Class Act!

Iessspell

Chicago's Jonathan Toews takes some time out to visit and encourage the children of Lurie Children's Hospital.  

Photos are courtesy:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151607910509258.1073741844.29919479257&type=1

Settling the Boundaries

ne Je'ren t(w)eschen twee Jrense

This essay is a purely brainstorming essay used to critic Seth Schwartz, Marilyn Montgomery and Ervin Briones’ The Role of Identity in Acculturation and Assimilation of Immigrant People.  As such, this is neither a scholarly essay nor submitted for classwork, discussion or publication, rather just some amateur theoretical doodling mosty intended to help process and develop other concepts for further development, review or rejection.  Danke. 

    As part of the assumptions set into their thesis, Schwartz, Montgomery and Briones (collecting ‘The Authors), review prominent Modern and Postmodern definitions of their key terms (excluding ‘immigrant’ which seems to be relatively accepted):  Acculturation, cultural identity, culture, Personal identity and Social identity.  They seemingly desire a more technocratic or applied theoretical tone rather than a theory building perspective and preference for stability and structure in these definitions, desiring that it be “possible to define acculturation and identity in terms precise enough to support specific theoretical propositions, calls for empirical research, and rationales for interventions to promote identity development in acculturating individuals.” (p 2). 

    A short criticism is apparent immediately in their assumptions that acculturating is a positive goal and that they, as members of the dominant recipient culture, are in a position to and morally empowered to intervene.  Postmodernists should be leaping up from chairs and rattling glasses in alarm.

    While they slough off liability to theoretical criticism against Postmodernism supplied by M. J. Chandler, and R. Brubaker and F. Cooper in a manner that would make an American Congressperson blush, they do have a point – but one that I think we can help mitigate.

What's in a Name?

    This blog is mostly concerned with examining the construction, maintenance and viability of a specific ethnic religious identity.  While no one really bothers getting excited over such a project, it is none-the-less a bit controversial – not in its particular expression but in the perception of its aims.  Does this project contribute towards the preservation of a particular and valuable ethnic “particular’ experience or does it contribute towards further divisiveness and discrimination.

    It is important to reiterate that just because one identifies a particular ethnic experience as viable and worthy of study, that one does not necessarily denigrate or negate the viability and value of all other ethnic or ethnic-religious experiences.  Just as a single rose can be examined and cultivated along with many other roses in the garden, or just as the genus rosa is worthy of study but no more so, nor more to be preferred than is iris or syringe or paeonia…  each is worthy, necessary and valued both in and of itself and also for the contrast and complementary impact each unique group has on the others and on the inclusive group as a whole.

    Nor is this conundrum the sole propriety of the ethnic Mennonites, or even of ethnic-religions in general.  Similar questions and dilemmas have been grappled with in many other examinations or manifestations of “unique” identity – at various national or regional Jewish heritage institutions, at the Swedish-American Museum (SAMAC) in Chicago, or even in defining participation in and inclusion in the Canadian Museum for Human Rights now under construction in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Mennonite Hockey Hall of Fame

Eisshockey

    We are just in the quarterfinals competition for Lord Stanley's Cup -- the international award for the National Hockey League of the United States and Canada.  Even without the steller Jonathan Toews, the quiet ethnic Mennonite boy from Manitoba made good in Chicago, the youngest captain of a major league team and already the proud owner of his first Stanely Cup title, there is still plenty of ethnic Mennonite hockey action to be caught in the Los Angeles Kings and the Washington Capitals and plenty of heritage distributed across the board (note:  for our purposes, we are merely identifying those players with an ethnic Mennonite or Amish connection, while making no claims regarding any particular religious affiliations.)

    The following are fourteen of the best major leagues hockey players to come from Mennonite extraction.  While all of the indicated hockey players are more or less from Canada, they do represent both Russian Mennonite heritage and the Eastern Mennonite heritage of Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario.  In fact, were Kitchener to team up with Rosthern, Sask., where the Regehrs call home in Canada, they would make a great rivalry for the Winnipeg-Winkler Mennonite hockey powerhouse.

    We even have a missionary family represented by both Robyn and Richard Regehr.  Robin was born while his family was on mission to Brazil and his younger brother Richie was born in Indonesia.  Nor are they the only brothers represented.  While Jonathan Toew's younger brother David Ryan has yet to make his mark in the majors, he has been included for having been drafted into the major leagues.  There are a few other teams of cousins that could be constructed easily if we were to list all minor league Mennonite hockey players... but that would take more time than I have -- though there is the tantalizing possibility of at least one American Mennonite family dynasty in the persons of the Miller clan of Michigan -- though apart from their name there is no evidence that they are either Mennonite or of Mennonite-descent -- so until more information is gathered, Mennonite hockey remains a Canadian monopoly.

    So have some fun, get into the game... If ever a sport were designed to appeal to the skills and joys of the Mennonite athlete, ice hockey has to be a prime candidate -- especially now that you know some of the players:  (read further for player profiles)

Family and Cultural Legacies

Elvina Neufeld Martens (1926 - 2012)

en Denkjmol

    Elvina Martens passed away 05 April in Goshen, Indiana.  While much has already been written about her family, and more will continue to be written about Martens' place in our collective narrative and cultural identity, it is important to mark her passing at this point and to reflect on how her life reflects the Golden Age of Mennonite culture, cooperation and inter-connectivity in the United States.

  

    According to her obituary in the Elkhart Truth (13 April, p A6), "Elvina graduated from the University of Illinois Medical School in 1950.  She served as a missionary doctor in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for 18 years.  After retiring from the mission field, she practiced medicine in Illinois and Indiana.  She was a member of the Silverwood Mennonite Church and the Mennonite Medical Association."