I can certainly understand why a person in your position would be sensitive
to this terminology. What your parents went through must have been
horrific. Please understand that people of EVERY ethnic background have
offensive terminology applied to them. When my Irish grandparents arrived in
the US, they were faced by signs reading "Help wanted, no Irish need
apply". If you have ever studied Irish history, you will find the British
were unspeakably brutal to the Irish. It was quite typical for the soldiers
to arrive in the middle of a winter night, preferrably during a storm, and
announce that the property you had owned for centuries was no longer yours,
but now belonged to an Englishman. You were evicted on the spot. My
grandmother was not allowed to own property, nor granted citizenship until
the 1920s, despite the fact that she was born in this country, as were her
Native American parents. I can still remember an incident in a store when I
was a child. A scurvy-looking white person grabbed her child and told her
"Don't touch the dirty Indian." I think what I am trying to say is that
everyone is sensitive to something, and we should all try to maintain a good
sense of humor and remember that if someone says something that might be
considered offensive, there was no intention of hurting anyone. I am now able
to laugh at Irish jokes, and have British friends whom I love dearly. My
grandparents would be turning over in there graves if they knew that my
husband was a Brit (Welsh).
Kate
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