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I wouldn't say that I don't "appreciate" my family's background. I mean I think its interesting, and I love learning about it, but I have a hard time claiming or "identifying" as it, especially when A) Its not just one or two, but several backgrounds, and B)Its been several generations since anyone has actually lived there. I do have pride in the background, but I tend to draw more of my pride from my Canadian heritage because that is the country I was actually born in.
To summarize it best, my father took a business partner from Belfast out to dinner. One of the other patrons said "Hey, a fellow Irishman!". The client asked "Where are you from?" "Philadelphia". Point being, I imagine authentic Irish people get annoyed at all the people running around saying "I'm Irish!" You may have it in your background, but its not quite the same...at all.
I have seldom understood what makes people "proud" of their ancestry or ethnicity, as if they had anything to do with it. My ancestors -- hundreds of them -- escaped deplorable conditions in European countries and faced the choice of starvation (sometimes persecution) or emigration. They risked their lives to make the voyage across the Atlantic in search of a better life, a trip that many fellow passengers did not survive. So I have always felt I was honoring them by calling myself "American" without any hyphenation. If anything I think I can be "proud" to be part of a country that has welcomed immigrants and refugees from all corners of the globe for centuries, and that we are a kind of amalgamation of the whole world. But there is a lot to be ashamed of as well: a history of enslavement of Africans and genocide against Native Americans.
I wouldn't say that I don't "appreciate" my family's background. I mean I think its interesting, and I love learning about it, but I have a hard time claiming or "identifying" as it, especially when A) Its not just one or two, but several backgrounds, and B)Its been several generations since anyone has actually lived there. I do have pride in the background, but I tend to draw more of my pride from my Canadian heritage because that is the country I was actually born in.
To summarize it best, my father took a business partner from Belfast out to dinner. One of the other patrons said "Hey, a fellow Irishman!". The client asked "Where are you from?" "Philadelphia". Point being, I imagine authentic Irish people get annoyed at all the people running around saying "I'm Irish!" You may have it in your background, but its not quite the same...at all.
lots of people in the US may have a Irish , Italian, German surname, but it has no relation to their ethnic background, it's just a name , unless both sides of the family are actually from those countries, the name has no meaning
I remember a Mexican guy with a small amount of French / Italian heritage used to claim he was French to try to impress the women, even though he really has no clue if he is really part French? he was what I would call a "Mutt"
if he went to France and told them he was also French, they would probably laugh
im not a mutt Im an aristocrat, everybody like to combined the dna of dad and mom to get the mutt from everywhere. i dont believe in that method. yes its wrong but logical cant be followed, because on the woman side you start losing dna about the third generation, its get deluded.
I believe in following your pass is in the y chromo, since it barely change over generation as far or longer of 1000 years.
so since i can prove scottish back to 1200, then Im scottish, thats it, thats all. if my family was rape by a viking 1000 yeasrs ago then the y would not change and i would claim viking, but I'm scottish
mom was born in london, but im scottish. dad was born in arkansas but i am scottish (so is he) O dont have NA, I dont have AA. I am scottish till i can prove farther back. thats it.....
im not a mutt Im an aristocrat, everybody like to combined the dna of dad and mom to get the mutt from everywhere. i dont believe in that method. yes its wrong but logical cant be followed, because on the woman side you start losing dna about the third generation, its get deluded.
I believe in following your pass is in the y chromo, since it barely change over generation as far or longer of 1000 years.
so since i can prove scottish back to 1200, then Im scottish, thats it, thats all. if my family was rape by a viking 1000 yeasrs ago then the y would not change and i would claim viking, but I'm scottish
mom was born in london, but im scottish. dad was born in arkansas but i am scottish (so is he) O dont have NA, I dont have AA. I am scottish till i can prove farther back. thats it.....
Interesting what if your Y lineage indicates an ancestry that doesn't match your phenotype? I can think of one particular case that is interesting an AA male that tested his Y-DNA and it came back Korean.
When people ask me what I am, I just say I am Canadian American because I literally am (duel citizen of both countries). Despite being able to trace my family roots to County Kerry, Ireland, I don't claim to be Irish because I, nor my father, nor my grandparents, were born in Ireland. At what point do we just accept that our bloodlines are so mixed that we are mutts at this point, or simply, just American?
You are right and practical. If you can trace back your ancestry, you can still claim one.
One of my ex colleague is an Indian Christian and used to call himself having Portuguese ancestry. Another colleague immediately gave a Russell Peters reaction " The Portuguese just having banged your ancestors doesnt make you Portuguese"
I think for most Americans, it's just fun/interesting.
And possibly depending on the family, some may identify more with their non-American roots. My mom's family tended to identify themselves as English, understandably IMO. While they did have an ancestor come over to America right after the Revolution, they tended to marry a direct-from-England immigrant every generation, so the tie with England remained pretty strong--my great-grandmother initially married in England, gave birth to her first three children there, moved to America with her husband and children, and when her first husband died, married a man of English descent (*his* father immigrated from England, his mother was the daughter of an English immigrant and a person of English descent--you get the idea), and had three more children (the oldest of which was my grandma) with him. So my oldest two great-aunts and great-uncle (my grandma's half-siblings) had been born and spent their first few years in England. So they still tended to observe a lot more English customs than most. I guess the speech pattern must've stuck too--every so often I get asked how long I've been here. To some, I guess I sound like I have the English speech pattern and lost the accent. My mom's generation is the first to break with the 'tradition' of marry English-Americans--she and her sisters all married men of varying degrees of Irish descent.
My dad's family, for years, we thought was Irish and Cherokee. We recently found out that somebody who we identified as Irish was actually German. (The surname exists in both countries, but if you spell it one way, it'd be Irish. Spell it another way, it's German.) Since it appears this guy wasn't particularly literate, and settled into an Irish neighborhood, it's guessed somebody must've spelt his name for him in the Irish way instead of the German. The Irish family members were more recent immigrants--my dad remembers when he was little they would get together at the corner pubs and do the now-popular Irish step dancing (this was back in the 1940's and early 1950's.) I think my dad's sorry now he wouldn't learn it. As for the Cherokee, at that time it wasn't 'cool', so it wasn't really spoken much of at the time.
I think all the aspects of my family background is interesting, just because you wonder what lead them to make the choices they did that lead to our present-day family--for example, one of the Irish-Cherokee ancestors was living in North Carolina when the Civil War broke out. He meandered up to St. Louis and joined the Union Army. Given that North Carolina was a Confederate State and the Cherokee were allies of the Confederacy...you figure there's a story there. We'll likely never know it, so far's I know, he never wrote it down or spoke of it to anybody who had a mind to do so.
I don't have a problem identifying myself as simply American. I also don't have a problem with saying I'm an American with XYZ ingredients making up my background.
I've always felt that way. I am aware of some of my ancestry, but it doesn't define me or how I think of myself. I am a mutt too. But I don't think about it all that much.
I did find out where most of my ancestors came from, though a saliva test with 23 and Me. But I don't feel a particularly different about myself than before.
But, there has been no family member who could tell tales of the old country in my family. We have all been here for a long, long time.
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