November 16 is Dutch-American Heritage Day. It was proclaimed so by Congress and the first President Bush in 1991 because on November 16 in 1776 Dutch forces on the Caribbean island of St. Eustatius returned the salute of the American brig-of-war Andrew Doria, making the Netherlands the first country to salute the flag of the new United States. In 1782, the Netherlands was also the first country to recognize formal diplomatic relations with the United States. Of course, Dutch-American Heritage Day is of particular interest to me since I'm of Dutch origin--descended not from the Dutch who settled here in the Hudson River Valley in the seventeenth century but from the Dutch who immigrated to America in the nineteenth century and settled in southwestern Michigan. For anyone who's interested, I'm including a link to an opinion piece that appeared yesterday in the Holland Sentinel, the newspaper of the city where I grew up. If curiosity compels you to read it, you will understand why I accompanied this post with a picture of wooden shoes I danced in when I was in high school.
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