Daily Compass

When I need to do a hard thing, before I start I take a few minutes to center myself and think about the love and support that surrounds me. My family. My friends. My ancestors. Depending on what I’m gearing up to do, different ancestors come to mind. Sometimes it’s ancestors whom I knew – my grandmother, my 7th grade teacher who always supported me. Sometimes it’s the ancestors I’ve just heard about, whose stories made an impression on me. Always, imagining my ancestors in my corner, cheering me on, helps me to get started on the work in front of me with courage and faith in myself. -Jody Malloy, CLF

Where I live, today is still, unfortunately, celebrated as Columbus Day, a holiday intended to honor Italian-American heritage, but instead honoring colonization and the dehumanization of the Indigenous peoples of North America. As an Italian-American, it pains me that my people celebrate the wrong ancestor. I long for a celebration of the vibrant culture of my people that is not also a celebration of white supremacy. -Michael Tino, CLF

How do you celebrate your ethnic and cultural heritage?

I live on the lands of the Kitchawan and Wappinger peoples, at the northern edge of the great Lenape Nation, which stretches out to my south. To my north are the lands of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. The peoples on whose lands I live are still here, and their culture is very much alive, and it is important that I honor their presence as well as their history. -Michael Tino (CLF)

How do you honor the Indigenous peoples of the place you live, who might very well be your ancestors?

My grandmother, Bapcia if you will, came from Poland at the beginning of the 20th century along with many others escaping political strife and hunger.  Dad always said his mother was 13 when she left everyone and everything she had ever known to set out for a new better world in Chicopee MA.  She had $2 and was met by a cousin she had never met.  She lied to immigration and said she was 16 so she would be allowed into the country. This made legal trouble for her many years later when she was the married mother of seven children.  She got a job, met a nice man from near her home in Poland , they married, started a business and lived a fine life. -Judy DiCristofaro, CLF

How did your ancestors seek a better life for their families? Did they flee somewhere, fight back against enslavement or genocide, start over in a new land?

My great-great grandfather, Samuel Hanscom, fought in the Civil War, and was held as a prisoner of war in the south.  I do not have any details about Samuel’s capture, but I do know that over 400,000 people were sent to prisoner of war camps during the Civil War; and almost 13,000 people died in these camps. Sacrifice and trauma are part of my family’s history. -Beth Murray, CLF

How do you carry the sacrifice and trauma of your ancestors? How have you healed those wounds?