What role does your ethic heritage play in your life?

Immigrants may lose knowledge of where they came from over the generations. They may forget the history of their great grandparents, or know it only in a dry, historical way. They might continue to celebrate holidays (St. Patrick’s Day, for example), but see it only as a chance to wear kelly green and get soddenly drunk. They may have no idea about anything else in their Irish heritage.

Yet, other things are not so easy to “forget.” Hair color, skin color, body shape, and intelligence are things inherited through the genes, and may have an impact on us, even though we don’t remember they came from a specific part of the world a few generations back.

Maybe you talk a certain way. Maybe you dress a certain way. Dance or music you love could be a part of it. Food you eat. Knowledge you have—historical or cultural.

What role do the things that come to you from that land—from which, perhaps long ago, or perhaps recently, your ancestors left to come to the country you now live in—play in your life?