What color is your heritage?

As I mentioned in my earlier post about Ellis Island, about 40% of modern Americans can trace their heritage through that famous port of entry. An overwhelming majority of the rest of the 60% of the population can find ancestors among the throngs of others who entered via a myriad of other ports of entry into the United States and/or via crossing the border from Canada or Mexico. To say the very least, we are a nation with multicultural heritage.

With the knowledge that we are such a "multicolored" people, the Lower East Side Tenement Museum of New York City created a website entitled We Are Multicolored. The interactive site was created by the museum's Digital Artists in Residence Program. Its goal is to create awareness of the immigrant experience through the opportunity for visitors to create their very own flag representing their heritage or the countries that have influenced them.

The flag I've created above represents the three countries of my heritage: Ireland, Hungary and Croatia. The fun of the website is that you can choose three countries, then manipulate the color bars and symbols of each of the three flags to create your very own symbolic image.

Give it a try and fly your own multicolored flag! If you do so and want to share it, let me know so I can take a look at it on We Are Multicolored.

If you'd like to read more about the other "colors" of my heritage, check out Small-leaved Shamrock and A Light That Shines Again.