superficial ethnicities

People are already starting to talk about this coming Saturday and their plans. Stop & Shop seem prepared for a run on corned beef and cabbage.

WTF is with the USA and celebrating the Irish? Seriously, if we’re going to trot out the artificial stereotypes of green-wearing, Irish-jigging, corned beef-and-cabbage-eating, Guinness-drinking leprechauns, then let's also celebrate their parallel universe. Instead of dying our river or hair green and going to McDonald’s for a Shamrock shake, maybe we can sit in a circle, take turns reading passages from James Joyce’s “Ulysses” while we wait to see who's won the freaking lottery for a free ride to America.

Oh, right: this is America, home of ethnicity-lite and superficial holidays like Kwanzaa. Where we celebrate the fact that even though we were born here, our parents were born here, and in all likelihood their parents were born here, we're still some form of Euro, Asian or African American. Like that ethnic blood still drips through our veins, because without it, we couldn't possibly have an identity. Plain old American? Who the heck wants that? Boring.

Let me know when the Slovaks merit a day with parades, pierogis, haluski and Chechvar. Maybe I'll break out my accordion and play polka music in the street.