My Yankee Kin Want European Passports

Once upon a time there was a maternal grandma. No one visited her or talked to her. She spoke accented English.

The only things she made over the fire were salmon croquettes and bread pudding. Everything else was either boiled or served cold. Chicken was boiled, for example. And the cold meal? Rice Krispies with milk or bananas and sour cream.

I suspect the condition of her teeth and the available ready cash in the pocketbook were also determiners.
She arrived to Ellis Island on the Nieuw Amsterdam in 1920. I assume she had no facility with English since she seldom spoke full English sentences when I arrived in America (as a native) some 40 years after her arrival.

Whatever happened to the papers? The unofficial word was that they were flushed down the toilet. It seemed like a valid notion... poop and pish all of your kosher food from the intestines and then mix the contents of the bowl with torn identity papers from Rzeczpospolita Polska (the Republic of Poland).

Don't forget to spit on the ground after the country's name is mentioned.

...

Apparently there were too many obstacles in the maternal grandmother's lineage and Polish citizenship by birthright would not be granted. So there is her late husband--who was Hungarian--to look into. Isn't it amazing how Americans are looking for a European passport to be handed over to them based on where their forefathers came from and America is rounding up immigrants who lack papers and wishing to ship them off to G*d knows where.

SAD