Americans. Please help me understand

[Composer]

It's just a reference to genetics.While there is the general stereotype of white fat and lazy in terms of americans, there are many different (genetically) people. Whether it matters or not is up to the individual.

 

[Eleuthera]

Edit: How do you guys handle nationality and ethnicity in Europe? (Since the United States is the just the fucking wild card on this planet and has to over complicate things) Like a person of Irish descent who lives in Germany?

A person of Irish descent in Germany would be a German, a person born in Ireland living in Germany will probaly still claim to be Irish.

If a person is of "western" descent they will probaly drop their etnicity in 1 generation. Asian, African or other "visible' etnicities will stick around longer. But they also tend to stick to their own ethnicities when marrying and keeping 'seperate' that way.

My great-grandfather was Spanish, and eventhough I've on occasion made mention of the fact that I am part Spanish, I've never called myself a Spanish-Dutchman.

 

[AnarchistFish]

First of all, because being "American" doesn't mean anything more than being "European". Being "American" could mean Canadian, Mexican, Puerto Rican, Brazilian, Dominican, Native American, etc. and it's always been a bit weird that people born and raised in the United States are referred to as "American", but there's no simpler way of referring to us because what, are we going to use an unwieldy phrase like "Statesian"?

Falling back on our cultural heritage gives us something to grab onto.

Other people have got there first but yeah, you?re wrong. Never heard anyone use ?American? to refer to the Americas, which isn?t even a continent in itself anyway and I have no idea why someone would want to water down their identity that much. But either way, ?American? just generally is only used to refer to people of the US. Otherwise you?d use ?Latin American? or just ?North/South American?.

it's not like we can call them anything else besides Gringos and they don't like that word -_-'

Does this refer to Americans or white people in general? Cos I?ve been called gringo before, and nothing would piss me off more than being called American just cos I?m white.

And when we say 'Italian' or 'Irish' we do mean 'Italian American' and 'Irish American', but for obvious reasons we don't bother with the 'American' part. A little too redundant I'd say.

Not really. What if you meet someone who is just Italian or Irish?

We call them yanquis over here. I don't like using the word 'American' very much since it should technically mean anybody in the whole continent, but people from the US only recognize themselves as American. I get that it's semantically correct since the word 'America' is contained in the name of the country, so you can call yourself that, but if you're from Central America or South America doesn't that make you technically American as well?

Again, disagree with ?American? meaning that. That?s how it?s used in English. If you?re Central American you?re Central American, North American or (generally) Latin American. If you?re South American you?re South American or Latin American (unless you?re from Guyana or Suriname, obviously).
Although I have picked up the word ?yanqui?. Prefer it to the English equivalent, which is ?yank? or ?yankee?.

Edit: How do you guys handle nationality and ethnicity in Europe? (Since the United States is the just the fucking wild card on this planet and has to over complicate things) Like a person of Irish descent who lives in Germany?

This really depends. How Irish are they? If it?s just grandparents they?d probably prefer to themselves as German, part Irish, especially if both their parents were born in Germany. If a parent was born in Ireland they?d probably refer to themselves as half Irish half German. If both parents were from Ireland, or if they were actually born in Ireland, they?d probably think themselves Irish. I know a guy though, who had one parent born in Norway to Irish parents, the other one born in Sweden to Brazilian parents (or something like that) but was born and brought up in the UK, and he considers himself Irish and Brazilian (even though he can?t speak much Portuguese). It can get quite complicated here too.
A lot depends on what culture they were brought up with, what languages they spoke and what nationalities they held. Like, I was born and brought up in the UK to a British father. But my mother?s French, I was brought up bilingual, I hold dual nationality and I associate heavily with French culture. So I consider myself British-French (I don?t like the half and half thing, I prefer thinking of myself as ?both? rather than half of one and half the other). So it would piss me off if someone ignored that side of me completely.

Then again, I don?t really get all this. Roots mean little on a personal level unless they?re very recent relatives. If you were born and brought up in the US, and if all your recent ancestors were too, I don?t see how that wouldn?t make you a native to the US.

Language is a big part of this also. One thing that continues to astound me in Europe is the way that people can speak at least two languages. Some can speak three languages like it's no big deal. I admire that!

Do you not have that in the US? I thought being bilingual in Spanish and English was pretty common in a lot of areas.
But as it is I?m trying to learn a third language just cos I thought being bilingual wasn?t particularly anything special.

Because in the US it's considered borderline racist to describe someone by the color of there skin or race, or ethnicity, etc. Saying "Black" isn't bad but is frowned upon.

We have this in the UK too and I don?t get it. If anything, calling someone African-American sounds racist, to me. It sounds like saying someone who?s black isn?t fully American and is being forced to associate to a continent they?ve probably never been to just cos they?re black.

Now then, think about it. Unless you are Native American(Cherokee, Hopi, Suix, ect.) you are not "indigenous" to the US and as such your not "native" American,

If you were born there, I don?t see why not.

I mean do you really consider a person who's family is from Pakistan and lives in Ireland to be as Irish as ethnic Irish people?

If their immediate family is Pakistani, no, but if that heritage originates several generations ago I don?t see why that should be used against them. You could trace anyone back to people who immigrated.

Never mind the fact that the person who's family comes from Pakistan is most likely not Catholic, let alone Christian, and that they probably don't know Gaelic.

A lot, if not most, Irish people can?t particularly speak Gaelic. And religion doesn?t determine ethnicity. Culture is much more ambiguous than that. There are lots of ?ethnically? Irish people who aren?t Catholic, or who have become atheist.

 

[AnarchistFish]

But yeah, I can understand why people would associate with other ethnicities if they're directly and closely related to them. But calling yourself Scottish or German just cos your ancestors several generations back were, when you don't speak the language, vaguely or don't even associate with the culture and have never even been to the country, I don't get that.

 

[rosac]

I'm from the north of england, my family are from the north of england. I see myself as a Northerner as equally as I see myself as english. It's a cultural thing.

 

[Gilhelmi]

I can trace my lineage back to the Mayflower (Grandmothers-mothers side). I have an ancestor (perhaps multiple, there is some debate on that) who fought in the American Revolution. I am also a (non-direct) decedent of John Wesley-Harden, notorious outlaw in the American Wild West.

My cousin even was able to trace (spending a great deal of time and money by travailing to libraries across the world) my family all the way back to King James the 1st of England.

So I have some to be proud of and some to be ashamed of.

 

[Arkley]

I think that those of us without a personal understanding of this particular phenomenon will just have to hold up our hands and say "I don't get it" and leave it at that. I don't understand it either, no matter how many times people try to explain it to me, because it just seems like an unnecessarily divisive. Almost like saying "if you're not of a specific European lineage, you're not really American in so much as the word is used to refer to people from the United States, and thus must use a prefix that denotes your ancestry".

But, while it makes no sense to me and while I could explain for days why I don't understand, I also have to acknowledge that I'm probably never going to understand, because my family is pure English for as many generations as can be traced, and that's no accident on the part of my ancestors.

 

[zxvcasdfqwerzxcv]

But yeah, I can understand why people would associate with other ethnicities if they're directly and closely related to them. But calling yourself Scottish or German just cos your ancestors several generations back were, when you don't speak the language, vaguely or don't even associate with the culture and have never even been to the country, I don't get that.

Agreed, we may as well all refer to ourselves as Africans.
I've never understood the need to connect with the past so much. Modern day ancestor worship maybe?
For example, I'm ethnically Irish, but I understand I have roots in France, on my mother's side. My dad's side stems from a rather ancient Irish lineage. What implications does this have on my identity - absolutely none! I prefer to think of us as one large human family, rather than separate ethnicities and cultures. Our differences are present, but are really minute when you think about it. I believe there is a fundamental shared human experience.

 

[AstylahAthrys]

When America had its waves of immigration in the late 18th/early 19th centuries, everything was extremely segregated by what country you came here from. Italians hated the Irish, the Irish hated the Chinese, and so on. Cultural communities stuck together, and in many areas, that hasn't changed. The town I live is very German and Polish, and you can tell with the architecture of the buildings and family names around the place. It's barely been a century since that happened, and, in the scheme of things, that's not that long. Most of us can date at least one grandparent or great-grandparent back to the waves of immigration at Ellis Island.

My great-grandfather (dad's mom's father) came off the boat from Italy, and both my grandmother and father were raised in very traditional Italian households, to the extent we can all speak a bit of Italian. My Great-Grandmother and Great-Grandfather on my mom's mom's side came over from Ireland, so they were raised in a very Irish household. Grandmother married another Irishman, so my mother was raised the same way. These traditions carry over into our generation, and since we're a culture of people from all over, we embrace what cultures shape our background.

 

[TheLogicalGamer]

Its due to people wanting to keep symbolic ties to their place of origin.

The United States has always been a nation of immigrants. Very few of us can trace our family lines back to the founding of the country relative to the whole population, and a lot of families are first or second generation. Those are the ones more likely to use (Country) American.

My maternal grandmother actually calls herself a Swedish American, even though her family has been hanging around since before the Revolutionary War. That's more because that part of the family has stayed in that cultural group though. Again, symbolic link to your country of origin.

Personally, I can't do that. My family has been here for a long time, so I can either call myself an American or I can call myself an Irish-Sweedish-Welsh-Italian-Native American. To use dog terms, I'm a Mutt. European American would work in a way actually, since around 80% of my ancestors came from European countries... going to have to think on that.

 

[Kirke]

My maternal grandmother actually calls herself a Swedish American, even though her family has been hanging around since before the Revolutionary War. That's more because that part of the family has stayed in that cultural group though. Again, symbolic link to your country of origin.

Alright, I gotta ask, what's the Swedish culture? 'Cause Sweden has gone from a great power with strong kings to a country of peace with lots of socialism in 300 years.

 

[Rastien]

People like to hold onto the heritage i guess, to some it's important regardless of the country you grew up in if your parents are Irish you would consider yourself Irish how ever as future generations come it may well be lost.

Off topic but just because:

Spoiler

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

I'm not American, but might I suggest that being a multicultural integrated country, saying you're American probably isn't very useful, not to mention all the countries other than the US that the term encompasses.

 

[acewolf1569]

Well, my dad was born in Vietnam and is Vietnamese. Does living in America somehow invalidate the fact that I am half Asian?

Why do you consider yourself half Asian, rather than half Vietnamese?

To me it seems strange because Asia is a huge and diverse continent of which Vietnam is only a small part, so it seems like "half Asian" is an acknowledgement of your mixed heritage, but you don't really want to go into specifics and identify the Vietnamese aspect.

It may also be because in the UK "Asian" is used to refer to people from the Indian subcontinent, but it seems odd to identify one's heritage by vaguely hinting at the general part of the globe your ancestors were born (only being slightly more specific than identifying as a "Northern Hemispherian-American" or a "Southern Hemispherian-American").

Why do some Americans refer to themselves specifically as Irish-America or Italian-American, yet others only as Asian-American, when both Ireland and Italy are in Europe so both Irish-Americans and Italian-Americans can be generalised to European-Americans.

The term "Asian-American" has always puzzled me, because unlike "African-American" in which the descendants of slaves have lost trace of their specific roots and ancestry (or been forced to forget), the majority of "Asian-Americans" know what specific country on the continent of Asia they hail from.

To me there seems to be a vast and significant distinction between the Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Thai, Vietnamese and all the other nationalities and races that occupy the continent of Asia, so much so that generalising them all as merely "Asian" seems a bit disingenuous. I know I don't like being reduced to "European" as that's quite inaccurate and ignores my nationality and heritage, so I would imagine it would be the same for other continents too.

Is it because a Vietnamese, Japanese, or Chinese American have had to assimilate into a country that, in the latter part of the 20th Century and during the Cold War, has waged major wars against their nation of origin, so there was a reluctance to refer their heritage as "Enemy-American" and that convention has stuck?

When I say "Asian-American" it's just a more broad term. It's really just something that I've said and it stuck. There's very few people of Asian descent where I live, so "Asian" is all they need to put me into a specific culture. It's not exactly the most accurate term, but it works.
So basically, I use Asian-American when I don't care to go into detail, and Vietnamese-American when I do. Both work for me.

 

[Dead Seerius]

And when we say 'Italian' or 'Irish' we do mean 'Italian American' and 'Irish American', but for obvious reasons we don't bother with the 'American' part. A little too redundant I'd say.

Not really. What if you meet someone who is just Italian or Irish?

In that case, we really don't change a thing. We'd still call them Italian or Irish. I'll explain-
Believe it or not, it's actually pretty easy for us to tell if someone is an American citizen or just a visitor (accent, the places you'll find them, etc.) so when you point someone out and call them an 'Italian' (not that you'd need to, really, if you've never met them before. Kinda rude) then people will know you mean that person is from Italy.

Perhaps if you were describing the person to someone without a visual/vocal reference, you would mention that they are actually from Italy, Ireland, or wherever. But you still wouldn't give the American-born a special denomination.
98% of people you'll meet on a daily routine while living here are also American citizens. Tagging 'American' onto the end of every ethnic denomination is not worth the political correctness for the rare occasion where you mention a person who is actually from the country of their heritage.

 

[Angie7F]

I know many people and have relatives that are asian (chinese, filipino, japanese) and were born/ raised in US/ Australia.
both countries are relatively new and mostly made of immigrants.
I do find it surprising when many of them dont even speak the language, let alone visited the country that their family is from.

I think being able to speak many languages and understand different cultures is a big plus.

However, now that I think about it, I have friends that are vietnamese/ thai that are born and raised in japan and are totally japanese.
i guess it is just how parents raise their kids.

 

[Commissar Sae]

I'm French Canadian/English Scottish Canadian. In my province descent does kind of matter at times. My Grandparents were first generation immigrants on my mothers side, so I feel close ties to England and Scotland. But I also have some strong ties to Quebec, as my family settled here over 300 years ago. Those backgrounds affect my cultural outlook in a way that is readily identifiable.

That said I never introduce myself as anything other than Canadian when meeting people in foreign countries.

 

[AnarchistFish]

And when we say 'Italian' or 'Irish' we do mean 'Italian American' and 'Irish American', but for obvious reasons we don't bother with the 'American' part. A little too redundant I'd say.

Not really. What if you meet someone who is just Italian or Irish?

In that case, we really don't change a thing. We'd still call them Italian or Irish. I'll explain-
Believe it or not, it's actually pretty easy for us to tell if someone is an American citizen or just a visitor (accent, the places you'll find them, etc.) so when you point someone out and call them an 'Italian' (not that you'd need to, really, if you've never met them before. Kinda rude) then people will know you mean that person is from Italy.

Perhaps if you were describing the person to someone without a visual/vocal reference, you would mention that they are actually from Italy, Ireland, or wherever. But you still wouldn't give the American-born a special denomination.
98% of people you'll meet on a daily routine while living here are also American citizens. Tagging 'American' onto the end of every ethnic denomination is not worth the political correctness for the rare occasion where you mention a person who is actually from the country of their heritage.

I kind of understand.

But then what would you call me, if I'm part British part French?

 

[drisky]

First of all, because being "American" doesn't mean anything more than being "European". Being "American" could mean Canadian, Mexican, Puerto Rican, Brazilian, Dominican, Native American, etc. and it's always been a bit weird that people born and raised in the United States are referred to as "American", but there's no simpler way of referring to us because what, are we going to use an unwieldy phrase like "Statesian"?

Falling back on our cultural heritage gives us something to grab onto.

You don't call people for the UK "United Kingdomian", you don't call someone from Dominican Republic "Republicans", thats just not how words for nationalities work. We just have the unfortunate circumstance of shareing a name with two continents. I will say that we call the country America more then we perhaps should, British people refer to their country as the UK rather then Britain most often and they don't even have to worry about possible confusion.