Out and Not Particularly Proud

I got a lot of concern from my family before coming to Albania because my Grandparents on my Dad's side are Serbian and my well meaning but, occasionally, misinformed relatives assumed that meant swift death for me as soon as I set foot on Albanian soil. Surprisingly I remain about the living but I did debate for a while after I got here about whether or not to talk about my heritage. I've never considered myself a "Serb" and probably never will but my last name isn't exactly "Smith" so I knew people were going to ask about it.


I can pull off a Croatian persona pretty easily if I have to, my grandparents are actually from the Dalmation coast and I studied Serbian/Croatian under a woman from Zagreb in college so I can speak with a Croatian accent. I figured I could play that part if I got "outed" as of Balkan descent but I was still curious about exactly how big a deal it was that I had some Chetnik blood in me.


I had tested the waters with a number of "safe" Albanians when I arrived: Peace Corps staff, couple of friends. I kick myself now because I know I was being ridiculous. My ancestory has come up a number of times since arriving at site and it's usually greeted with something to the effect of "Oh! That's so great that you get to visit the Balkans where your family's from!" or "Wow, have you been to Serbia? I went to Belgrade last year and it was beautiful!"


The point I usually need to clarify with people is how I feel about my heritage. It came up today at work and I was trying to explain to Vali, my counterpart when she remarked "Oh, you're a Serb then..." that no, I didn't consider myself a Serb. I was trying to explain to her that a lot of Americans don't identify with the countries their relatives emigrated from. It took a bit of doing but was helped along by an ancedote from Georgia:


I was having lunch one day with a coworker in Kutaisi and he and I were discussing our families and where they came from. I was working at an organzation for displaced people from the first war in Abkhazia (back in the 90's) so my colleagues were pretty adament about "where they came from." My friend was trying to convince me that I was, indeed, a Serb and said: "When you measure the age of a tree, where do you measure from? You measure from the roots."


To which I promptly responded: "When you want to make something useful from a tree, what's the first thing you do? Cut off the roots."