Quote:
Originally Posted by kerouac2
I never understand why Americans (just one example) say they are 'Italian' or 'Polish' for endless generations. Do they feel such a lack of identity as just 'Americans'?
|
Maybe you would have to be American to understand. Being a Polish-American and being an Italian-American describe two different experiences of
being American.
For example, 'Italian-American' means an American with some Italian cultural traits and traditions that distinguish their customs from other Americans.
Only the deluded think that being an Italian-American means that they are Italian the way a Neapolitan is Italian. Do not most Romans and Neapolitans describe themselves as such to distinguish themselves from one another? Living in a neighborhood with a lot of Neapolitan immigrants, I knew a fellow from Genoa who didn't like to be called
Italian, he preferred to be called 'Genoese' to distinguish himself from all of his Neapolitan neighbors "We are different." was his reasoning.
The big exception is some Irish-Americans think they are Irish the way Irishmen are Irish.
As a Norwegian-American, I was culturally an outsider in my town which was primarily African-American, Jamaican immigrants and Italian-American. My family's foods, activities, songs and games, the way we celebrate birthday's and Christmas are substantially different from our Neighbors who are also Americans but have a different culture which they could describe by their own heritage.
America has no singular culture (though there is a dominant Anglo-Saxon culture, the dominance thereof precluding self-identification of English-Americans) and most of the cultural diversity that which deviates from the Anglo-Saxon norm is derived from our ethnic backgrounds.
Often as families become more and more assimilated to the dominant Anglo-Saxon culture in America, they stop using the hyphenated appellations, but cultural identity and preservation of family traditions are on the increase. Only the old languages are dying out replaced with English exclusively, but in bigger cities even 3rd and 4th generations usually still know "kitchen Italian" or "kitchen German", etc.
Also, I believe that as America becomes less and less white, those Americans who refer to themselves simply as "American" will start using the term European-American to distinguish themselves from Americans with ancestors from other continents.
ABQConvict
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
