Happy Saint Patrick’s Day, a holiday where Irish-Americans get in touch with their roots and honor their homeland with music, merriment, and a lot of green. My own family tree is made up of many peoples, but I have always identified as Irish, even as a child. However, it’s a day when it doesn’t matter where you’re from or what color your skin is - you don’t have to be Irish to celebrate on March 17th. 

I miss the floats and the fanfare in the parade in Phoenix, AZ. I miss marching alongside my friends Carroll Oden and Joe Murphy in the Irish Human Rights Coalition. I miss hanging out at the Faire with Dan Courtney. I miss my conversations with Pat and Patty McCrossan from the Ireland’s Own shop. 

Megan Marie is very good to me - as vegans, we don’t eat corned beef, but she cooks a delicious tempeh with our cabbage and calcannon. I don’t drink as much as I used to, but I can probably get away with a shot of whiskey with dinner tonight.

I continue wishing for a sovereign 32 counties, for one peaceful, united Ireland free from British rule and occupation, religious strife, discrimination, and sectarian violence. I continue to remember those who died in the Great Famine, on Bloody Sunday, in the Hunger Strikes at H Block, and on both sides of the Troubles. 

Today, I am reminded how privileged I am. I am a white, heterosexual, cisgendered male in America. I have never been targeted for the identity I was born with. That privilege is undue and those advantages are at the expense of women, people of color, and the LGBT community. Also, I have never had my home taken away from me, like the Irish in the North - or, like the Indian Nations on this continent.

To my fellow Irish… the Irish in America have been out from under oppression for many generations now. There are many problems a white person in this country may suffer if they are poor, or if they are gay, lesbian, or transgendered, but not because of their whiteness. When we address the issue of undocumented workers and families, we cannot allow laws that ignore the humanity and equality of Latinos and Latinas. We must remember that we were once immigrants, too.

For me, to be Irish is not just to care only about the Irish, but to care about all human beings - considering the history of our own people, we would be hypocrites otherwise.

Saoirse. Comhionannas. Síocháin. Ceartas.