Winter is here in Colorado and 2023 will soon be in the past, for better and for worse. For FrancoAmericanGravy, your host, the days and seasons of 2023 moved quickly. It was a summer of reuniting with extended family – some family members I had not seen in 30 years. I made a deliberate effort to see family and I am glad I did. Many of my first cousins are now grandparents and great grandparents. Their grandchildren have no inkling about their Franco-American culture and tradition. That, too, is all in the past.
Through this site, your host will try to bring some of that back into focus for our extended family who are now 4th, 5th and 6th generation Americans with little understanding of the Franco-American immigrant experience. As immigrants continue to come to the United States, the parallels continue and cannot be overlooked. Unless you are indigenous, you are a descendent of an immigrant. Immigrant ancestors had hardships – more than can be imagined in our 21st century consumer culture. Today we, descendants, enjoy the fruits of our ancestor’s labors. We all live on land once the homeland of indigenous.
Thanksgiving is giving and acknowledging all we have been given.