Americans. Please help me understand

[James Joseph Emerald]

I find it kind of annoying when Americans identify as "Irish" despite never having been to Ireland or even knowing anything about Irish culture aside from "Guinness" and "FOUR-LEAF CLOVER LOL" (it's a shamrock, and it has three fucking leaves).

I think cultural identity should be based on how many years of your life you have spent immersed in a given culture, not where your great-grandmother used to live for a while.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

It only really bothers me when they claim to know as much about the country than a person who actually lives there.

Granted, it doesn't happen very often, but when it does, it's hilarious

'Oh, you're English? I'm 1/57th English! We have so much in common!'

Gets me every time

 

[Fwee]

I think most people use it as an identifier, just to make sure they stand out from the rest of the crowd. And it's way quicker than if I wrote, "My mother's side of the family is mostly German and Irish, with over a hundred years of farming history here in the United States. My paternal grandmother was adopted so I'm not sure of her ethnicity or genetic history, but the rest of my father's side is pretty much Polish."
And mostly around here we don't even bother too much with "American." We say "Nebraskan," since you jerks pretty much cut us out of the loop so we could focus on growing all your food.

 

[Hagi]

I'm curious, do those people actually speak the native language from the area they claim heritage fluidly?

I know I'd laugh in the face of anyone claiming to be a Dutch-American (if those even exist) that didn't even speak Dutch at a native level.

 

[Mikeyfell]

50% white guilt
50% white stupidity.

They want to be as disassociated from being "American white" as possible so they refer to themselves as "Other white"
For me it doesn't work so well because I'd be German American, and that just has all sorts of bad connotations to it.

So I don't subscribe to that crap.


I did know a guy who was black and lived in Mexico his whole life and was referred to as an "African American Mexican" which made me laugh so hard I almost threw up.

Political correctness is dumb

 

[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.

I kind of understand.

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

Probably whichever side your accent leaned further on, haha. But that would just be at a precursory observation.
If you told someone that you lived in France and considered yourself to be French, they would say you were French. And vice versa for British.

 

[Snownine]

I'm curious, do those people actually speak the native language from the area they claim heritage fluidly?

I know I'd laugh in the face of anyone claiming to be a Dutch-American (if those even exist) that didn't even speak Dutch at a native level.

There are areas in the US with heavy Dutch influence. There are people from every nation living in the United States, some countries are obviously much more heavily represented than other of course. When people claim to be, like in your example Dutch American, they often do not speak the native tongue unless they are from areas that are highly influenced by that particular culture.

 

[ninjaRiv]

Nationalism is fucking weird. Americans saying they're Irish, Italian, etc is fine, imo. It's just getting in touch with ancestry! But they do get a little too enthusiastic. I am, of course, talking about Americans who support/supported the IRA (the "blow shit up" kind) simply because they're Irish.

It's not just Americans, though. I've noticed that here in Britain English people with Irish heritage are crazy for anything Irish and get upset when you call them English. same with Scottish and Welsh but a little less. But A lot of English people feel ashamed of their heritage, to the point where we're the only ones in the UK who don't have their patron saint's day off.

But I can't stand patriotism and shit so I couldn't care less and I think people should go ahead with it as long as it doesn't hurt anybody. Or annoy me.

 

[maninahat]

Americans are very big on genealogy. Most Americans I've had conversations with will sooner or later, apropos of nothing, start telling me they are part French, German, Dutch, Armenian and 1/16th Blackfoot. I always thought it was a kind of unofficial game, in which you earn more points by claiming to have more countries within your ancestry. Irish and native American roots give you bonus points. I think it was Bill Bryson who said that the number of people claiming to have native American blood far outstrips the mathematically possible number of native descendants.

I think it comes from trying to establish a sense of history and cultural familiarity. America is a new country, and a fairly isolated one at that, so I think it helps some Americans to study their roots and forge some kind of connection with the rest of the old world. It is still comes across as quite perplexing when an American will visit Ireland and start telling the locals "they're Irish too".

 

[FalloutJack]

Snip

Legally, you can be considered the nationality in question if there aren't too many degrees of separation from the relative in question who originally came to the U.S. It's called dual-citizenship and especially follows if your actual cultural heritage and traditions still carry on.

EDIT: Besides, America the big melting pot country isn't some sort of condition where you magically no longer get to be yourself. It's just a huge melange of influence from other integrating societies. Don't take it personally.

 

[viking97]

I dunno, I guess because american is kind of a blank slate culture wise. If you say Italian american, people associate you with that particular culture.

 

[Bruenin]

I saw one guy do this with everything. German, Irish, even said he was part African American and would go up to people and start using racial slurs... but it was okay because he was black. Most of the time people say they're Irish or something whenever someone mentions the country but I never see anyone who actually come from the country do that

start talking about Ireland and someone will yell up "I'm Irish"
start talking about Holland and a person from there won't do that... not from what I've seen anyways, then again... I only have teenagers to base my observations off of so it's a bit skewed.

 

[Kae]

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.

I think it used to refer to all foreigners that were English speakers but nowadays it seems to be mostly used for Americans if not only, but I don't go out much so I may be wrong.
[sup][sup]Really it's like I speak a completely different language than most other Mexicans, I can't understand what they say to me half the time @_@[/sup][/sup]

 

[barbzilla]

It's a cultural thing. The US is the country of immigrants and it's basically our way of communicating our ancestry. Also, many of the labels come with their own stereotypes. For example, a stereotypical Italian American is a very different thing than an Irish American or even an Italian-born American.

FAPPY. YOUR AVATAR ISN'T MAO. FIX THIS.

OT: Since America's basically a mixing pot of all the other cultures instead of an original culture of its own (WHICH ISN'T A BAD THING), people just say that to preserve their family's specific culture.

Pretty much this. While we are in the process of developing some kind of culture (though I don't agree with the type of culture we are cultivating), the older generations don't have much of a national culture. So we rely on our parents or our grandparents culture to have some form of cultural heritage. It helps us to be able to identify where some of our mannerisms and our celebrations come from.

Many of us are 2nd or 3rd generation Americans, I am 2nd generation myself, so prior to my mother, nobody in my family was born in America. So when we develop certain mannerisms or quirks, people might ask us about them, and it becomes easy to just say, oh I'm country-American (unless of course you are native-american, then you sir/ma'am are truly American and have a very rich culture).

 

[bananafishtoday]

I'm curious, do those people actually speak the native language from the area they claim heritage fluidly?

I know I'd laugh in the face of anyone claiming to be a Dutch-American (if those even exist) that didn't even speak Dutch at a native level.

In urban areas, it varies wildly. Some cultures were ostracized and formed ethnic enclaves, others were assimilated into "general American" culture. Plus the influx of immigrants has been a constant over our nation's history, so some people are immigrants or children/grandchildren, while others are many generations removed.

And I mean wildly. Like, there's plenty of self-identified Italian-Americans, totally divorced from the culture, whose families have been in the US for over a century. But there's also first-gen Italian-Americans who speak Italian fluently. On the other hand, there are a lot of first-gen Chinese-Americans who speak English without an accent and aren't planning on teaching their kids Mandarin at all, while there's other Chinese-Americans whose families have been here 150+ years who can only speak Cantonese.

In the suburbs or rural areas, nah, they usually just speak English.

(For the record, I've never encountered anyone who identified as Dutch-American. Afaik most of the Dutch here just assimilated into English culture after the Anglo-Dutch Wars, dunno if there was any substantial immigration after that. Hell, the area I live was spelled Boswijck, Breuckelen back in the day.)