"Miss Lennon," a cute brown haired, freckle-faced second grader said to me on Friday, "I'm Irish".  This comment was followed by "Me too," Or, "My parents are from Ireland". "Well, my grandparents are Scottish," said a boy in the back of the stuffy music room. The girl sitting next to him said, "My last name is Scotch-Irish, but my family is Australian and Puerto Rican." I laughed a little to myself at that last comment, not because I found the combination of Australian and Puerto Rican strange or unusual, only very American. In fact, it got me wondering. Not just about what it is to be Celtic or even Celtic-American (I don't even think that term is used), but what it is to be American.

Word has gotten around in America about the work I do with The Celtic Link and with my own music. Very often, people just approach me and tell me about their Celtic heritage, without me even bringing the topic up for discussion. But, it was a day spent at the beach with my favorite Galician that challenged my Celtic and American identity. I had made some comment about not messing with an Irish/Italian woman when she is angry and he replied "But you are not Italian or Irish. You are American." Which, of course, sparked a stern lecture on what it is to be American and what it is to be ME. I don't think he'll say that comment ever again.

I explained to him, that as a second generation child of immigrants from both Italy and Ireland, I am only 2 generations seperated from my relatives who came to America and their traditions. I was raised in a household where I was cooking Italian food everyday, speaking the language with both my Italian mother and grandmother, and at night hearing the stories of the Lennon famiy from my Irish father and grandfather. And, of course, I say the songs of both countries. As a child, it never dawned on me that I was anything but Irish and Italian. In fact, when someone asks me my background, I don't say American, I say Irish and Italian. I only live in America. However, when I am working with the Native Americans, I am American. THEY are American (well, at least my generations of Natives believe that). When I am interviewed about my activisim, I say how proud I am to be American and am working so hard to carry the American and Native American world into the 21st Century. And, probably the most confusing part of the whole situation is that my twin sister Dani and I are constantly asked if we are Native American on a daily basis. Which, we are not.

So, herein lies the conflict. What is it like to be an American? What is it like to be a Celtic American? You know, the more I answer those questions, the more I realize that I have no answer. Afterall, I live in a country where everything and anything is possible. Where people are a mix of so many backgrounds, yet when they are challenged-will stand together and call themselves American. This is a truly strange place, America. But even stranger still, is how much I fit in.