A cartoon in an old newspaper depicting an Irishwoman as an ape (on right)

So, why do I feel the need to tell you this story? Because knowing this history of my family gives me strength in a time when I know what it feels like to be considered dangerous to your countrys well being. Being seen as a threat to American society is something that my family has had to deal with since they arrived on these shores and will probably have to deal with for generations to come. Like my grandfather, I did not keep my Catholic roots. My grandfather broke the Irish-Catholic tradition and became a Protestant Christian man, still passionately proud of his Irish roots. I broke that tradition and became a Muslim woman, also passionately proud of my Irish roots. We both worship the same God, but we find Him through different paths.

Many people ask me what my conversion story is, and while it was a very happy time in my life, it was also a very confusing time. I was the only white Muslim woman that I knew at first (I met a few later) and began to understand what it felt like to not truly belong because of the way I looked. In many ways, this revelation has humbled me because I now understand what it feels like to be a minority in this country. Funny enough, I went from being part of the white majority, to being a minority IN a minority group.  This posed a very difficult situation for me because suddenly I didn’t know where I fit in with the Muslim crowd.  When I converted, I lived in a city where the majority of the Muslims were foreign exchange students from the Gulf. Two of my roommates were from Saudi Arabia so the Islam that I got to know was a uniquely Arab Islam and I wasn’t sure how to fit in with it. Much of what the Saudis taught me was religious and I believe they did their best to keep culture separate so that I could get a true feel for what was religious and what wasn’t, but I was unable to see the difference. In the beginning, being surrounded by only foreign exchange student Muslims, I didn’t have any kind of a guide to show me what being Western AND being Muslim was. I didn’t want to be left in a group all by myself so I eventually tried to just turn myself into an Arab too.

In probably almost every blog that I write, I mention the “convert limbo state” which is a feeling of not being able to truly belong in either world that we are part of. For the first time in my life, my own people, especially my own ethnic group, saw me as threatening and strange. My father was in the United States Navy and Marine Corps so being glared at by my own people was something that hit me deeper than I can say. It was the first time that someone would say to me “go back to your own country” and I would feel violently angry at them for it.  There was one woman who yelled “I’m an American woman and I can dress however I want” at me while I was walking past her in my hijab and I wanted to actually beat her up for it. I wanted to scream that my father, uncle, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers were in the American military and served so that I had the freedom to wear whatever I wanted to wear, too.  Not only did I feel out casted from the American people, but I also felt out casted with Muslims as well because I did not have an Islamic upbringing like they did. Their families understood Islamic lifestyle and they were raised without the same complications that I had. They didn’t have any sort of a “pre-Muslim” history that is speculated about, they grew up speaking a language that other Muslim-majority people spoke, they grew up with the holidays and the traditions and I didn’t. I really didn’t know which group I was supposed to fit in with.

In order to blend in with at least one of the groups, I did something that I am pretty saddened about now. I went to the store and bought instant tanning lotion and put it on my face and hands so that people would stop thinking that I was white. I wanted to look as Middle Eastern as I could so that people would stop asking me for an explanation as to my religious affiliation. If my own ethnic group was no longer going to accept me, perhaps pretending to be part of another one would feel better.  I also went to a presentation about the Middle East where we were given name tags to put on our shirts. Instead of using my own name, I used an Arabic name that my friends had jokingly given me. At this time in my life, I was also sure as stone that when I had children, they would be given traditional “Muslim” names like Khadijah or Ahmad so that when they introduced themselves to people, those people wouldn’t bother my children with questions about why they were white but also Muslim. They would just assume my child was 100% Middle Eastern.

This was a very far cry from what I was previous to converting and even what I am today. In high school, I remember wearing kilts to school. I also once walked into a classroom where bagpipes were being played on the tv and was greeted with “I knew you’d be in here, Walker!” from the teacher.  Thankfully, this “limbo” identity crisis was short lived and eventually I was able to find a balance between being an Irish-American and being a Muslim woman. Learning about the history of my people and my family members played a huge role in that self discovery.

I started out by asking my grandfather for the death and birth certificates that he had collected and saved over the years. I am four generations removed from Ireland and five generations removed from Scotland and, thankfully, my grandfather kept copies of the birth certificates from my family members who traveled here from Ireland and Scotland. Using those records, I was able to get a few names that I could further look into. The records that he had saved came from the Clarkin side of the family, his mothers maiden name, who came from County Cork, Ireland. Unfortunately, I was not able to get much information about them and cant even tell you where in Cork that side of my family is from. I was pretty crushed that all I knew was a last name and an Irish county. I wanted details. I wanted to know specifics.

Finally, I was told about a book that a distant family member of mine had done as a dissertation project on geneology. There was a published record of the Kane family and my aunt, uncle, and father each personally owned a copy. Since I was too impatient to wait to go use my fathers copy (which he had misplaced but, so help me god, I will find one day!) or to wait to use my aunts copy, I was able to find it in the University of Wisconsin-Madisons library in the geneology section. I saw the title on the binding “The Descendants of Daniel Kane” and sat at a table with it in the library. I felt like I was uncovering so many incredible secrets and something in me was so incredibly excited to see what I could find. To begin, I flipped to the back pages and found the index. I scanned the names in the index and my eyes welled up in tears when I saw my last name and then found my fathers name next to it, my uncles name, my aunts names, my grandfather and grandmothers names all next to “Walker”. I decided to start from the most recent generation and flipped to the section on the Walkers. I worked my way backwards, mapping it out on a piece of paper. Who was married to whom, where were they born, when were they born. Finally, next to “birth place” a few generations into the family tree, I spotted the magic word: Ireland.

Londonderry, Ireland

I was able to find the specific date, Irish county, city and even occupation of my great-great-great-great grandfather, Daniel Kane, and the best part of all was that I was able to see a picture of his son, Henry, my great-great-great grandfather. As I looked into Henrys eyes, I couldn’t help but let out a few tears as I looked into the very same eyes that my grandfather has and that my own father has. Henry Kane was only a young boy when he came to the United States but he was my most recent Irish ancestor and I was looking right into his eyes and recognizing my very same features in them. It was a wonderful moment for me.

Henry Kane, born: 1833 Londonderry, Ireland.

Seeing that he was from County Londonderry, Northern Ireland was exciting as well considering I have always had a soft spot for the underdog. A Catholic farmer from Northern Ireland during the wars and the potato famine was an incredible find!  I felt like there was such an exciting story waiting to be uncovered from that history. While I can never know any real specifics about Daniel and Henrys life in Ireland, I can only learn about the lifestyle of the time period, religious group, and occupation that they had and then put it together. What I was able to learn was that they knew what it was like to be out casted because of religion, and they knew what it meant to suffer from extreme poverty.  At least we could share one of those things together.

And so began my recovery back into being able to make peace with being a minority within a minority group. Even if it was a one-woman movement, I wanted to bring together the two things that I loved the most: my heritage and my religion. I started making things that combined both Islamic and Irish symbolism. I created a tartan pillow with the word “Bismillah” on it. I am currently working on a tapestry of sorts that has the Islamic crescent moon made out of Celtic knots and an Islamic prayer or ayah translated into Gaelic. I also ordered a ladies tartan skirt in Londonderry tartan to wear to Eid or other Islamic events. While other Muslims can attend in their traditional abayas or shalwar kameez, I can represent myself and my heritage entirely by attending in my tartan. It would be a wonderful reminder that God knows no boundaries and belongs to each of us no matter where we come from.

Luckily, my knack for geneology came to me through the influence of many of my family members. On my fathers side, my grandfather and my aunt are very interested in our history and have helped me to find my Irish and Scottish identity through their research. My Irish and Scottish side, while it is by no means fancy or glittery--there are no claymore weilding, "Freedom" screaming famous war heros in my family tree--it is still a treasure to find your roots.

My mothers side, a story that I will have to save for another blog, goes as far back as 900 A.D. My mothers geneology, most of which comes from Germany, contains dukes, a queen, a man with a peg leg, and some of the founding fathers of the United States. My mothers side is where all the glitter comes in and the day when I sit down and go through her massive collection of files on our German heritage will be a very exciting day. Until that blog, I wanted to share my Irish side and I hope it will inspire each reader to look back in time to find their roots as well.