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For my American compatriots, I wonder if your ethnic heritage is a big part of your American self-perception. My genetics are pretty much a dog's breakfast. Largely northern European, with some Native American mixed in. Mostly I feel American, but I have lived in Europe twice, and enjoyed it a great deal.
For me, I like that you can have an ethnic and national identity here, largely without judgment or persecution, if you work hard, treat others with respect, and don't act like a loon.
For my American compatriots, I wonder if your ethnic heritage is a big part of your American self-perception. My genetics are pretty much a dog's breakfast. Largely northern European, with some Native American mixed in. Mostly I feel American, but I have lived in Europe twice, and enjoyed it a great deal.
For me, I like that you can have an ethnic and national identity here, largely without judgment or persecution, if you work hard, treat others with respect, and don't act like a loon.
How about you?
Not sure what you mean by "your American self-perception" - you mean perception of yourself as an American, I guess, not perception of America as a whole?
But anyway, yes, I'd say that my ethnicity (almost entirely English & Welsh with trace elements of Scots and German) does colour my perception of America and/or my American-ness. Primarily by way of a sense of connection to the earliest Americans, in many cases pre-Revolutionary and even in several branches Loyalists.
Maybe, like Churchill, I perceive American-ness as a branch of the greater community of "English-speaking peoples", and therefore value our common cultural/political inheritance or connection to the rest of that community, slightly more than someone whose background is different.
Which is to say, paradoxically, that my ethnicity as an American makes me rather more internationalist in my outlook than might otherwise be the case.
Well, in my case, I think I realized that I have a decidedly unpure pedigree. We have French, Dutch, Irish, Scots-Irish, and English on Mom's side, and German, Native American on Dad's side. My son is all this, but 100% Irish on from his Mom. I find all those ethnicities interesting, and I enjoy reading about them. But I also find it liberating that at some level I just don't give a damn. If I were to adopt a Filipino or African kid, I think I would get into those cultures too. And I have a brother who is a pastor and another who is an athiest. I don't have a problem with either. I am thankful that ethnicity, religions are points of interest,but do not affect one's rights.
I must give credit to the English forefathers for creating a system that broadly seems to work. They were typically oppressive, rapacious bastards who sought to dominate the world and were horrible to people of other cultures (ask the Irish), but they did have a good sense of how to build systems, laws, and institutions. They were very far from perfect, but they laid a strong, yet flexible foundation.
As an aside, I am very heartened by the recent acceptance of gay marriage by the President and many moderate republicans. Looks like that point of division is fading away too. In many parts of the world you would be hated for having a minority race, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation. You could still experience that here, but it is diminishing.
I sort of began to understand the OP, then your above reply kinda threw me off. So, could you ask the question again? Did you mean how does your background figure into your patriotism or something? Like, if you're of largely British ancestry you're more likely to be into survival food stocks and hunting or whatever?
I think some of this concentration on the "mother country" some people have is misguided at best and even silly. Many if not most Americans forebearers came here so long ago as to have any memory of the old country squeezed out of their descendents. In my case the 1750's and the 1840's.
Location: On the "Left Coast", somewhere in "the Land of Fruits & Nuts"
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Interesting thread idea, as I also appreciate the under-recognized role of "culture"" and "ancestry" in shaping our values and perceptions, and even our national identity across many generations and inter-marriages. And I can see how some folks whose "roots" go back here a long ways, might have some different attitudes or feel they have a greater "investment" than, say, a 2nd-gen Italian-American and relative "newcomer" like myself. In fact that sort of multi-generational "native" issue often comes up even in the state forums, where they often fret about the "newcomers"! Of course logically, where does the "stake" in all those past generations end, especially if one is Native -American, or even with the case of my own distant Roman ancestors, who at one time likely ruled over nearly all our European forebears anyway (...LOL)?!
And agreed, having traveled and lived abroad makes an extraordinary difference in how we see our relationship to the rest of the world. I for one think we enjoy an extravagant amount of personal space, compared to the population density and crowding of much of the rest of the world. Indeed, we'd probably all get along a lot better if we were packed together that close!
I think some of this concentration on the "mother country" some people have is misguided at best and even silly. Many if not most Americans forebearers came here so long ago as to have any memory of the old country squeezed out of their descendents. In my case the 1750's and the 1840's.
It's interesting how distant ancestry can interact with very immediate events, though. My WWII-generation relatives were solid-core Republicans who deeply distrusted Roosevelt and were quite seriously prepared to emigrate - until he got chummy with King George VI in 1939 (the famous state visit of that year), and then Churchill after the war began.
They were as American as it gets: corny as Kansas in August (though in fact, they were Dakota farmers, not Kansans), but the distant memory of their English roots mattered enough that an alliance with the United Kingdom was a "Good Thing" in their eyes. If, say, Britain had surrendered in 1940 and it was somehow France which had fought on against Hitler, I don't think they'd have felt the same.
It's interesting how distant ancestry can interact with very immediate events, though. My WWII-generation relatives were solid-core Republicans who deeply distrusted Roosevelt and were quite seriously prepared to emigrate - until he got chummy with King George VI in 1939 (the famous state visit of that year), and then Churchill after the war began.
They were as American as it gets: corny as Kansas in August (though in fact, they were Dakota farmers, not Kansans), but the distant memory of their English roots mattered enough that an alliance with the United Kingdom was a "Good Thing" in their eyes. If, say, Britain had surrendered in 1940 and it was somehow France which had fought on against Hitler, I don't think they'd have felt the same.
Framing the topic in that mindset, which is what I thought in the first place, my largely Spanish (1700s) and more recent German (1900s) ancestry tends for me to be softer on bilingualism and assimilation than someone who is not. But, overall, that doesn't diminish the recognition I give to this country's largely British and German ancestors that built this place, even if my Spanish ancestors had tried to take over England at one point and we've traded territories in battles in the past (Gibraltar, British Honduras, Jamaica, attempted takeover of Puerto Rico, etc.). I hold no ancestral grudge against the British
I can only say that I love being an American, but I REALLY love being an African American, and I can't imagine a life as rich as the one I have if I wasn't black in America.
Being an African American was even more meaningful when I Iived abroad and dealt with non-Americans. But when I dealt with my fellow Americans abroad, it was amazing how much less race meant to all of us. We were just Americans at that point.
I sort of began to understand the OP, then your above reply kinda threw me off. So, could you ask the question again? Did you mean how does your background figure into your patriotism or something? Like, if you're of largely British ancestry you're more likely to be into survival food stocks and hunting or whatever?
Just, how do you feel your ethnicity interface with your sense of being an American.
I think patriotism, like piety, is usually phony and largely for show. I work from the assumption that the gay, Quaker Puerto Rican hair dresser in Queens is likely to be as patriotic as the guy with the 8 foot high pickup truck and with flags waving off the mirrors. And the polician with the biggest lapel pin is very likely the biggest douche bag. So, no, I don't give a damn about that.
It is your national perception of your culture and what it means to be American (to you). If food stocks is your thing, so be it. After that meteor blast last week, it might well be a good thing.
Funny thing is, the English started the USA, but Englishness is largely behind the scenes. The Irish and Scots-Irish (and maybe Italians) are probably the loudest chest thumpers, and the largest european ethnic group, the Germans, keep a very low profile. You never hear a drunk guy yell "kiss me I'm German!" in this country. Similarly, hispanic and African-American folks go on and on about their race (raza) and ethnic character, but Asian-Americans don't seem to do nearly as much. I would guess we all have a different awareness, interest in their ethnic origins. My excuse for not knowing much is there are too damn many to know, and I suspect they are all pretty similar anyway. I like the diversity and mixture we get here.
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