Last year during the Cinco de Mayo time in early May I remember hearing lots of angry discussion from folks with Mexican heritage about cultural misappropriation.
I searched for similar bouts of anger from the Irish set over the drunken shenanigans associated with St. Paddy's.
I found an essay written by an Irishman about how, to paraphrase, We Americans tend to look backwards and revere where we're from, while in contemporary Ireland they pretty much focus on the future, and the current. He mentioned that if, maybe, you were born in Mumbai and emigrated to Ireland when you were five years old and no, at thirty, you speak with an Irish accent, you would be considered Irish.
He even added that, pretty much, if you live anywhere and speak with an Irish accent naturally, you'd be considered Irish.
That gave me some perspective on the Irish self-identity.
And then I heard interviews with the writer of the new book Say Nothing, Pat Keefe. He mentioned that one of the linchpins of the as yet lasting peace between the loyalists and the IRA was that only a focus on the future, and not the past and its atrocities committed on both sides during the Troubles, has lead to a moden society that has never dealt with the past in any meaningful way.
It makes sense that an Irish essayist would espouse the mantra of looking forward rather than backwards when it comes to self-identity.
Of course, its refreshing to focus on the future, on the Forward, but we can't deliberately forget whatever heritage we cling to.
It's one of our fundamental characteristics.
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