers' arrival, immigration from all "Asiatic" nations was effectively cut off until 1965. The Great Immigration Act of 1924 would have made her journey a very different story had she attempted it at all.
My dad’s name is Karel, came to Chicago from Czech in 1950, one of the last waves of immigrants to come after surviving WW2. He used Charles too, and most Americans called him Charlie. He is cremated and still home with me. I’ll use Karel when I decide his final resting place as that is his birth name and gives me a sense of ethnic pride. Thanks for sharing your written thoughts. I’ll be following.
Anna, I'm sorry for your loss. Your father must have died recently. Thanks for sharing your story. I'm proud of my Czech roots, though I'm finding them elusive and I understand why some generations preferred to look to the future rather than preserve records or memories of the past.
No, it’s been over 30 years that he is gone! Thank you for your concern though. Each fragment of the past that we discover helps to put together our life’s puzzle. Those odd pieces just make it more interesting. My mother’s side came over much earlier and the twists and turns their lives took have been intriguing to discover!
Your journey is weirdly similar to mine. I left a solid career with my labor union ( Ironworkers 401) where I was close to getting into the political side of things ( business agent ), but felt a great conflict with some things I hadn't done with my family, and the urge to finally write - something I found difficult in the family/work routine that I had developed in Philadelphia. It's tough though, once you have the desire to write, unless you do write you're life feels as if it missed its mark. Don't know if getting a book written will make me fulfilled... do know that not writing feels off.
but anyway, I'm trying to dissect my own family's history in Philadelphia, working on that memoir, which is a weird parallel to the immigrant farmer story - the immigrant urban dweller who made a fat life not off of the land but from the economic abundance of the era. I, too, am exploring alot of the racial issues of my family and community.
But what stands out to me in your story ( and by the way i left Philly to homestead in Alaska ( on my measly 2 acres!) is a man being able to claim 160 acres of land. America, home of the business man, was just a vast wealth redistribution to those with nothing. ( taken from the native yes). To think! 160 acres! what is the value of that today nominal! I know he worked his brains out and all power to him, but good God, what a once in a lifetime strange time in the universe when a poor working man ( white ) with initiative could claim 160 acres of productive earth. The biggest capitalist country in the wealth was launched on the foundation of a massive socialist land distribution. Ironic. My youngest is a Charles - but in philly you become a Challie, but all good yeshua and keep up the good work
Thanks Vince. There were wheels within wheels even during the homestead era. I don't know for certain that Karel got 160 acres or that by the time he married in 1883 that he'd have gotten anything for free. But the Free Soil Party and others did pave the way for white settlers exactly like Karel, so his cannot be a story purely of hard work paying off (and I'm not sure how much wealth ever accumulated, how much was lost during the Farm Crisis, etc.). If you have the stomach for a deep dive into this period, check out David Blight's free Yale course on the Civil War and Reconstruction (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noph6RYyWvg&list=PL5DD220D6A1282057&index=7). I do know that because of the Free Soil vision of the West, I was raised -- by design -- to think of myself and my family history as absolved from the Native American Holocaust and from slavery. Much of the West was settled with selective amnesia.
Yes, I agree with the selective amnesia. I'm also very focused, almost laser-focused on race relations in philadelphia, they are the elephant in the room that people have lost the ability to talk about anymore. Historical guilty is tricky though, pointing the finger and telling people they are bad often has the opposite effect of what is intended. Do you know many professors who are out there lending a hand amidst the depressing, sometimes hopeless atmosphere of the ghetto or the reservation? Nothing infuriated me more as a young man than a college professor, living a life of privilege, and also a proponent ( whether they realize it or not) of the same western mindset ( growth at all costs ) that is still to this present day choosing economic values over human ones - and I write that while nodding my head and agreeing with you about what happened in the West and America. But moralizing about how bad things used to be, while still actively working on a modern day plantation economy, strikes me as some sort of intellectual cop-out that relieves modern intellectuals from the responsibility to get their hands dirty by going in to the blown up places and actually trying to help. And as a writer, creating narratives, is one of the ways you can help... but my specific question ( and my accusations aren't personally directed at you but more in general towards academia - which you have impressively left behind) - is how do we as a people move towards making amends and improving our world, in a concrete way... how do we get skin in the game. As writers maybe we have an important role to tell that story, of unity and brotherhood, of the possibilities of love and compassion, but if as we have are words words stinking words and are scared to sweat and bleed and build then all we will have are these stinking words
heres a recent post of mine about race relations on the fourth of july
Actually, I do know many professors who are active in volunteering and other forms of service and who often enlist their classes for those efforts. I don't hate professors -- I used to be one and still am at heart in many ways. Without research, theory, and the production of knowledge about race, we wouldn't have a strong grasp of national history or a vocabulary for making sense of race relations past and present. I, personally, am not an activist. I admire those who are, but I'm often hesitant to reduce ideas to binary moral judgments. But there are some historical myths that are objectively false: the Christian nation idea, for instance, and much of the ideology underlying the frontier.
Several years ago I took a class from a colleague titled Sociology of Family Tree. It was an interesting exercise on how to weave the larger context into the family history. I have since revised parts of my family tree including a wider perspective including Red Lining (very relevant to my Chicago family) and the changes in immigration laws in the early 20th Century. Zerubavel has a book "Ancestry and Relative: Genealogy, Identity, and Community" that is a good resource. Christine Sleeter has several books and a web page on critical family history. Her web page is https://www.christinesleeter.org/critical-family-history. I think it is important was use explore our own identity to make sure we move beyond nostalgia and try as best as possible to reflect the larger social currents including the uncertainties. I am enjoying your reflections, thank you for sharing.
Thanks for the reference. I'm a true novice when it comes to the actual genealogy work, though I have a little more practice putting family history into a larger context in memoir. There is a lot I still don't know about Czechia and about Czech towns in Nebraska. Appreciate your insights!
Your search will be rewarded.
Good wishes on this journey! My own grandmother got on a boat in Pusan in 1923 (when my grandfather came to get her, 17 years after their betrothal and his arrival on the mainland U.S. She knew, then, that she was saying goodbye forever to her mother, father, many sisters, and extended family. She had a strong sense of adventure, I'm told. Also, there's nothing like an occupied country to provide incentive to depart.
That is quite a family story. I don't have evidence whether Karel/Charles ever saw anyone in his hometown again. But since quite a few of them seem to have immigrated together, I guess he felt like his village came with him. Of course I'm now thinking about all of this alongside the tragedy yesterday in Texas.
Let's face it: most people would never leave their homes if they didn't feel they had to. A month after my grandmothers' arrival, immigration from all "Asiatic" nations was effectively cut off until 1965. The Great Immigration Act of 1924 would have made her journey a very different story had she attempted it at all.
My dad’s name is Karel, came to Chicago from Czech in 1950, one of the last waves of immigrants to come after surviving WW2. He used Charles too, and most Americans called him Charlie. He is cremated and still home with me. I’ll use Karel when I decide his final resting place as that is his birth name and gives me a sense of ethnic pride. Thanks for sharing your written thoughts. I’ll be following.
Anna, I'm sorry for your loss. Your father must have died recently. Thanks for sharing your story. I'm proud of my Czech roots, though I'm finding them elusive and I understand why some generations preferred to look to the future rather than preserve records or memories of the past.
No, it’s been over 30 years that he is gone! Thank you for your concern though. Each fragment of the past that we discover helps to put together our life’s puzzle. Those odd pieces just make it more interesting. My mother’s side came over much earlier and the twists and turns their lives took have been intriguing to discover!
todays bloghttps://fatherofzoomers.substack.com/p/pro-life-and-pro-choice?r=jejuu&s=w&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Your journey is weirdly similar to mine. I left a solid career with my labor union ( Ironworkers 401) where I was close to getting into the political side of things ( business agent ), but felt a great conflict with some things I hadn't done with my family, and the urge to finally write - something I found difficult in the family/work routine that I had developed in Philadelphia. It's tough though, once you have the desire to write, unless you do write you're life feels as if it missed its mark. Don't know if getting a book written will make me fulfilled... do know that not writing feels off.
but anyway, I'm trying to dissect my own family's history in Philadelphia, working on that memoir, which is a weird parallel to the immigrant farmer story - the immigrant urban dweller who made a fat life not off of the land but from the economic abundance of the era. I, too, am exploring alot of the racial issues of my family and community.
But what stands out to me in your story ( and by the way i left Philly to homestead in Alaska ( on my measly 2 acres!) is a man being able to claim 160 acres of land. America, home of the business man, was just a vast wealth redistribution to those with nothing. ( taken from the native yes). To think! 160 acres! what is the value of that today nominal! I know he worked his brains out and all power to him, but good God, what a once in a lifetime strange time in the universe when a poor working man ( white ) with initiative could claim 160 acres of productive earth. The biggest capitalist country in the wealth was launched on the foundation of a massive socialist land distribution. Ironic. My youngest is a Charles - but in philly you become a Challie, but all good yeshua and keep up the good work
Thanks Vince. There were wheels within wheels even during the homestead era. I don't know for certain that Karel got 160 acres or that by the time he married in 1883 that he'd have gotten anything for free. But the Free Soil Party and others did pave the way for white settlers exactly like Karel, so his cannot be a story purely of hard work paying off (and I'm not sure how much wealth ever accumulated, how much was lost during the Farm Crisis, etc.). If you have the stomach for a deep dive into this period, check out David Blight's free Yale course on the Civil War and Reconstruction (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noph6RYyWvg&list=PL5DD220D6A1282057&index=7). I do know that because of the Free Soil vision of the West, I was raised -- by design -- to think of myself and my family history as absolved from the Native American Holocaust and from slavery. Much of the West was settled with selective amnesia.
1862 Homestead act. Look up his patent, if he got one, in glo/blm records, on line, by township and range or name.
Yes, I agree with the selective amnesia. I'm also very focused, almost laser-focused on race relations in philadelphia, they are the elephant in the room that people have lost the ability to talk about anymore. Historical guilty is tricky though, pointing the finger and telling people they are bad often has the opposite effect of what is intended. Do you know many professors who are out there lending a hand amidst the depressing, sometimes hopeless atmosphere of the ghetto or the reservation? Nothing infuriated me more as a young man than a college professor, living a life of privilege, and also a proponent ( whether they realize it or not) of the same western mindset ( growth at all costs ) that is still to this present day choosing economic values over human ones - and I write that while nodding my head and agreeing with you about what happened in the West and America. But moralizing about how bad things used to be, while still actively working on a modern day plantation economy, strikes me as some sort of intellectual cop-out that relieves modern intellectuals from the responsibility to get their hands dirty by going in to the blown up places and actually trying to help. And as a writer, creating narratives, is one of the ways you can help... but my specific question ( and my accusations aren't personally directed at you but more in general towards academia - which you have impressively left behind) - is how do we as a people move towards making amends and improving our world, in a concrete way... how do we get skin in the game. As writers maybe we have an important role to tell that story, of unity and brotherhood, of the possibilities of love and compassion, but if as we have are words words stinking words and are scared to sweat and bleed and build then all we will have are these stinking words
heres a recent post of mine about race relations on the fourth of july
https://fatherofzoomers.substack.com/p/happy-birthday-america?sd=pf
Actually, I do know many professors who are active in volunteering and other forms of service and who often enlist their classes for those efforts. I don't hate professors -- I used to be one and still am at heart in many ways. Without research, theory, and the production of knowledge about race, we wouldn't have a strong grasp of national history or a vocabulary for making sense of race relations past and present. I, personally, am not an activist. I admire those who are, but I'm often hesitant to reduce ideas to binary moral judgments. But there are some historical myths that are objectively false: the Christian nation idea, for instance, and much of the ideology underlying the frontier.