re: #400 HappyWarrior

I do wonder if my grandparents experiences as Catholics who had it better than Jews and other racial minorities informed their views a little. In my family research, I discovered my father’s grandfather was born into a Lutheran family but his grandmother was born into a Catholic one. My grandfather and his siblings were more or less raised Catholic. So maybe the mixed faith background impacted my grandfather in how he taught my aunts, uncles, & Dad how to treat people. Add to that, Dads mom was from a more modest socioeconomic background as well. I dunno. I would never call my background “exotic” but I do have close ancestors who defined the conventions of their times.

I suspect that your family did experience prejudice. Remember that John F Kennedy had to address his Catholicism directly with the American public. And had to convince US voters that he was not secretly beholden to the ‘foreign’ Vatican.

In Pittsburgh, in the 1960’s, each hill-top and valley was considered an ethnic neighborhood. Tell someone which neighborhood you were from and you pretty much identified your ethnic and economic class. And there was still subtle ‘ordering’ of ethnic groups.

Pittsburgh’s Taylor Alderdice High School drew from two neighborhoods (Greenfield and Squirrel Hill) and there were fist fights in the halls and local streets (known as jumping. And usually many against one). It wasn’t integrated with an African -American neighborhood until 1969, which led to several days of even more fist fights in the halls and streets near the school.

Interestingly, if you stayed within your own neighborhood, you generally did not meet much prejudice. It was only when you left the neighborhood for the public spots that the prejudice was directly encountered.