To REALLY be American do your roots in the land have to go back to before 1865?

[Tritone]

Originally Posted by KenFresno

It wasn't imported?

No, it was innovated in the United States. Think about American music for example. It's from the United States. You might be able to argue that there were influences that are from other places, but what it became is uniquely American.

[Aredhel]

Originally Posted by Tritone

That's where you're totally wrong. Our culture is unique. It wasn't imported. It doesn't exist anywhere else in the world.

Americans developed our own unique culture from Colonial times. It's 400 years old.

So are you saying Americans of Hispanic heritage aren't really Americans? Many of their ancestors were here long before the Pilgrim newcomers arrived. St. Augustine, FL is by far the oldest city in the US, and it wasn't founded by the British. (And let's not forget about the equally old and important French influence, still visibly present in Louisiana.)

Colonial American didn't have a single, distinct culture, any more than modern America does. Multiple, very different immigrant groups were present in the United States when it was founded, and the differences between those groups still linger (which is one reason why the coastal South and the coastal North are so different culturally - the Puritans of New England had little in common with the Cavaliers of the coastal Carolina and Georgia plantations). Successive waves of immigration from many other parts of the world simply added to the cultural stew that was already present. Your narrative of a single, uniquely pure Colonial culture that is 400 years old is simply wrong. American culture has always been a complicated mix of things.

[Aredhel]

Originally Posted by Tritone

Nope. A child of immigrants has no roots in the United States - no family from the United States. They usually think of themselves as foreign.

When asked where they are from, they say they're from some other country.

No, they usually think of their PARENTS as foreign. The US is all they've ever known, and they generally have no interest in clinging to their parents' "old, foreign ways" or speaking their parents' native language. Quite often they find their immigrant parents an embarrassment (at least while they are young and ignorant).

[KenFresno]

Originally Posted by Tritone

No, it was innovated in the United States. Think about American music for example. It's from the United States. You might be able to argue that there were influences that are from other places, but what it became is uniquely American.

So even you admit its an amalgamation of various cultures. Also American music is essentially just African American music. Your ancestors had nothing to do with it. So don't pretend like its yours.

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by Tritone

Nope. A child of immigrants has no roots in the United States - no family from the United States. They usually think of themselves as foreign.

When asked where they are from, they say they're from some other country.

Do you think Henry Kissinger thought of himself as American or German?

[Tritone]

Originally Posted by Aredhel

So are you saying Americans of Hispanic heritage aren't really Americans?

No. New Mexican people of Spanish origin are natives. They've been there 500 years, and identify as New Mexican. Texas has a similar Tejano group that are natives. They don't even identify with new immigrants from Latin America.

[Tritone]

Originally Posted by Aredhel

No, they usually think of their PARENTS as foreign.

No, they do not. Not in my experience in NYC, a recent immigrant city where everybody identifies with a foreign country. They think the U.S is just a place where people are living but no one is from here.

They even expect me to say that I'm from some other country. It's the craziest thing in the world. If I say I'm American, they look at me like I'm stupid. "Wait, so you don't know where you're from?". They don't even understand the concept that the United States is a country just like the one their parents came from, and there are people who are from this nation.

[Aredhel]

Originally Posted by Tritone

No, they do not. Not in my experience in NYC, a recent immigrant city where everybody identifies with a foreign country. They think the U.S is just a place where people are living but no one is from here.

They even expect me to say that I'm from some other country. It's the craziest thing in the world. If I say I'm American, they look at me like I'm stupid. "Wait, so you don't know where you're from?". They don't even understand the concept that the United States is a country just like the one their parents came from, and there are people who are from this nation.

I suggest you get some experience outside New York City, then.

And when most people living in the US ask "Where are you from?" what they are really asking is "Where do your ancestors originally hail from?" And most people DO know the answer to that question - but it doesn't mean they identify those countries as home. I'd answer that question by saying "I am German, Irish, and Swiss" but I don't identify any of those countries as my home. My home is here in the US, and those places feel very foreign when I visit them.

[Tritone]

Originally Posted by KenFresno

So even you admit its an amalgamation of various cultures. Also American music is essentially just African American music. Your ancestors had nothing to do with it. So don't pretend like its yours.

I'm a black American! Look at you with these assumptions.

[KenFresno]

Originally Posted by Tritone

I'm a black American! Look at you with these assumptions.

You realize you are parroting the ideas of "white nationalist".