Heritage American

The far-right MAGA-world has added a new term to its vocabulary of othering. “Heritage American,” I suspect, means the sort of people they like, which is to say: white folks who were either born here (as the children of other Heritage Americans), or entered the country in respectable ways—that is, with the approving imprimatur of Immigration officers.

By that standard, my status as a Heritage American is questionable.

It’s a “poison-fruit-of-a poisoned-tree” situation.

You see, my ancestors never passed through official immigration. They were refugees who snuck in, on wooden boats, and almost immediately threatened the livelihood of the red-blooded Americans who already lived here. They also ruined the Americans’ neighborhoods, destroying property values.

Exactly the kind of behaviors that make MAGA-folk distrust immigrants.

You see, Samuel Thomas Walker, my ninth great-grandfather, arrived in September of 1608—on a ship bringing supplies to the little squatter’s encampment at Jamestown. His older brother, George Walker, my ninth great-uncle, had come to Jamestown the year before—on one of the first ships, The Susan Constant—but didn’t live long enough to endure the first horrible winter. He died on August 24, 1607. Since he produced no children, I am not descended from him—but he is family. I have visited his grave—even though he’s no longer buried there (an archaeologist working at the site informed me that Uncle George’s bones have been taken to The Smithsonian for study).

The bones of George Walker (& Edward Harrington, who died the same day). Photo is from Jamestown: The Buried Truth.

MAGA folks also hate the existence of babies born to undocumented aliens. Despite the Fourteenth Amendment, they refuse to admit that such children are American citizens by birth. As it turns out, I am also the descendant of one of those “anchor babies.” Some other ninth great-grand-parents were refugees who arrived on another wooden boat that arrived at Cape Cod in 1620: the Mayflower. The son of William White and Eleanor neé Smith—Peregrine White—was actually born ON the Mayflower, in what is now Provincetown harbor.

His cradle is in the Pilgrim Museum in Plymouth MA.

Peregrine is my 8th great-grandfather. He is also the first Englishman to be born in New England. That makes him the earliest anchor baby to have descendants living today. There was, of course, an earlier English child born in America: Virginia Dare. She was born, in 1587, in the failed Roanoke Colony. She, and everyone else in that colony, mysteriously disappeared before 1590—so she left no descendants.

Through genealogical research, I have seen census reports that show that several of my ancestors participated in the peculiar institution of slave ownership. It didn’t surprise me to learn that, but it does bother me. I suspect that some MAGA-folk might be more willing to accept me as a Heritage American because of it.

The MAGA notion of what slavery was is considerably different from mine.

In an interesting sidenote—that is clearly related to the above—analysis of my DNA shows a few percentage points of West African genes (from what is now Benin, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, and Togo). Having even a trace of black blood probably negates whatever MAGA credit I might have had as a descendant of slave-owners.

That’s alright with me.

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