“
Heritage Americans” is a funny expression. I mean, literally
funny.
One of the comical aspects of our current political moment is that every other anti-immigration activist and ethno-nationalist in the United States has a surname that is Irish, Armenian, Hungarian, Indian, Spanish—anything except Anglo-Saxon. Kash Patel is the son of Ugandan Gujaratis. Donald Trump is the grandson of a German immigrant
who dealt in whores and horsemeat. The
chairman of the Edmund Burke Foundation is an Israeli national. There was not one
Ungar-Sargon or
Krikorian on the
Mayflower or among the signers of the Declaration of Independence. The kind of white supremacy that
includes people called
Fuentes is pretty newfangled. Not a Cooper or a Standish or a Bradford in the bunch. But I suppose that is the way of the world: White people, even white supremacists, just ain’t what they used to be.
WASP life is in a strange chapter. I remember when some Main Line social club rejected a local entertainment-industry billionaire’s bid for membership, there were whispers—familiar and not entirely unjustified—that he had been rejected because he was Jewish. But the story I heard and believe is that he was rejected for a different reason: because he was
famous, and, for the old Main Line WASPs, that was the wrong kind of rich guy to be.
Over the years, the Main Line became less Anglo-Saxon and much more Jewish and Italian, as well as home to a great many more good old-fashioned
American mutts. But the old WASP culture was transmitted, at least for a generation or two, to the newcomers. It is now much attenuated, and where the snootiness notions of class had once prevailed there is now only the worship of money.
An elderly friend of mine who had arrived as a Jewish child refugee from Germany and who had observed the Main Line’s social evolution for the better part of a century used to do a little bit over lunch at the Union League. “You know, this club is going to hell,” he would say, switching to a very, very audible stage whisper. “I hear they even let …
Jews join now.” He and his people had not always been made to feel entirely welcome. Making a lot of money and rising to a high position at a socially important, locally based business, as well as rising to high positions at socially important local cultural institutions, had opened some doors and made some difference for him. WASP ethnic clannishness had also declined over the years, while antisemitism was increasingly regarded as
declassé. But he had not forgotten. He never did. And he wanted me to know that. But my friend had a way of putting things in their place:
“It’s always a special occasion when I get to see you, Kevin,” he would say with a smile. “I’m wearing my second-best toupée.”
