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

from what i've noticed it is only white americans who are expected to (and do) know which european country their ancestors came from.

blacks and asians usually are labeled by their respective continent of origin followed by the word 'american.' e.g. african-american or asian-american (or even native american).

i'm not sure why this is.

Similarly, why do American blacks always claim to be part Cherokee?

Something I don't think has been brought up yet: in the US, when one applies to college or fills out income tax forms or the like, etc., etc., there's this "choose your race" box you must fill out. Most of us who've applied for college scholarships know that minorities can receive special scholarship funds, so if you can prove a fraction of Native American or African American or Pacific Islander, etc., in your genealogy, it can get you $$ for school.

A large number of Americans who are Asian in origin are much more aware of their families' background. They either speak a language at home, study the language on the weekend at supplementary schools when they are in grade/high school, and/or practice traditions from Asia (lunar new year, etc).

I cannot think of a "Scottish" family that cooks up a haggis, let alone owns a single kilt.

This whole, "We're from xyz" is bar talk. Americans act and behave like Americans in practice, and are probably behaviourally more homogeneous than many European countries.

Mrs. M wrote:

Something I don't think has been brought up yet: in the US, when one applies to college or fills out income tax forms or the like, etc., etc., there's this "choose your race" box you must fill out. Most of us who've applied for college scholarships know that minorities can receive special scholarship funds, so if you can prove a fraction of Native American or African American or Pacific Islander, etc., in your genealogy, it can get you $$ for school.

You don't have to fill out those archaic and racist forms. I never fill in those horrid things. My genetic cocktail doesn't fit any of those classifications and, frankly, it is nobody's business what I am. It's shameful that in 2009 anybody thinks that those forms have any reasonable purpose and disgusting that anybody actually fills them in.

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)?

Let's see. That would be wrong, wrong and wrong again. Yet, I do honor my grandparents who came to this country and went through a lot to make a better life for their children and grandchildren. And, the culture they brought with them still has an a bit of an impact on who I am today. And pretty much the same is true of everyone else in this country. So, if they casually mention they are Italian, they are not claiming to be "Italian." They are sharing their part of the American mosaic. They see no contradiction in saying this while considering themselves to be wholly American. If you are coming from a country where everyone's background is pretty much the same, you are probably not going to understand.

The situation in this country is complex because the sense of ethnicity also varies according to how distant the immigrant experience, how ethnic the community you grew up in, whether or not you choose to care, and how physically identifiably ethnic you are. It does get to be an issue when others seek to apply ethnicity to you. If you choose it - good; if somebody else chooses it for you or insists you express one - offensive. My kids get this one all the time since my wife's ancestors came from an entirely different part of the world than mine. So usually, when someone asks where they come from they don't mean which city - which is usually the answer they get.

I recognise that it is important to many Americans to acknowledge that their ancestors arrived from some crazy war-torn poverty-ridden country on a boat and then they made it good in the land of the free and lived the American dream; and to claim that the fact that their own particular war-torn poverty-ridden ancestoral home (perhaps Poland) is different from someone else's (perhaps Italy).

I'm fine with that. Britain is also a nation of immigrants (to a lesser extent than the US, but to a greater extent than almost any other country). I acknowledge that two of my grandparents are from Ireland.

There is a difference between that and pretending that this means in some way that I am Irish. I am always careful not to pretend to be Irish myself because I know that Irish people take offence at this because I don't sound Irish or share in current Irish popular culture or really understand what it means to be Irish. My assistant at work has Indian grand-parents but she would not claim to Indian herself.

I have found that many third, fourth and fifth generation Americans not only acknowledge the provenance of their forefathers, but also claim to be in some way of that country themselves and this is what I have a (mild) objection to. I don't think Americans realise that this can be slightly offensive to European ears. (Oddly, as I mentioned earlier, very few Americans claim to be English or acknowledge that that is their ancestory!) Lots of Americans will claim to be Italian or German for example. Yet they don't speak Italian or understand the cultural norms and concerns of real Italians living in today's Italy! Does it really make sense to call themselves Italian? Do they realise that real Italians might find this slightly offensive and do they think such offence is justified?

Do they realise that real Italians might find this slightly offensive and do they think such offence is justified?[/quote]

Like I stated before, if you're not from here, you're not going to get it. People aren't claiming to be actual Italians, Poles or whatever. As for the English, and some of my ancestors came from there too, maybe they are just not that interesting or out of the white bread American norm. Maybe the sense of attachment comes mostly from people who had to fight to fit in but weren't willing to give up entirely who they were. Now days, we are in danger of going too far in the other direction.

And as for Italy, when my very non-Italian looking daughter was studying abroad in that country, people would look at the name in her US Passport and respond, "Oh, you're Italian!"

dtrtrt wrote:

the reason is because many white americans really have no culture. even if their grandparents immigrated to the states, they have become so assimilated into american culture that they've lost the culture from where they originally came from.

essentially its just bland people trying to convince themselves that their different.

White Americans have an "American culture". The red-diaper grandkids have been busy brainwashing them into believing they have no culture, while extolling the virtues of their hateful religion/culture and those of primitive third world cultures as being superior to anything developed by those darn evil white folks.

I found the same thing, a lot of people told me they are Irish etc... yeah right, I asked them where's your Irish passport then? Your American.

My biggest problem was with so called 'African' American's telling me they were African baby. That whole bitch and bling culture, has nothing to do with Africa. Its American culture. Ever been to Africa? The people couldnt be more opposite to the snarling, mean faced, rapper wanna-be pricks all over the place. They are American's.

American culture is all about SUV's, fast food, being rude and always annoyed with nothing, needing pills to cure 'stress', being ignorant to the wider world, walmart... that IS American culture.

onceinmylife wrote:

I found the same thing, a lot of people told me they are Irish etc... yeah right, I asked them where's your Irish passport then? Your American.

My American what?

I would like to ask something and get you guys opinion. Both of my parents were born in Cuba and I was born in the US (if Miami counts as the US). In Miami spanish is probably the most spoken language and the latin culture is everwhere. At home we speak Spanish, the music we listen to is in spanish, and the food we eat is "Cuban" food.

I grew up speaking fluently both English and Spanish but the culture is such that if I went anywhere else in the country al you guys would ask me what country I came from. Because we are political exiles and live in a culture similar to the homeland do I not consider myself Cuban or at the least Cuban-American?

And to add to your discussion; You guys (the general American population) will consider us all Mexican while within Latino culture there are great differences and pride between the different countries. Likewise for Latinos, outside of ourselves there are only Gringos, chinos, africanos, and europeos. Just something to consider that the difference between Irish decendent and German decendent for us is about the difference of a Honduran and a Nicaraguense for "Americans."

Un Cubano wrote:

...and the food we eat is "Cuban" food.

Mmmmmmmmm, Cuban food, mmmmmmmmm...I'm sorry what was your question again?

1.We are americans

2.our family heritage originates from another part of the world

3.when we ask another or claim to be german or irish ect we are basically saying were our roots are from.

4. Why is it so hard to get it through your forein heads its not hard to understand ..if it is maybe you should check your roots and make sure your relatives were nt breeding with each other Blood of the

Irish: DNA Proves Ancestry of the People of Ireland 92

By Marie McKeown

Ads by Google Ancestry DNA Testing

www.dnacenter.co

Ancestry DNA Testing in 48 Hours 100% Accurate Results

Blood of the Irish

The Blood in Irish veins is Celtic, right? Well, not exactly. Although the history many Irish people were taught at school is the history of the Irish as a Celtic race, the truth is much more complicated, and much more interesting than that ...

Research done into the DNA of Irish males has shown that the old Anthropological attempts to define 'Irish' have been misguided. As late as the 1950s researchers were busy collecting data among Irish people such as hair colour and height, in order to categorise them as a 'race' and define them as different to the British. In fact British and Irish people are closely related in their ancestry.

Research into Irish DNA and ancestry has revealed close links with Scotland stretching back to before the Ulster Planation of the early 1600s. But the closest relatives to the Irish in DNA terms are actually from somewhere else entirely!

Irish Blood: origins of DNA

The earliest settlers came to Ireland around 10,000 years ago, in Stone Age times. There are still remnants of their presence scatter across the island. Mountsandel in Coleraine in the North of Ireland is the oldest known site of settlement in Ireland -remains of woven huts, stone tools and food such as berries and hazelnuts were discovered at the site in 1972.

But where did the early Irish come from? For a long time the myth of Irish history has been that the Irish are Celts. Many people still refer to Irish, Scottish and Welsh as Celtic culture - and the assumtion has been that they were Celts who migrated from central Europe around 500BCE. Keltoi was the name given by the Ancient Greeks to a 'barbaric' (in their eyes) people who lived to the north of them in central Europe. While early Irish art shows some similarities of style to central European art of the Keltoi, historians have also recognised many significant differences between the two cultures.

The latest research into Irish DNA has confirmed that the early inhabitants of Ireland were not directly descended from the Keltoi of central Europe. In fact the closest genetic relatives of the Irish in Europe are to be found in the north of Spain in the region known as the Basque Country. These same ancestors are shared to an extent with the people of Britain - especially the Scottish.

DNA testing through the male Y chromosome has shown that Irish males have the highest incidence of the haplogroup 1 gene in Europe. While other parts of Europe have integrated contiuous waves of new settlers from Asia, Ireland's remote geographical position has meant that the Irish gene-pool has been less susceptible to change. The same genes have been passed down from parents to children for thousands of years.

This is mirrored in genetic studies which have compared DNA analysis with Irish surnames. Many surnames in Irish are Gaelic surnames, suggesting that the holder of the surname is a descendant of people who lived in Ireland long before the English conquests of the Middle Ages. Men with Gaelic surnames, showed the highest incidences of Haplogroup 1 (or Rb1) gene. This means that those Irish whose ancestors pre-date English conquest of the island are direct descendants of early stone age settlers who migrated from Spain.

Irish and British DNA : a comparison

I live in Northern Ireland and in this small country the differences between the Irish and the British can still seem very important. Blood has been spilt over the question of national identity.

However, the lastest research into both British and Irish DNA suggests that people on the two islands have much genetically in common. Males in both islands have a strong predominance of Haplogroup 1 gene, meaning that most of us in the British Isles are descended from the same Spanish stone age settlers.

The main difference is the degree to which later migrations of people to the islands affected the population's DNA. Parts of Ireland (most notably the western seaboard) have been almost untouched by outside genetic influence since hunter-gatherer times. Men there with traditional Irish surnames have the highest incidence of the Haplogroup 1 gene - over 99%.

At the same time London, for example, has been a mutli-ethnic city for hundreds of years. Furthermore, England has seen more arrivals of new people from Europe - Anglo-Saxons and Normans - than Ireland. Therefore while the earliest English ancestors were very similar in DNA and culture to the tribes of Ireland, later arrivals to England have created more diversity between the two groups.

Irish and Scottish people share very similar DNA. The obvious similarities of culture, pale skin, tendancy to red hair have historically been prescribed to the two people's sharing a common celtic ancestry. Actually it now seems much more likely that the similarity results from the movement of people from the north of Ireland into Scotland in the centuries 400 - 800 AD. At this time the kingdom of Dalriada, based near Ballymoney in County Antrim extended far into Scotland. The Irish invaders brought Gaelic language and culture, and they also brought their genes.

Irish Characteristics and DNA

The MC1R gene has been identified by researchers as the gene responsible for red hair as well as the accompanying fair skin and tendency towards freckles. According to recent research, genes for red hair first appeared in human beings about 40,000 to 50,000 years ago.

These genes were then brought to the British Isles by the original settlers, men and women who would have been relatively tall, with little body fat, athletic, fair-skinned and who would have had red hair. So red-heads may well be descended from the earliest ancestors of the Irish and British.

A spoof (and very funny) exploration into the characteristics of all Irish-blooded males can be read at this link:

www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend

. Identified genes include IMG or the Irish Mother Gene and the GK (MF) S Gene Kelly-Michael-Flately-Syndrome which explains the inability of the Irish man to move his hips while dancing!

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1.We are americans

2.our family heritage originates from another part of the world

3.when we ask another or claim to be german or irish ect we are basically saying were our roots are from.

4. Why is it so hard to get it through your forein heads its not hard to understand ..if it is maybe you should check your roots and make sure your relatives were nt breeding with each other

Blood of the irish: DNA Proves Ancestry of the People of Ireland 92

By Marie McKeown

Ads by Google Ancestry DNA Testing

http://www.dnacenter.co

Ancestry DNA Testing in 48 Hours 100% Accurate Results

Blood of the Irish

The Blood in Irish veins is Celtic, right? Well, not exactly. Although the history many Irish people were taught at school is the history of the Irish as a Celtic race, the truth is much more complicated, and much more interesting than that ...

Research done into the DNA of Irish males has shown that the old Anthropological attempts to define 'Irish' have been misguided. As late as the 1950s researchers were busy collecting data among Irish people such as hair colour and height, in order to categorise them as a 'race' and define them as different to the British. In fact British and Irish people are closely related in their ancestry.

Research into Irish DNA and ancestry has revealed close links with Scotland stretching back to before the Ulster Planation of the early 1600s. But the closest relatives to the Irish in DNA terms are actually from somewhere else entirely!

Irish Blood: origins of DNA

The earliest settlers came to Ireland around 10,000 years ago, in Stone Age times. There are still remnants of their presence scatter across the island. Mountsandel in Coleraine in the North of Ireland is the oldest known site of settlement in Ireland -remains of woven huts, stone tools and food such as berries and hazelnuts were discovered at the site in 1972.

But where did the early Irish come from? For a long time the myth of Irish history has been that the Irish are Celts. Many people still refer to Irish, Scottish and Welsh as Celtic culture - and the assumtion has been that they were Celts who migrated from central Europe around 500BCE. Keltoi was the name given by the Ancient Greeks to a 'barbaric' (in their eyes) people who lived to the north of them in central Europe. While early Irish art shows some similarities of style to central European art of the Keltoi, historians have also recognised many significant differences between the two cultures.

The latest research into Irish DNA has confirmed that the early inhabitants of Ireland were not directly descended from the Keltoi of central Europe. In fact the closest genetic relatives of the Irish in Europe are to be found in the north of Spain in the region known as the Basque Country. These same ancestors are shared to an extent with the people of Britain - especially the Scottish.

DNA testing through the male Y chromosome has shown that Irish males have the highest incidence of the haplogroup 1 gene in Europe. While other parts of Europe have integrated contiuous waves of new settlers from Asia, Ireland's remote geographical position has meant that the Irish gene-pool has been less susceptible to change. The same genes have been passed down from parents to children for thousands of years.

This is mirrored in genetic studies which have compared DNA analysis with Irish surnames. Many surnames in Irish are Gaelic surnames, suggesting that the holder of the surname is a descendant of people who lived in Ireland long before the English conquests of the Middle Ages. Men with Gaelic surnames, showed the highest incidences of Haplogroup 1 (or Rb1) gene. This means that those Irish whose ancestors pre-date English conquest of the island are direct descendants of early stone age settlers who migrated from Spain.

Irish and British DNA : a comparison

I live in Northern Ireland and in this small country the differences between the Irish and the British can still seem very important. Blood has been spilt over the question of national identity.

However, the lastest research into both British and Irish DNA suggests that people on the two islands have much genetically in common. Males in both islands have a strong predominance of Haplogroup 1 gene, meaning that most of us in the British Isles are descended from the same Spanish stone age settlers.

The main difference is the degree to which later migrations of people to the islands affected the population's DNA. Parts of Ireland (most notably the western seaboard) have been almost untouched by outside genetic influence since hunter-gatherer times. Men there with traditional Irish surnames have the highest incidence of the Haplogroup 1 gene - over 99%.

At the same time London, for example, has been a mutli-ethnic city for hundreds of years. Furthermore, England has seen more arrivals of new people from Europe - Anglo-Saxons and Normans - than Ireland. Therefore while the earliest English ancestors were very similar in DNA and culture to the tribes of Ireland, later arrivals to England have created more diversity between the two groups.

Irish and Scottish people share very similar DNA. The obvious similarities of culture, pale skin, tendancy to red hair have historically been prescribed to the two people's sharing a common celtic ancestry. Actually it now seems much more likely that the similarity results from the movement of people from the north of Ireland into Scotland in the centuries 400 - 800 AD. At this time the kingdom of Dalriada, based near Ballymoney in County Antrim extended far into Scotland. The Irish invaders brought Gaelic language and culture, and they also brought their genes.

Irish Characteristics and DNA

The MC1R gene has been identified by researchers as the gene responsible for red hair as well as the accompanying fair skin and tendency towards freckles. According to recent research, genes for red hair first appeared in human beings about 40,000 to 50,000 years ago.

These genes were then brought to the British Isles by the original settlers, men and women who would have been relatively tall, with little body fat, athletic, fair-skinned and who would have had red hair. So red-heads may well be descended from the earliest ancestors of the Irish and British.

A spoof (and very funny) exploration into the characteristics of all Irish-blooded males can be read at this link:

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend

. Identified genes include IMG or the Irish Mother Gene and the GK (MF) S Gene Kelly-Michael-Flately-Syndrome which explains the inability of the Irish man to move his hips while dancing!

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http://www.dnatribes.com/Discover

Your Genetic Connections 800+ Ethnic Groups 36 Regions

rate this page

I usually claim to be from another country out of fear of being associated with obama. hopefully that will change in several months though.

One thing the assimilation of the melting pot does is melt down existing culture and turn it into a homogeneous American culture. I'm not saying this is inherently good or bad, but as an observation.

Let's pretend it is 1942 and you are an Italian immigrant who came to the USA when you were a teenager in 1920. You are now an adult with aging Italian parents in the USA, but still have a brother and nephews in Italy. Suddenly the country you have called home for the last 22 years, and the majority of your life, is at war with the country you immigrated from and still have strong connections.

Let me ask you, are you American or Italian? You have to choose. Others are skeptical of you and you encounter nationalistic hostilities around your community. Is there a simple solution? No. Is there a right solution? No.

One part American exceptionalism comes from the extreme heterogeneous background of its people. The previous posters speaking of New Zealand (a beautiful country) cannot really adequately compare to the USA. Their immigrants are from a much narrower scope and have not dealt with varying waves of immigrants.

As an anecdote, my grandfather came to the USA from the Soviet Union/Ukraine in 1924. I don't consider myself Russian and drink vodka and cucumbers all day, but I am very interested in learning in great detail about the world he lived in. I see nothing wrong with this.

reading 101 wrote:

I usually claim to be from another country out of fear of being associated with obama. hopefully that will change in several months though.

Far more Americans were doing this when Bush was "in power".

The worst are the hordes of Americans saying "I'm Irish".

No, you're NOT.