Ethnicity and Culture

Today was the annual House of Sweden Christmas party. My mother being Swedish and a long time member, she goes every year and I take her since she can't go alone. It's sad as no one visits much with my mother because she is aphasic and can't find the words to express her thoughts (but that's an aside).

As a child, I was dragged to all sorts of functions, taught to dance traditional Swedish folk dances and sing in Swedish. I even sang on television once as part of group of Swedish Christmas song singers. Imagine twenty girls and three boys, ages six to eighteen, walking single file through a dark room wearing white robes and tinsel in their hair. All carrying lit candles.

Most people would think a group of people involved with the House of Sweden would be primarily Swedish or at least of Swedish ancestry. My heritage is mixed. My mother was born in Sweden; my father in Estonia. But there wasn't a House of Estonia and I grew up more in touch with my mother's culture than my fathers. There were other kids of mixed heritage back in those days. Lots of Swedish Americans of course, but Mexican Americans and even if I remember correctly a young girl who was of Chinese descent. More recently, a Japanese American woman wrote the monthly newsletter and the Lucia pageant, while still mostly blondes, included a very dark skinned young woman of Indian (the continent) or African ethnic descent.

I wonder if Sweden has a House of America and if its members include Swedish Arabs or people of Pacific Islands descent?