Immigrants like us: Family stories
We never knew much about my father's side of the family, but on my mother's side we knew a lot. My Calhoun relatives are descended from Vice President John C. Calhoun, who is known for his outspoken support of slavery and for having inspired the southern secessionists of 1860-61. It took me a while to realize that the rest of the world didn't see history in quite the way my family did.
For example, I was taught that only very ignorant and uneducated people ever spoke of the Civil War. That was an oxymoron because John C. Calhoun, who died in 1850, would have favored secession from the Union; it could not be a civil war because there were two separate nations. It should be called, by people of education and distinction, the War Between the States or the War of Northern Aggression.
As a student I came to resent our family heritage. I was not proud of being descended from someone who was the standard-bearer for slavery and therefore on the wrong side of a great moral issue in our nation's history. Unlike the generations before me, I was not raised in the South. I did not eagerly claim my branch on the Calhoun family tree.
