I identify so much with you/this post. I'm first generation Australian, none of my family had anything to do with the Anzacs, but every Anzac Day I cry whenever I hear the Last Post. That history is my heritage too, and not by blood.
Thank you for this post. I hope one year soon you'll be able to be in Wellington for ANZAC Day.
I sometimes wonder if this feeling is unique to Australia/New Zealand because I'm in the UK now and there seem to be very different ideas about who can be patriotic or regard their heritage as British- I wasn't born here so I can't be (not that I'd want to be) according to many. But back home I never once came across anyone who said I couldn't feel like a New Zealander and share in all the heritage just because I was the first in my family to be born there.
I think the wonderful thing about where we're from is that we do remember this sort of thing. It's an important part of who each of us are, and I'm so proud to be antipodean on days like ANZAC day.
Thank you for reading and letting me know I'm not the only 1st gen to feel this way.
I think Anzac Day is so much a part of our national identities growing up, that it doesn't matter if you're 1st generation or 5th, I think the majority of people accept you and respect you and never question your right to feel so much about/for your country's heritage. Those men who died in Gallipoli are a huge reason for that, they set an example of mateship that almost 100 years later, people still follow.
Thank god for that, because with the huge migration into both of our countries since the World Wars, it would be near impossible to exclude everyone or make them feel like they couldn't share in that heritage.
(There are always those few bad eggs of course, but we won't speak of them, haha.)
Comments 5
Reply
Reply
Thank you for this post. I hope one year soon you'll be able to be in Wellington for ANZAC Day.
♥
Reply
I think the wonderful thing about where we're from is that we do remember this sort of thing. It's an important part of who each of us are, and I'm so proud to be antipodean on days like ANZAC day.
Thank you for reading and letting me know I'm not the only 1st gen to feel this way.
♥
Reply
Thank god for that, because with the huge migration into both of our countries since the World Wars, it would be near impossible to exclude everyone or make them feel like they couldn't share in that heritage.
(There are always those few bad eggs of course, but we won't speak of them, haha.)
And, no problem. ♥
Reply
Leave a comment