Ever feel like you've lost touch with your roots?

My mother's side of the family is pure Polish, and my father's side is predoinantly English and Irish, a little Scottish, Dutch, German, etc.

Dallas doesn't have much of a Polish community - the best I can do is the Czech community in West, about two hours south on I-35. Great homemade Czech and Czech-Tex food, by the way - I recommend you stop at Czech Stop, right off the interstate. We used to have a burgeoning Irish community that was centered around a local pub, but I think we've kinda scattered and lost touch, and we still attend the North Texas Irish Festival every year.

I know my ancestry. I know if I were to follow in the traditions and stereotypes accorded those nationalities, I would be laughed at. Hell, I could be a stereotype American and be laughed at by the same people.

I know my ancestry. I do not go ape over giving it preferential treatment. It is part of me as much as I am a part of it. Which is ironic, it is claimed humans are descendants of apes. Which explains why people go ape over all sorts of things. After all, I've never heard of British-Scottish-Norwegian-Danish-French-Tex food and I'd have to be stoned AND doped on LSD to ingest such a concept. Lutefisk haggis and BBQ jalapeño escargots? No bloody way!

I am 100% Greek, but I was adopted by an American/Japanese couple at 4 days old. So, aside from the food, I have no sense of the culture. I wish I had more of a sense of that.

I am East European Jewish and Prussian (Russian/German) on one side, and German/Slavic/English/Welsh on the other. However, I have never experienced Jewish, Russian, or Slavic culture, and have only barely experienced German/English/Welsh. :(

Most of the (literally) Bohemian relatives have died. Plus, they were in the Midwest and I moved to the Left Coast long ago.

I'm not big on pork and overcooked cabbage and dumplings and that kind of Middle European food, anyway ... Give me Thai or Mediterranean (and preferably vegetarian) fare any day.

I figure -- eh, we make our own roots around here.

Still, I do love those kolaches.

I'm generally not a huge pastry person, but I like the kolaches. My Czech grandma was a good baker, and I have fond memories of her making those and also some sort of poppyseed roll, among other things.

It would be IMPOSSIBLE to lose touch with my roots...lol.

with cultural tradition. I feel like I am such a product of north american marketing when compared to her. Sure I took scottish dancing lessons as a kid. But I've never been back to where I'm partly from. 150 years ago or more.

I'm 100% Slovak and I try to keep as many of the traditions as I can. I make many of the traditional foods, especially for the holidays. There are still a lot of 3rd generation Slovak, Czech, Polish, Carpatho-Rusyn families around here, so the heritage is alive and well for those who wish to keep it going.

I'm mostly Dutch, and as luck would have it, I've spent the last two summers in Holland meeting my family and learning about where my family came form.

I am in permanent exile.