How do you prove your authenticity as an American? By voting in every election, even the sparsely attended local races? Or singing the national anthem at baseball games? By wearing a flag pin?
Ex-patriate Americans could live for years abroad, without any observance of Thanksgiving or Fourth of July—whether from personal neglect or circumstance—and they would still be considered citizens, while the children of illegal aliens who have been educated and acculturated in this country are not. But who are more committed to our ideals?
If one were to make the calculation—and I would prefer not to—who is the more authentic Jew? Me, a Jew-by-choice who has raised children with a knowledge of their religious and cultural heritage or the secular Jew who has chosen not to obtain for his son a brit milah or to attend a seder? Sociologists can predict whose children would remain within the faith.
More binding than nationality and religion is race, but historically, that, too, has proven fungible. Two different groups—Asian Indians and Jews—have over time been listed as either whites and non-whites according to the U.S. Census Bureau. So, what about people who are bi-racial or even multi-racial? In his collection of essays, An Accidental Asian, Eric Liu noted: “Between 1970 and 1992, the number of mixed-race marriages quadrupled. We are mixing our genes with such abandon that the Census Bureau considered adding a new “multiracial” category to the forms in the year 2000. It settled instead on a potentially more radical solution: allowing people to check as many boxes as they wish.”
Racial self-identification—how refreshing! Let people choose how they are to be known, just as they have chosen what they are named. I find that very intriguing indeed. One could now include all the minority parts (DNA-wise, that is) of one’s heritage. So, could one consider oneself “adopted” into another, without benefit of miscegenation?
Wikipedia defines authenticity as “the truthfulness of origins, attributions, commitments, sincerity, devotion, and intentions.” (I have Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition, on my desk but wikipedia allows me to cut-and-paste.) I’m not fond of the initial definitions, preferring the latter ones of “commitment, sincerity, devotion, and intentions.” Identifying with a race means you align yourself with others of that label. Being a Jew involves living a life with Jewish values. Being an authentic American means upholding democracy and civil liberties, which is a delicate proposition during these xenophobic times. Ethnic suspicion can so easily combust into prejudice, hysteria, and forced internments. Americans have seen it all happen before.
My husband wonders why am I so negative, so bleak about our times? I am naturally optimistic, but I’m perturbed by the hysteria that is popping up in different arenas. And I feel it personally: I am a Chinese American Jew from a culture that has been demonized before and a faith whose practitioners have been fatal victims of blood libels. It was only 68 years ago that the
In 1982, Vincent Chin was murdered by disgruntled auto industry workers who blamed him (mistaken for a Japanese) for taking away their jobs. In 1999, John Huang, the former Democratic National Committee fund-raiser and Commerce Dept official, pleaded guilty to a single felony count of conspiracy and suddenly every Asian American in politics was under a cloud of suspicion, for being more loyal to their ethnic country of origin than to their country of service.
Your new neighbors may be of an inscrutable faith. The person on the plane may sport a beard and look Arab. Our Persian Jewish friend (who is bearded and complected like his Muslim former neighbors in Iran) carries a food magazine (his hobby) and not a technical computer journal (his professional reading) while traveling to mitigate uneasiness amongst his fellow travellers. We may present a different mien and a different faith, but that does not preclude us from being authentic, law-abiding, and committed Americans. We live in perilous times indeed, but we must retain our decency and good sense.

