NRR: Why do Americans claim to be from other countries?

german >> rupp wrote:

Saying "I'm a mutt" is silly and self-important. You don't seem to realize that everybody is "mixed."

I do not think saying I'm a mutt is self-important - actually it seems more the opposite to me for the very fact that everyone is "mixed". It is certainly less self-important than the person who gives the breakdown of their lineage in percentages or the person who pulls out their genealogy chart provided to them by ancestry.com.

Yeah very few Irish who emigrated to Britain a few generations ago or even more recently would call themselves Irish-British.Funnily enough some British who came to Ireland a few centuries ago still consider themselves British....

I'm not sure would I agree that there should be more English Americans than Irish Americans. 1 million emigrated during the Famine and since then emigration has been a constant due to the economic basket case that is the RoI.

Also, don't forget that Catholics breed like rabbits.

Interesting. How does this interact with the Texan thing and the Southern thing. Do you bring up your Irish ancestry when you are talking to foreigners and save the Texan thing for people from other states.

Yes and the fact that nobody outside of Britain would want to admit to it...around these parts you would just say that you are Anglo.I agree with the Uber German American who said that claiming heritage should not be confused with equating 1/32nd to 100%.I'm not sure about Australia but in the States the desire to identify with particular aspects of one’s' ethnicity probably stems from the litany of cultural holidays we have here, i.e., Cinco De Mayo, Oktoberfest, St Patty's Day, Kwanza, Pow Wows, Ricky Martin Day, etc., etc. I don't know of many other countries that openly celebrate their immigrant roots - more likely they want you to assimilate as quickly as possible and brush the rest of that ethnic stuff under their proverbial rug.

Irishboy wrote:

Yeah very few Irish who emigrated to Britain a few generations ago or even more recently would call themselves Irish-British.Funnily enough some British who came to Ireland a few centuries ago still consider themselves British....

I'm not sure would I agree that there should be more English Americans than Irish Americans. 1 million emigrated during the Famine and since then emigration has been a constant due to the economic basket case that is the RoI.

Also, don't forget that Catholics breed like rabbits.

In reply to Irish boy, I don't think I said that there were more English Americans than Irish Americans. (Don't recall the figures.) I was more comparing the number of people who claimed Irish ethnicity with the actual static and separately comparing the number of people who claimed English heritage against that different statistic. A relative rather than an absolute contrast if you like.

In reply to Jefe in the co, I think the celebration of Oktoberfest and Saint Patrick's etc is a consequence rather than a cause of dual identity in USAnians.

Jefe in the CO wrote:

To me there is nothing more boring than someone who doesn’t bother to know their own cultural heritage.

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In our family we don't know where we "came from." No kidding. One side doesn't know at all and there are no records. The other side has moved around a whole bunch throughout the centuries and the country borders are totally different now and probably where they "came" from is no longer in existence.

RobXC wrote:

In the neighborhood where I grew up there are actually quite a lot of Irish/Italian marriages.

!

In my catholic school it was quite common for my friends to be Italian and Irish.

I'm actually australian, not canadian - I'm not sure where you got that idea from. Anyway, I don't understand all the hostility - I was just asking a simple question and thought some people might have an explanation. Australia is a similarly young country, but no one claims to be irish or english or whatever there, which is why I was wondering about the US.

some coked up Brit wrote:

but I might mention in passing that my grandparents are Irish.

here's the whole thread right here. most of the time i'm hanging out and heritage comes up, it comes up in passing. if someone's going on about it and it's bull, of course that's lame and it really doesn't need to be hashed out. but it's not categorically lame to mention in passing that you have an ethnic heritage and you're aware of what it is. maybe your grandmother makes some crazy food or you know some decent swears--that's worthy talk at a bar. it's idle banter, and usually comes off to me as a friendly conversation starter, not as an attempt to establish cultural dominance.

Sounds like st. paul

Maybe it is because as Americans we understand that we are a country of immigrants and most of us are proud of that fact. Certainly many of our right wing friends think that immigrants don't belong but as someone pointed out there have always been nativists. A large number of Americans relish the fact that a bunch of immigrants have been able, over the course of a few hundred years, to create a system of government that is a model for much of the world and manage to gain some dominance in economics and politics.

So, while I am proud to have been born in the great state of Missouri and to have lived in several other states, I still am proud to have descended, largely, from men and women of German stock who immigrated to the states.

I like your answer, thank you.

Stan Croft wrote:

Maybe it is because as Americans we understand that we are a country of immigrants and most of us are proud of that fact. Certainly many of our right wing friends think that immigrants don't belong but as someone pointed out there have always been nativists. A large number of Americans relish the fact that a bunch of immigrants have been able, over the course of a few hundred years, to create a system of government that is a model for much of the world and manage to gain some dominance in economics and politics.

So, while I am proud to have been born in the great state of Missouri and to have lived in several other states, I still am proud to have descended, largely, from men and women of German stock who immigrated to the states.

I am from New Zealand - a young country in the big scheme of things. My father is English and moved to NZ when he was 5.

I am a New Zealander. plain and simple, most of my friends are New Zealanders. We have a far shorter history than the US, yet I have absolutely zero need to say 'I'm English'. Simply because I'm not. I'm proud to be from New Zealand and have no desire to tell anyone otherwise.

Its a weird concept. So far, none of the reasons for saying you're Irish, when you're a third generation yank wash with me, and I can't really grasp the concept of dishourning your birth place

Are Americans embarrassed to be from America??

Mind you these people calling themselves Irish, Swedes or whatever still probably have their hand on their heart when they sing the national anthem

My question is this - Why do americans take so much pride in their heritage, and why do they think i care? Not meainign to come off condescendingly, I honestly would like it if someone had an good explanation.[/quote]

It's easy. Just wait 30 or 40 years and ask your grandchildren. They'll be happy to explain it to you. In the meantime, you'll never have a clue. On the other hand, maybe they will have decided they are all American and you are nothing but a foreign embarassment. Good luck with that.

Well being born of chinese parents makes you chinese, because the chinese are (perhaps contentiously) considered a race. There is no Irish, or Scottish, or German race. As others pointed out, if your ancestors were Irish, there's a good chance their ancestors were scottish, or english. Similarly, if your Spanish there's a good chance you're ancestors are African etc.

Science has proven that there's only ONE race, the Human Race. All Irish, Scots, Germans, African, Spanish, Chinese, English, etc. are direct descendants of the same two parents in Kenya some 20,000 years ago.

All previous 'separate races' theories have been proven invalid. Google for 'Human Genome Project' for more information.

But the ancetry of almost everyone in New Zealand is from the British Isles. So in your history the business of where someone's family originated wouldn't have been much of an issue. In the US it was quite an issue much of the time. My mother was not allowed to have friends whose families had emigrated from south or eastern Europe. Gangs have always been part of our urban environment and originally gang membership was determined by whatever nation your ancestors came from.

It's just a normal part of the way we learn to think about ourselves and it's not a normal part of the way a Kiwi learns to think about himself.

Perhaps to address your question, maybe it adds a sense of mystery or makes an otherwise dull origin seem more exotic, then "I grew up in Dullsville, USA". Especially when talking in bars, there is a kind of hidden desire to make yourself seem more interesting to others.Seems like a few posters place importance on where you were born when determining nationality, i.e. you were born in America, why not be proud of that? If my son, a product of an American father and a French mother, were born in Germany, is he German? He has an American and French passport. Why should it be different for a Franco-German born in America?One part of my ancestry comes from Germany, but when I look at historical maps, at the time of their arrival in America, I don't find Germany, and all the rest of the borders look funny.Wasn't it a Liverpudlian who said, "Imagine there's no countries..."

not from around here wrote:

I'm actually australian, not canadian - I'm not sure where you got that idea from. Anyway, I don't understand all the hostility - I was just asking a simple question and thought some people might have an explanation. Australia is a similarly young country, but no one claims to be irish or english or whatever there, which is why I was wondering about the US.

a nation of immigrants wrote:

It's easy. Just wait 30 or 40 years and ask your grandchildren. They'll be happy to explain it to you. In the meantime, you'll never have a clue. On the other hand, maybe they will have decided they are all American and you are nothing but a foreign embarassment. Good luck with that.

If my grandchildren and their parents have been born and raised here, meet an aussie in a bar and claim they're australian, i'd call them idiots myself. If it comes up in conversation that their grandfather is from australia, so be it.

btw "foreign embarasmment"? let me guess, born and raised in some midwestern or southern city, never left the states, and claim to be "irish" (or german or random place you've never been to)?

That's an easy answer. Everyone who came here came from a crappy situation. From war, from poverty, from dictatorship, from genocide, from apartheid, from fanmine, from political imprisonment, from repression. Making it to the USA was a great bone chilling feat of survival. I guess the only people who came here from a better country was the Japanese since their country had 100% literacy by 1910 and is today still the only country that can claim 100% literacy.