My parents immigrated from Europe to make a home in the concrete jungle of New York City. I was born shortly after they settled. I started attending school, learning English as a second language. But my ethnic heritage, habits, and accent were plain enough to make me conspicuous for those seeking targets for their prejudice.
As the years went on, I tried harder to blend into a diverse population and a new culture. While my extended family talked about the old country, I was thinking more about ditching and denying our cultural distinctives.
I couldn’t avoid the fact that I was not quite like other kids. My family was up-front about the good and bad in their culture. History lessons supported what my parents taught me about the evils of racism and facism in their old country.
At home we spoke German, the language of the “bad guys.” When Hogan Heroes came on, I felt weird understanding the language of the goofball Commandant & Schmidt. During war films about the atrocities of Nazis, I hated the fact that there was anything German about me. I was terribly and illogically ashamed that I was able to understand the language of the monsters portrayed in the films.
I worked to deny my culture, forget my language, and write off nice stories of the “old country” as myths. I was an American now. I didn’t want to be German or European any longer.
My parents didn’t force me to maintain what I wasn’t sure I wanted, but also weren’t bashful about the good things in their culture. They understood my discomfort as an ethnic adolescent. So I grew to be an adult who is not ashamed of my heritage.
But it’s not the last time I had those feelings. When I moved to Winnipeg, I heard aboriginals talking about the evils of residential schools. I felt recrimination based not on my deeds, but simply my colour. Some people wanted me to accept condemnation for something I didn’t do.
Like a man in a room of angry feminists. Like a preacher in a room of people mocking Jim Baker or Jerry Falwell. Like a recovering addict and reformed criminal in a room of goody-two-shoes writing off all “bad people” as hopeless. Like a New Yorker in a roomful of humbly arrogant Canadians denouncing everything about “those rotten Americans.” Like a conservative working alongside people who despise anyone to the right of their ideology.
I’ve decided not to apologize for things I didn’t do. I can’t change certain facts about who I am. And I won’t change what I believe just to raise my comfort level. These decisions, while difficult, are necessary.
I have done things I’m ashamed of. I can deal with that if you give me a chance to do better. I may share a colour or a label with people who have done bad things. I can deal with that if you give yourself a chance to know me as an individual.
That’s why integration is so important to me. People get to know people who they feel are “different.”
It’s essential to the health of our pluralistic society. I love it when poor people work with rich people in a common cause. I’m thrilled when convicts and church folk work side by side on our renovation projects.
I’m glad people jumped all over U.S. Senator Trent Lott for his support of white segregationists. But I wish people would be consistent.
We should be just as critical of black, aboriginal or Asian segregationists – especially when it comes to government funding. A government that advocates integration doesn’t benefit from funding segregation. Except at election time.
I get nervous when government funds segregationists. Separate child welfare systems. Segregated ethnic schools and a segregated aboriginal school division. Segregated funding for housing and health. A segregated judicial and sentencing system.
I’m glad my boys went to John M. King School, an elementary school here in the West End where they were a visible minority. Along with a textbook education on the static cultures of the past, they interacted with a multitude of today’s dynamic ethnicities, classes, and cuisines.
Of course, cultures and classes will continue to cluster for support. But it should be on their time and on their dime. Government’s job is to reward cooperation and facilitate integration. They can’t fund segregation and then act surprised when people don’t get along.
I still feel out of place at times. It doesn’t matter as much anymore. There are things I can’t or won’t change about myself. But I will never regret choosing integration over segregation.
Rev. Harry Lehotsky
514 Maryland Street
Winnipeg, Mb R3G 1M5
(204) 775-4929
lehotsky@escape.ca