All of his life he thought he was Mexican-American.
All of his life his brother-in-law thought he was
fifty percent Dutch and fifty Swedish. The Dutch
Swede really wanted to be Jewish thinking it would
raise his IQ a few points and thought there might
be a chance on the Dutch side. And then he found
out that the DNA knows the truth and has now told.
He isn’t all that much Dutch and certainly not Jew-
ish, most of his blood originating above the fort-
ieth parallel latitude, but his Mexican-American
brother-in-law isn’t Mexican at all and really is
of Spanish Jewish descent. The mostly Scan-
dinavian/Great Britain/not Jewish guy asked the
now, non-Mexican-American mostly Jewish guy,
“Why couldn’t you be I?” The former Mexican,
mostly Spanish Jew, in all of his newly found wis-
dom perhaps attributable to a few, new points
of IQ he claimed, simply stated, “Not to worry,
brother. We all come out of Africa.”
Henry “Skip” Gates…did you catch the interview (abs.org) between him and Ken Burns about their upcoming shows…added to my laughter for this poem.