St Patrick’s Day
ST. PATRICK’S DAY – BEING PART IRISH
audio clip
A Personal Starting Point
I am part Irish on my mother’s side of the family. According to DNA testing, I am about 25 percent Irish—just one out of my 18 nationalities swirling in my bloodlines. The rest come from my father’s side: Basque, Dutch, Danish, English, Finnish, Italian, Jewish, Norwegian, Mongolian, Russian, Scot, Swedish, Spanish, Ukrainian, and Welsh, and from my mother, English, French, Cherokee, Nigerian, Scot, and Irish. The family names are Aldridge and Robinson—good Irish names.
Every year on St. Patrick’s Day, I wear green. Sometimes I go out for a drink or two. Like many people, I enjoy the celebration. But the older I get, the more this day becomes less about spectacle and more about memory—about what is inherited, what is forgotten, and what refuses to disappear.
Names, Bloodlines, and Fractured Histories
The family name Aller is of German and French origin. Descendants of the Huguenot Aller clan, who settled near Hanover after fleeing Catholic France during the Hundred Years’ War, carried the surnames Aller, Adlar, Eller, or Oller.
On my mother’s side, the ancestry includes French, Cherokee, Nigerian, Scottish, and Irish. The family names are Aldridge and Robinson—good Irish names. They were part of the legendary Lost Tribe of the Cherokees, who fled into the Ozarks to escape the Trail of Tears Indian relocation and intermarried with other tribes, escaped slaves, and settlers, mostly Scot‑Irish or French. As such, I am also probably part Choctaw and Seminole. My grandparents both spoke Cherokee, so that makes me about ¼ Cherokee or so.
DNA results show trace elements of Cherokee ancestry, the lost tribe rarely appears in DNA data bases because of the small number of people in the lost tribe.. There are approximately 50,000 Lost Tribal members who have been fighting for recognition for decades. Some people also called them “Black Irish” because of their dark complexions. Over time, they largely forgot the Cherokee language and customs, which is the stated reason the officially recognized Cherokee tribes do not want to extend recognition. The real reason? They do not want them to open Indian casinos in Arkansas and Missouri, where most of them reside.
I once met a self‑described ambassador of the Cherokee Nation at a State Department annual consultation with Native American tribes. He confirmed that I was probably part of the Lost Tribe and that I was also probably related to him. He also confirmed the real reasons the official Cherokee nations have been fighting recognition.
President Clinton, when he was an ex-president, came to Mumbai, and I talked at length with him. He also concluded we were distant cousins as his family had family relations with the Aldridge’s of Little Rock and with the Lost tribes of the Cherokee nations and he said that he was part Cherokee as well but undocumented because they too were part of the lost tribes, and this was before DNA testing. His grandparents spoke Cherokee as well.
He concluded we were probably distant cousins.
He ended by saying I could call him Cousin Bill and he would remember me as Cousin Jake.
My colleagues were all wondering why I had ten minutes’ face time with Clinton and what we talked about. I told them it turns out we are cousins through my Mother side of the family and we both have some Cherokee background.
I should have kept in touch. He could have been a twin to our uncle they looked very similar and were similar ages -late 50’s.
Before Alzheimer’s and dementia took my mother, Mary, I told her this story. She replied that Clinton could indeed be a distant cousin, as she had also heard of a distant family link between the Clinton and Aldridge clans. She added that the Clintons had also lost their Cherokee tribal affiliation. But she did not like Clinton said he was typical fake southern populist politician.
The latest DNA review shows us to be predominantly Scandinavian, Eastern European, Scottish, Welsh, Irish, Italian (which surprises me at 15%) and the one percent Nigerian. The Jewish ancestry disappeared as did the Basque and Mongolian. That is also understandable as they were trace elements before – but I think that we do have Mongolian ancestry as anyone from Eastern European has some Mongolian due to Genghis Khan’s ararmies’ass rapes during their reign of conquests. The Basque might be real too. The Nigerian connection keeps popping up so that is real too.
The Italians also probably are part of the mixed race Lost tribes of the Cherokees who were a mixed group of five civilized tribes, escapes slaves, French, Scots, Scot Irish, and apparently Italians and Dutch settlers, who fled into the Ozarks and disappeared rather than be relocated during the trail of tears in the 1830’s. Formal Indians never enrolled them. The Cherokee tribes and the other five civilized tribes still do not recognize them, as outlined in the wiki article below. It is possible that we have ancestry in any of these tribes, but Mary claimed her parents were part Cherokee and spoke Cherokee, which means they were both at least ¼ Cherokee, as most people with less than that did not speak the language anymore.
That means, as I always assumed, we are at least 1/8 native American, despite not having any DNA evidence to back it up. The other factoid is that I once met one of her brothers, an uncle, and he looked almost full-blood Cherokee to me, easily appearing native American. He lived in Oklahoma where apparently there were a lot of cousins who were part of the Cherokee nation and a lot of who were part of the lost tribe We had a fascinating conversation. He had cousins who were Aldridge from Little Rock and part of the lost tribe. He informed me that the Cherokee nation’s official policy deemed these tribes ineligible for Cherokee status because their ancestors were not formally enrolled on the Dawes list, an official registry of Cherokee families compiled during the Trail of Tears. They thus lack both documentary and DNA evidence to back up their stories, and they were also mixed tribally and racially. The real reason he confided in me was that did not want them to open Indian casinos.
Poetic Musings
Poetry is where the unresolved parts are allowed to live.
Green Threads
I wear green
not because I know the village name
or the parish stone,
but because something old
still hums when the day comes.
A thread runs through me—
salt wind, famine songs,
boats leaving without looking back.
I am not fluent in the language,
but my blood remembers
the shape of loss
and the stubborn refusal
to disappear.
DNA Test Results
The test gives me numbers,
percentages, like weather forecasts.
Twenty‑five percent Irish,
as if ancestry could be folded
into quarters and graphs.
But it does not measure
my grandmother’s silence,
the way stories stopped mid‑sentence,
or how names changed
to survive crossing oceans.
The truest data
was never swabbed—
it lives in habits,
in grief passed down quietly,
in songs no one remembers learning.
St. Patrick’s Day, America
Here, the rivers turn green,
beer foams over,
everyone borrows an accent for a night.
I watch, amused and distant,
knowing celebration is a kind of longing.
We dress ourselves in symbols
hoping they will explain us.
But identity is not a costume—
it is a trail of footprints
leading backward,
sometimes into fog.
Ancestors at the Bar
I raise a glass
to the ones who didn’t make it easy,
who left because staying meant erasure,
who survived by becoming something else.
If they are watching,
I hope they know
I’m still asking the questions
they never had time to answer.
Family History Revealed
The DNA results
Revealed some aspects
Of whom I am
Where I am from
But not everything
Was revealed
And much of my history
Remains hidden
My father was from Yakima
Ran away to the Bay Area
Where he became a college professor
Taught the dismal science of economics
Along the way
He met my mother
And after a whirlwind romance
had four children
My older brother,
Me
Younger brother
And sister
She was a refugee
From the dust bowl
Fled Arkansas
In the late ’30s
Never looked back
Settled down
In the Bay Area
Yet the south lingered on
She trained herself
To speak without an accent
The only time the southern came out
Was when she was talking to her sisters
She was the 10th of 11th children
My Father was a moonshiner
A Cherokee medicine man to boot
Lived life in the Ozark mountains
She had two sons
From a prior relationship
That went south
We never really knew them
My father was an atheist
And a morning person
And a man with a plan
For everything
My mother
More make it up
As she went along
And a night owl
How and why
They met and stayed together
Is beyond me
They had a stormy relationship
My mother always said
Germans and Irish
Don’t mix
And never should marry
She also said
The world is divided into morning people
And night owls
And they are doomed to marry each other
Yet I suppose
There was real love
Beneath all the drama
And bluster
My Tangled Family History
I have a tangle family history
I grew up in Berkeley, California
my father a college professor
my mother dabbled in this and that.
my father an atheist
Grew up in Yakima, Washington.
my mother a lapsed
Southern Baptist fundamentalist
from Little Rock, Arkansas.
a dysfunctional family
love hate relationship
constant fights.
distant, cold father
alcoholic mother
siblings who hated me.
DNA and family lore
confirms i have 22 nationalities
swirling in my tangled bloodlines
From my Father’s side
Basque, French, Danish, Finnish, German, Italian,
Jewish,Laplander, Mongolian, Norwegian, Spanish,
Swedish, Ukrainian and Russian.
from my Mother’s side
Dutch, Cherokee (from the lost tribe), English,
Black Irish, Nigerian, and Scotch.
The DNA results
Revealed some aspects
Of whom I am
Where I am from
But not everything
Was revealed
And much of my history
Remains hidden
My father was from Yakima
Ran away to the Bay Area
Where he became a college professor
Taught the dismal science economics
Along the way
He met my mother
And after a whirlwind romance
had four children
My older brother,
Me
Younger brother
And sister
She was a refugee
From the dust bowl
Fled Arkansas
In the late ’30s
Never looked back
Settled down
In the Bay Area
Yet the south lingered on
She trained herself
To speak without an accent
The only time the southern came out
Was when she was talking to her sisters
She was the 10th of 11th children
Father was a moonshiner
A Cherokee medicine man to boot
Lived life in the Ozark mountains
She had two sons
From a prior relationship
That went south
We never really knew them
My father was an atheist
And a morning person
And a man with a plan
For everything
My mother
More make it up
As she went along
And a night owl
How and why
They met and stayed together
Is beyond me
They had a stormy relationship
My mother always said,
Germans and Irish
Don’t mix
And never should marry
She also said
The world is divided into morning people
And night owls
And they are doomed to marry each other
Yet I suppose
There was actual love
Beneath all the drama
And bluster
DNA Tests Don’t Lie or Do They?
I sent way
For one of those DNA tests
That promises to reveal
Your ethnic heritage
The only problem is that claim
Is not yet true
The results were surprising
To say the least
Family lore would have it
That I have 18 nationalities
In my tangled family history
Mostly Northern European
Part German, Norwegian, Swedish, Finish, Danish, Dutch, Laplander, Russian, Scottish, Basque, Mongolian, Jewish, Spanish, and French from my father
Part Cherokee, Dutch, Irish, Scottish, English, Italian, Nigerian, and French from my mother
100 percent born and raised in Berkeley
The DNA results showed
that I am 68% northern European
with trace elements of Jewish, Basque. Italian
Mongolian and Nigerian stock,
No native American at all
And my Germanic last name
For some reason
Did not register at all
Go figure I said
And I read the fine print
The state of the art is such
That claims that they can tell
Your ethnic background
Are exaggerated
The fine print read
Explaining why it is often inaccurate
The Cherokee background
Disappeared
Because my branch of the Cherokees
Disappeared into the mist of time
Part of the lost tribe of the Cherokee nation
Part Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Seminole
and African Americans
Who fled to the mountains
To avoid the trail of trees
The German background
Got swept up into the northern European thing
And at the end of the day
I remained as much a mongrel
breed as anything else
Typical American
I suppose
Family History Revealed
The DNA results
Revealed some aspects
Of whom I am
Where I am from
But not everything
Was revealed
And much of my history
Remains hidden
My father was from Yakima
Ran away to the Bay Area
Where he became a college professor
Taught the dismal science economics
Along the way
He met my mother
And after a whirlwind romance
had four children
My older brother,
Me
Younger brother
And sister
She was a refugee
From the dust bowl
Fled Arkansas
In the late ’30s
Never looked back
Settled down
In the Bay Area
Yet the south lingered on
She trained herself
To speak without an accent
The only time the southern came out
Was when she was talking to her sisters
She was the 10th of 11th children
Father was a moonshiner
A Cherokee medicine man to boot
Lived life in the Ozark mountains
She had two sons
From a prior relationship
That went south
We never really knew them
My father was an atheist
And a morning person
And a man with a plan
For everything
My mother
More make it up
As she went along
And a night owl
How and why
They met and stayed together
Is beyond me
They had a stormy relationship
My mother always said
Germans and Irish
Don’t mix
And never should marry
She also said
The world is divided into morning people
And night owls
And they are doomed to marry each other
Yet I suppose
There was real love
Beneath all the drama
And bluster
All in all
A fascinating experiment
Mother’s Secret Cherokee History
audio bonus poem why are there so many fake Cherokees?
My Mother
Grew Up Poor
In Arkansas
Part Cherokee
Part Of the Lost Tribe
Of The Cherokee Nation
Ran Away
From The Trail of Tears
Father’s Son
I am my Father’s Son
I lived all my life
Fighting against turning
into a carbon copy
Of my father
And I failed as my father emerged
From the darkness of my soul
The full German personality
And Scandinavian background
becoming clear
And peered out
and liked what he saw
As I became him
step by inexorable step
Turning into my father
As he had turned his father
And his father in his father
Since the dawn of time
We have played this game
.
Sons turning into their fathers
And watching grandsons
Start the dance all over again
St. Patrick: History Without the Myth
St. Patrick himself was not Irish by birth. According to historical sources, he was born in Roman Britain and taken captive to Ireland as a teenager. After escaping, he later returned as a Christian missionary. Over centuries, legend expanded his story—snakes, shamrocks, miracles—layering myth onto history.
March 17 began as a religious feast day, not a party. The Irish diaspora shaped largely the version most of us recognize today—parades, public drinking, green everywhere, especially in the United States. Like many immigrant traditions, it became a way to assert belonging in a new land while honoring something left behind.
What the Day Means to Me Now
I don’t celebrate St. Patrick’s Day because I have clean answers about my ancestry. I celebrate it because the questions remain alive.
DNA can suggest. History can outline. But neither can fully explain inheritance, silence, or survival. Poetry comes closest—not because it resolves anything, but because it allows contradiction to stand.
I wear green not as a costume, but as a signal: something endured. Something crossed oceans, changed names, forgot languages, survived erasure—and still found a way to speak.
That is what I’m honoring.
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