Before I begin, I want to state that these posts will most likely come across as apologetics. Upon my own return to the Church 17 years ago I encountered some push back from converts who were appalled at my basic lack of Christian knowledge. Their observations weren't incorrect as I fumbled on how to explain myself. It is my hope that I will at least shed some light into what some cradle Orthodox Christians faced in the US.
DISCLAIMER: I don't speak for everyone but I am willing to bet that many cradle Orthodox Gen X'ers have some of these things in common with me. I'm not looking for pity or an excuse for what happened. Just sorta laying out how things were/are.
So, here we go.
It is very hard to have an ethnic name in WASP America. My beautiful maiden name had 10 letters. I could always tell when a substitute teacher calling attendance arrived at my name because she would take a deep breath and then slowwwwly sound out my last name. Phonetically it wasn't that hard and honestly I felt even worse for the Polish kid who came after me with 13 letters. I only had a "v" that threw people off. That poor kid had 2 letter "c's", a "y" and a "z". He just said "here!" before the sub even attempted.
Anyhow when your name is so distinct and ethnic sounding, you just don't fit in with the Miller's, Johnson's and Brown's of the world. I can remember times throughout high school, when the US was still involved in the Cold War, some people would raise their eyebrows over my last name. I had a boy in college tell me that he really liked me but could never take me home to meet his parents because of my name. At first I was confused because I honestly thought he was referring to my first name which isn't terribly ethnic. When I asked what was wrong with my first name, he laughed and said that he had meant my last name.
Oh. I see.
That feeling of being different, of being excluded, of not belonging wasn't easy to bear, especially for a shy girl. I did spend fantastic summers with other "ethnic" kids at an Orthodox Christian summer camp. But in the end, we all returned to our homes and all those feelings returned. I just didn't fit in.
So while I really couldn't do anything about my last name, the only other option was to assimilate through behavior. If I acted like the other kids then maybe I would no longer be on the periphery of American society.
A rational sounding plan, no? A sort of "When in Rome..." idea. Unfortunately, it was largely disastrous and had deep and destructive consequences. That will be the topic of my next post.
