Photoessay #1086 - Assimilation

Second essay from my Guided Autobiography class. Topic was Family History. I could write on so many topics. This one is on my mind. I may try to make it more evocative. The repetition is strong.

Shot of my parents when they entered Wesley Willows. 2003? They are in their late seventies in this picture.


During the time period of this class, I will be traveling with my husband and two of my four adult children to New Haven, Connecticut for the final interment of my parents. My cousin, who was extremely close to my mom will host this and has made the arrangements. My brother, sister, niece, aunt and my cousins adult children and grandchildren will all be there.

Makes me wonder. What were Al and Claire up to? Their aspirations, their hopes, their satisfactions? Separate from me, their oldest child?

My parents, from stable reform New England Jewish families of Ashkenazi descent, had one theme that they never explicitly mentioned but governed their household and family formation. Assimilation. We lived in suburban communities in California suburbs inhabited by white nuclear families. My father embraced the upward mobile profession for bright young men of the 1950s, aeronautical engineer. The message over and over "We are NO different than our neighbors. We are the same. Nothing ethnic about us. We are the same". They were determined to go off on their own geographically away from their own families of origin. To California, where real progress happened.

The message to their children: "You are the same as all of the other kids" Not that they abandoned Judaism altogether. We belonged to the reform temple across town. We went to the religious school. On Sundays so that it would match the other religious institutions. Interesting that they belonged to 'Judeo-Christian' but not into 'non-denominational'.

They had their 3 children, my father had his career, my mother always active with volunteer activities. They kept their house and yard neat and tidy. Their children always dressed appropriately. Paid their bills, saved their money. Had their social life, bridge parties, dinner parties, cocktail parties, responsible teenage girls babysat us nearly every weekend.

They did it. They met their goals. And they were NO DIFFERENT than anybody else in their community.

But were we really different? Sure, when I look at my genetic background, it's not varied. Askenazi Jews, every one of them. No gypsies or native Americans or anything else. I wondered how people knew I was Jewish, this dark-featured girl named Ginsburgh? How did they know? I was always shocked because "we were JUST LIKE everybody else" And it wasn't until the last 10 years, that I realized that I wasn't white, I was a person of color. My parents would dispute that, I'm sure.
They attained their adulthood in the shadow of the Nazi holocaust. But entirely removed by several generations, I don't believe they ever identified personally at all. They did not acknowledge anti-semitism. We were the SAME as everybody else. Recently my mom mentioned that my father worked for Aerojet because they 'opened up and would hire Jewish engineers'. However she vehemently denied that opportunities were limited for engineers previously because companies would not hire Jewish engineers.

My father always tried to live up to the high achievements and stature of his own father. My grandfather, coming from a modest family in Rochester New York went to Harvard on scholarship graduating as part of the Class of 1920. That became the defining identification of his life. Harold Ginsburgh was a Harvard man, that was that.

When I look at the characteristics of the usual emigrant Jewish experience, it just doesn't resonate with me. The yiddish speaking emigrants to New York City in the garment district with their progressive beliefs. Though, like my family, they believed fervently in education and upward mobility. They vacationed in the Catskills at the Borscht Belt resorts.

I don't remember talk of any of this. I asked and my mother sniffed at the very idea. "Those Russian Jews, they did that" She more identified with "Our Crowd", a book published in 1967 about the wealthy German Jewish families of New York City. My mother's family, though now penniless, considered themselves as the High German Jews and they looked down on everybody else.

How did this assimilation and denial affect the generations going forward, their children and grandchildren? Every single one of my siblings and cousins married non-Jews. That's a huge demographic shift. Two of my children are Korean and my granddaughter is Cambodian. Was that the idea?