{"id":21547,"date":"2012-03-17T20:24:57","date_gmt":"2012-03-17T20:24:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=21547"},"modified":"2014-10-28T12:59:30","modified_gmt":"2014-10-28T12:59:30","slug":"an-irish-tradition-with-an-only-in-america-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=21547","title":{"rendered":"An Irish Tradition With an Only-in-America Star"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Irish Tradition With an Only-in-America Star<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/a>
\n2012-03-17<\/p>\n

Sabrina Tavernise<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

GREENVILLE, Ohio<\/a> \u2014 For those feeling down about the United States and its place in the world, meet Drew Lovejoy, a 17-year-old from rural Ohio<\/a>. His background could not be more American. His father is black and Baptist from Georgia<\/a> and his mother is white and Jewish from Iowa<\/a>. But his fame is international after winning the all-Ireland dancing championship in Dublin<\/a> for a third straight year.<\/p>\n

Drew is the first to admit that this is a lot to take in, so he sometimes hides part of his biography for the sake of convenience. As in 2010, when he became the first person of color to win the world championship for Irish dancing\u2014the highest honor in that small and close-knit world\u2014and a group of male dancers in their 70s, all of them Irish, offered their congratulations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey said, \u2018We never thought it would happen, but we\u2019re thrilled that it did,\u2019 \u201d said Drew\u2019s mother, Andee Goldberg. She added, \u201cThey don\u2019t even know he\u2019s Jewish. That hasn\u2019t been broached. I think it would be too overwhelming.\u201d…<\/p>\n

…Neither mother nor son can remember a time Drew wasn\u2019t dancing<\/a>, or the reason that he started. Drew thought it might have had to do with his mother getting tired of Disney movies and playing Fred Astaire<\/a> and Gene Kelly<\/a> videos for him. She also took him to musicals and theater performances.<\/p>\n

But when he went to a friend\u2019s Irish dance competition in Indianapolis, and saw the girls and boys leaping and skipping, dancing that was part tap, part ballet set to very happy music, he was hooked.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was like, \u2018Yeah, right,\u2019 \u201d his mother said, shaking her head. \u201cYou\u2019re biracial and you\u2019re a Jew. We thought you had to be Irish and Catholic.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said, \u201cI was like, \u2018I want a medal.\u2019\u201d…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An Irish Tradition With an Only-in-America Star The New York Times 2012-03-17 Sabrina Tavernise GREENVILLE, Ohio \u2014 For those feeling down about the United States and its place in the world, meet Drew Lovejoy, a 17-year-old from rural Ohio. His background could not be more American. His father is black and Baptist from Georgia and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,24,3601,8,820,20],"tags":[18291,6725,10077,18286,2640,10078,2327],"class_list":["post-21547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-arts","category-judaism","category-media-archive","category-religion","category-usa","tag-andee-goldberg","tag-dance","tag-drew-lovejoy","tag-irish-dancing","tag-new-york-times","tag-sabrina-tavernise","tag-the-new-york-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21547\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}