Subnostr

My formative years were spent steeped in Polish Immigrant farming culture. My classmates were all Witkowskis, Winewetkis, Kelenskis, Popas, Plevas, Dzeleskis, Mikowskis, and Berzinskis along with a smattering of French and German lastnames from neighboring settlements that were accepted because they married in.

Then there a bunch of Wigtons that they had no choice to accept because my parents moved in with a boatload of kids and took over.

Sadly it's all diluted now and the old folks that taught us Polish Christmas Carols have died and their kids largely moved away. Some families are still there but not sure any still speak Polish.

Laeserin 1y ago

I'm Anglo-American (Scottish, mostly, but also Welsch and English), on my fathers' side, and it's been weird watching that also become a de facto minority. A lot of the old history and traditions, that he sometimes struggled with, but always deeply identified with, are now obsolete.

Even stuff like yule logs and caroling, baseball games, hanging stockings over the fireplace, and eating turkey on Thanksgiving!!, are slowly going out of style. And he was always fascinated by USA military history and now that's all politically-incorrect.

You don't really notice that you have a culture, until it starts to disappear.

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Discussion

Daniel Wigton 1y ago

Yeah, but mostly I was the one who disappeared. It has to do with where females could be found.

My family is a melting pot of English, Scottish, Irish, French, and German. The strongest cultural influence is English though. Grew up in a Polish settlement in northern Michigan, then moved to Scandinavian Minnesota and married a German descent. We are kind of lost. Need to move back to Michigan. My old parish now resembles traditional German more than anything else. The priest does Latin masses and borrows stuff from that part of the world.

The bones are still Polish though.

Laeserin 1y ago

It's all very Slavic, here, now. Native Bajuwaren are sort of dying out, but not as fast as the other Germanic tribes, and they've been successfully integrating the Slavs.