Searching For A Cultural Identity Late In Life

If there is one aspect of the human social experience that was missing from my childhood that I would love to have been able to participate in, it would be culture. 

By culture I am referring to the practices, ideals, morals, art, traditions, etc., of a specific group of people through which people form common bonds and develop a group identity.

Didn't have much of that in the old neighborhood. Rather, we had a broad mish-mash of people who didn't have a whole helluva lot in common and the only group identity most of us shared was of being part of the underprivileged class,

Though it was a multi-ethnic neighborhood, there were no street fairs or carnivals celebrating the ethnic roots of the residents such as seen in large cities such as New York or Chicago. 

I can remember reading about big Italian-American or Irish-American, and even African-American celebrations being held in neighborhoods that were comprised primarily of people who were of the aforementioned extractions, and I always thought that being a part of something like that had to be pretty exciting.

But all we had was the occasional assembly at school that, for an hour or so, exposed us to a culture or two - usually something oriented around Black History week or Cinco de Mayo. 

And later, when I was in High School (after the late '70's influx of Pan-Pacific Islanders) quite a bit of Filipino or Polynesian culture was added to the mix.

Which was all very educational and enlightening, but not much that I could identify with. I was never one of those white kids who could jump wholesale into another ethnic identity in order to fit in - I kinda envied those guys who could though.

My blue-eyed. blond-haired, pasty-pale white ass did not learn much about my ethnic heritage until I was an adult, and I still really don't understand as much as I would like. 

I've attended a few of the Eastern European centric festivals that are held in the Denver metro area, and have even tried to become part of the Colorado Lithuanian-American community, but I have always walked away feeling like a tourist.

Trying to blend in with a people that I physically resemble but have no emotional or defined societal connections with is difficult. It may be that I will just have to content myself with forever being an American mutt and let the desire to align myself with a cultural heritage I have never known slide.