My attempt at finding out why my family hates immigrants so much
Being an illegal immigrant has always been a pretty hot topic of my life growing up in South Florida. There is no nice way to say this, so I am going to be blunt: I was raised racist. It is pretty shocking I don't stereotype or treat anyone other than white people as third class citizens after the mental abuse I endured over the years. I have heard every racially charged joke under the sun (think N word with a hard R), and would regularly be embarassed by the ideation of my elders that I was expected to respect. I don't kolnow where I got the notion to treat people equally, and love people without conditions, but thank god it came to me, and I am not a proud member of the KKK as my closes cousin likes to boast.
So after talk of the wall started by President Donald Trump, as you would imagine, my family was lined up to help build it and get rid of all the bad hombres. Of course it infuriated me that I could share a gene pool with these degenerates, bit it made me start to wonder, how the hell did my family immigrate here?
All of my family live in the hillbilly hills of Alabama, or in sunny and conservative Southwest Florida. They are all pretty much lower middle class families who live in trailers. Yep, I grew up in a trailer and am trailer trash, lucky me. So it struck my curiosity how someone from my family could even afford to make it to Alabama in the first place, no matter how much of a shit hole that entire state just happens to be. Could we really afford to pay the boat fare to make it to the United States? We're my ancestors criminals that were shipped over here to get rid of them? We're they human trafficked and expected to pay a maxed out debt that tey would never pay off? All I knew from my ancestry is I was white. My family was ridden with Huntington's Disease (neurological disease which kills you at mid age) and alcoholism. That meant tree were no elders left to give me the I formation I needed. Hell, my parents are a few years away from kicking the bucket as well, so I wanted to get as much information about my heritage as possible.
I hit up my mom, the most deplorable of them all (she wears that label as proudly as I do snowflake) hoping she would know the origins of our family tree.
Me: Did you know anything about our ancestors and how they ended up in america
Mom: Nope. No clue. I've always been told my moms parents are Indian
Me: Yeah I wonder how true that is
Mom: Who knows, why are you asking?
Me: Because I am interested in knowing what I am and how our family was brought to America. We're they wealthy and bought a ticket? We're they human trafficked? Did they sneak in to claim asylum from their previous country? If I am an indian, what kind? How much percentage? Then I need to research what is being done for my tribe if I do have one. Doubtful I am Indian though. I feel like all Americans that don't know their background say that to make themselves feel better for the horrific treatment of natives here. Did aunt Jackie end up doing a real family tree? I know she talked about it
Mom: Idk. Do that DNA thing.
Me: I thought of doing the dna thing, but that doesn't answer how our family was able to immigrate
Mom: No but it might help get you started, text Jackie and see if she has anything
I was hesitant to contact my Aunt Jackie regarding my family tree. She seemed to live in a fantasy world a large part of my lifetime, and had told me silly stories growing up of us being Native American, although we had no traditions we practiced, and my Grandmother was a Mormon. I knew contacting her I might be able to get some names and birthdays for sure, and a good tall tale for entertainment purposes to go along with the information. Whatever concrete information I could get could possibly help me on this journey, so I went against my better judgement and texted Aunt Jackie. (Some of this is edited for the purposes of not giving you names and birthdates, but I got the gooooooooood meat and potatoes in here for your enjoyment)
Me: Hey, did you ever end up tracing our family tree? I'm trying to find out our real nationality and how our family immigrated to the United states. Any information you have come across yet? Like, anything we know for sure?
Aunt Jackie: England and Cherokee sofar and irish.
Me: How did you find that out?
Aunt Jackie: Ancestry. Com
Me: Does it happen to say how our ancestor came over here? Probably not. Like if they could afford the boat fare? Criminals? Human trafficked? Illegally claiming asylum from another dangerous country?
Aunt Jackie: I am still working on that and how we got Huntington disease in our family. The Batson have a crest
Me: What is a crest? (I wanted to make sure she knew)
Aunt Jackie: A family Crest it's a shed (shield) with a knight with 3 bats hollie look it up in high school (2000 when the innanets first started). She had a picture of it when she was doing an asye (essay) for history look it up on line (can you read the Alabama drawl in this or what?!)
This message was the start to the nonsense. My family may be too stupid to help me on my journey to find out their own past. But, let's continue.
Me: So, does that mean that it is a crest for us specifically batson? Or some other batson, and we share the same last name? Does it mean we were in a higher class to get a crest? (I was trying to make her think about what she was saying)
Aunt Jackie: For the royalty Batson we are related to centuries ago. We are related to the queen of England some how.
Oh hell no. I can't even. Wow. I tried to respond in te nicest, most respectful way I could to this. I mean, I'm southern, so I had to each myself. It wasn't above my Aunt Jackie to drive from Alabama all the way to Oregon to slap the spit out of my mouth for sassin.
Me: Hmmmmmm. I having a hard time thinking we are related to any native americans, or royalty for that matter. That's why I am asking so many questions, and how I can try to find out accurate information. It's hard when living family didn't get the chance to really ask their parent and great grandparent before they passed. My dad doesn't even know his grandparents names, so I am at a complete dead end there, unless this ancestry.com actually has some real records
Aunt Jackie: To get started you start with your parents name and go from there . Grandma Mecy told me about our relative Chief Lediga he was a Cherokee Chief that live in Jacksonville. he is in the history books we have a trail named after him I Alabama. Grand MA knew were his grave was but would not tell anyone people wanted to dig him up to get his gold and treasures buried with him. Grand MA Batson maiden Name was sasnett they were Irish.
Me: Who wanted to dig him up?!
Aunt Jackie: Some people in Jacksonville they tried to condemn grandma's house they thought he was buried there daddy threatened to tar and feather anyone who came on grandma property.so they stopped bothering her . She took that secret to her grave so did Daddy he said he knew but did not tell anyone. (My grandfather, "Daddy", died of Huntington's Disease, and was mentally incapacitated. He was delusional most.of their lifetime.)
At that point I knew I was not going to get any actual, fact checked information for my benefit, besides names and birthdates. I hope to eventually find the information I am looking for to provide to my family. This whole motivation completely powered by Mr. Trump, and myself wanting to teach my family a serious lesson about the realities of immigration.
(If anyone has any tips on how to find out my family roots, I would greatly appreciate it. Google produced zilch.)
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If you enjoyed my little slice of paradise, please bump that writing, resteem, tell your grandma, ANYTHING! You can even comment on my happenings, it can’t get any worse.