I don’t want to write this paper because I don’t want to sound too Jewish. Sad, I know. This is my culture; I am a part of this people and yet - I am embarrassed. I have become aware of Jewish stereotypes through some intolerable people and unfortunately, even some friends. My food, my family, my skin color, my features have become targets for their humor. Everyday I walk down the hallway I hear someone make yet another stupid joke about the Holocaust. There are swastikas everywhere: the bathroom, the lockers, the textbooks, the desks. I feel nervous to pick up a lucky penny because I know, it will no longer bring me luck. This is why I make fun of myself too – why I make fun of my culture. Hitler said that if he didn’t kill all of the Jews, assimilation would do its job. I have never agreed, associated, or listened to any nonsensical fallacies Hitler yelled, but as I take a step back I sadly realize that I am fulfilling his prediction. On top of this, my tan skin brings another kind of attention. Suddenly I become “Rosa, the Cleaning Lady.” I shouldn’t be embarrassed of my skin. This modern day discrimination causes me and others who straddle cultures to feel the need to subsume into the social norms that surround us. It’s not unusual for people to hate themselves when society rejects them.

Why do my peers think it’s okay to judge and alienate people of different cultures? I’m sure we’ve all seen the movies, read the books, heard the stories where the persecuted underdog rises up and surprises everyone. Don’t we all cheer for the fall guy and don’t we all want the person who’s holding them back to kind of - die? As Oscar Wao, from Junot Díaz’s novel, The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, grows up in New Jersey, he straddles a cultural divide. In his home he fails to live up to the expectation of the Dominican male: a womanizing, macho, shining knight with sun-kissed armor. Much of his family rejects the doughy physique that has become a part of Oscar’s identity. Instead of chasing girls, he trades Magic cards, writes sci-fi novels, and basically embraces everything a Dominican man should, would, and could never embrace. This separates himself from the Dominican values at home. What’s interesting about the narrative is that you feel that Oscar’s main objective is to have sex. If he sleeps with a woman, he will be accepted into his culture. Through this linear theme however, Oscar is able to change the people around him for the better and to inspire others to just be themselves. Even though his end is tragic, he is still happy and very much in love. If Oscar listened to the people who were always there to demoralize and curb him, he’d either be a misogynistic philanderer or dead by his own hand. How terribly uneventful.

My mother, unlike Oscar, always felt as though she was included in her society. Elizabeth Baumann grew up in the densely populated Jewish community of Miami Beach, Florida from the 1960s to the 1980s. The Jewish population in her community increased dramatically between 1940 and 1990: “In 1940, 7,500 Jews lived in Miami, with a rapid growth to 40,000 in 1949, and 69,000 in 1950. In 1989 an estimated 238,000 Jews lived in Dade County. That is more Jews than live in Haifa, Israel” (Lehmann). With these numbers, it’s no surprise that she had many friends who shared her cultural background and didn’t seem to experience the ethnic schism I’ve become accustomed to. Though Miami’s Jewish population is significant, it’s also a place of miscellany. A place where speaking Spanish was the norm and hearing the occasional Hebrew or Yiddish dialogue didn’t turn heads; rather, they invited conversation. Because there was a large population of Jewish people in this region, “you never felt like an outsider.” She says, “There was more of a shared culture with some shared assumptions. Even though my grandparents were from Europe, they always tried to fit into American society. They made contributions to their community, while they also maintained their Jewish identity in the home and the community.” I came to understand her experience last summer when I lived in Miami for three weeks. For the first time, my tan skin didn’t get attention in a negative way. Instead, I became a magnet attracting Hispanic and Latino kids from Colombia, Venezuela, Cuba, Spain, Ecuador, Peru, Argentina, Brazil – the list goes on. Instinctively they took me in, speaking Spanish, perceiving me as one of their own. Suddenly being labeled as “Latina” meant fitting in with pride; I spoke to them, using the very limited “White-Spanish” I knew, with a syllable I was transformed into “la Gringa,” (the American). I appreciated their initial perception of me because in Miami to be Spanish wasn’t being isolated; it meant being brought in. They viewed their tan skin with pride and allowed me, for the first time, to view mine with pride as well.

My experience doesn’t seem to be unique. If you were to visit www.theracecardproject.com, you would find dozens of stories that explain other people’s experiences with discrimination; stories where ordinary people are asked to distill their cultural experiences in brief sentiments (Norris). These stories are told with only six words. NPR has taken up some of these and explored them in a series of articles on language, race, culture and negotiating the cultural divides that make up America. One essay focuses on the statement: “Ask Who I am, Not What.” This statement centers on the question “Where do you really come from?” (NPR Staff). The article says how “On paper it looks like a straightforward expression of curiosity or perhaps a social icebreaker. But dozens of people have said that their heart breaks a little when they hear that inquiry.” Once my mother left Miami, this was the question she found herself faced with. Maybe her experience marks the difference between growing up in a place where you don’t feel you’re a cultural minority from those places where you become one. Unlike my mother, I’ve never had the experience of being claimed as a cultural insider. Like Oscar Wao, I belong nowhere only because other people remind me of this. They assume what I am, forgetting to ask who I am. Without their jokes or comments and questions, I am because I am.
The last time someone emigrated from another country to America in my family was over 100 years ago. When you Google “Diaspora,” dozens of definitions appear all relating to Jewish dispersion, a sending off of a group of people who possess a shared language and culture, a sending off from 6th century BC Babylonia (Freedictionary). My families came from Russia (now known as Kiev, Ukraine), Minsk (now part of Belarus), and Romania (once part of Austria-Hungary). Even there my ancestors were Diaspora. My relatives from Minsk and Kiev, once lived in poor Jewish settlements known as Pales, regions where Jews were legally authorized to live. There Jews were limited by government decrees that controlled travel, types of employment among other aspects of daily life. Jews faced pogroms, violent acts against their homes, businesses and families. So even though my family lived in these countries, their lives were not their own. Coming to America meant pursuing freedom and opportunity. The challenges I face among my peers are remote when compared with my ancestors. In America we no longer face government sanctioned racism or fear of death or exile, but we do fear acculturation.

“The bad news is that American Jews—as a people—have never been in greater danger of disappearing through assimilation, intermarriage, and low birthrates” (Dershowitz). Dershowitz, a professor of law at Harvard University, writes about Jewish identity for the 21st century. He predicts that “the American Jewish community is likely to number less than 1 million and conceivably as few as 10,000 by the time the United States celebrates its tricentennial in 2076” (2). Dershowitz’s prediction is frightening. It means that Judaism may one day take a seat among Mayans, Aztecs, Incas and the many other peoples and languages that have vanished. Identity issues for Jewish people are complicated. Isn’t assimilation a peoples’ effort to be accepted into a society, to lessen what makes them different? Does the prejudice I experience push me to assimilate even more? If I allow the biases of others’ to affect my thinking of myself and my experience as an American, then my experience will only be a negative one. This was not true for my family who built successful, modern lives in America despite experiencing the anti-Semitism of the turn of the century.

I’m happy I wrote this paper because as I have become aware of Jewish stereotypes through some intolerable people and unfortunately, even some friends, it’s forced me to question who I want to be at those times. And I don’t want to be the loser. What would Martin Luther King Junior think? What would Oscar Wao think? What would my courageous Eastern European ancestors think? What would Denzel Washington think? Being part of the Diaspora comes with its own set of intricate responsibilities and it takes self awareness. My peers and their thoughtless words pressure me to make sense of these issues and questions, but also help me to make sense of them. One conclusion I’ve drawn throughout all of this is that the hurtful calumny that pours from the mouths of others isn’t necessarily driven by hate. On the contrary, it’s driven by ignorance and fear and discomfort. Hurt people hurt. What I’ve realized is that people tend to deal with change in odd ways. Slander is definitely not a healthy coping skill, but it seems to be a common one. This is why I consider Diaspora to be strong. If every immigrant, or alien to a culture assimilated, we’d be as ethnically interesting as Greenland. But it’s because of our Diaspora that we have great cities and greater inventions and that little bakery on the corner that always bakes fresh baklava. It’s because of our Diaspora that this country is great, and that is why I’m proud to be Jewish.