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Old 02-11-2011, 11:28 AM
 
Location: The middle of nowhere Arkansas
3,325 posts, read 3,170,019 times
Reputation: 1015

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Quote:
Originally Posted by City Data Guy View Post
I hope this thread is okay for this forum.

Anyway, are you ever mistaken for a race/ethnicity/ancestry that you are not?

I'm 75% Scandinavian (Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, & Finnish) and 25% French. Unlike most Scandinavians, I have dark brown hair, dark brown eyes, and an olive skin tone. Apparently, being one-quarter French was enough to give me all those features. Then again, it shouldn't be surprising because dark hair, dark eyes, and olive skin, are dominant to light hair, light eyes, and "paper white" skin.

In tenth grade (I'm going to be in twelfth this year), I was in a special education class. This one guy would refuse to believe that I was white, and it really got on my nerves. Even after I told him my ancestries, he would still refuse to believe that I was white. He said that I was Mexican, so I'm assuming he thinks I'm Mestizo. I'm not Mestizo. Heck, I still could be Mexican though. Not all Mexicans are dark-skinned, dark-eyed, dark-haired Mestizos. There are Mexicans of European descent. But guess what? I'm not Mexican; I'm American. I'm a European American of Scandinavian and French ancestry.

A girl also said that I looked Puerto Rican, which is understandable. Most Puerto Ricans are of European descent, mostly Spanish. I'm a quarter French, and France borders Spain. Lots of Spaniards are olive skinned, brown-eyed, and dark-haired. But I'm still not Puerto Rican.

*sighs*

What about you?

I look like just what I am, old white guy. I have two uncles, really old white guys, that have decided they are indian. {sigh} there isn't a decent indian tribe on the planet that would have them, they've already tried. Completely pathetic.
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Old 02-11-2011, 04:07 PM
 
73,009 posts, read 62,598,043 times
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Originally Posted by donie1 View Post
Yes, I did. My grandfather is black irish. She sounds like she probably is black irish.
That could be so.
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Old 02-11-2011, 06:04 PM
 
Location: Washington County, ME
2,035 posts, read 3,350,353 times
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Yes, i'm Welsh/English/African American... but often mistaken for Hispanic (Puerto Rican).
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Old 02-11-2011, 06:22 PM
 
Location: OCEAN BREEZES AND VIEWS SAN CLEMENTE
19,893 posts, read 18,442,508 times
Reputation: 6465
Dang it nope. Most guys don't know why but say to me your italian aren't you, dang it yes i am, i never get mistaken for anything else. Infact i had some asian delivery people last week deliver some furniture i had just bought, yes American made, but not the delivery men. My daugher was laughing, they went outside to get more furniture, and my daughter said, ohhhhhhhhhhh they like you. When they came back in one of the guys can't say his name looked me over, gave me the creeps, and said your an Italian women aren't you. So no i don't.

But i have light strawbeerry blond hair, greenish hazel eyes and longggggggggggggg hair, somewhat wavy naturally, and yes a curse very busty!
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Old 02-11-2011, 10:03 PM
 
Location: Boston
1,214 posts, read 2,519,897 times
Reputation: 2017
Hmm, yeah, and it felt totally weird too cause I never really thought that anyone would see me in a different way than I do myself. I'm 100% Polish, all white, I have dark hair and darkish eyes but I was born very blond and bright eyed and both actually went dark as I aged. The thing is I do tan some so I look kinda olivey sometimes but my friend was totally stunned one time when she realized I identified myself as white. I was stunned too that she thought I wasn't, she kept saying I was dark to the point that it hurt because she clearly didn't like the idea of me being white, she said it was my skin color but I tried to tell her I was tanned at the time and so she said well my hair's not blond either so I can't be white. Apparently where she's lived (LA area) you need light skin and blond hair to be "white", being from Europe and living on the East Coast most of my life that was completely alien to me. But really, aside from certain racists who don't consider Slavs or other "white ethnics", "true whites" who would seriously argue Poles aren't white? That association in my mind is kinda what made it hurt. We just ignore the topic now but I'm pretty sure she's still convinced I'm not white like that has to matter so much, the fact that it does to her, it bugs me a lil sometimes, I don't care what she is.
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Old 02-12-2011, 11:14 AM
 
73,009 posts, read 62,598,043 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by missRoxyhart View Post
Hmm, yeah, and it felt totally weird too cause I never really thought that anyone would see me in a different way than I do myself. I'm 100% Polish, all white, I have dark hair and darkish eyes but I was born very blond and bright eyed and both actually went dark as I aged. The thing is I do tan some so I look kinda olivey sometimes but my friend was totally stunned one time when she realized I identified myself as white. I was stunned too that she thought I wasn't, she kept saying I was dark to the point that it hurt because she clearly didn't like the idea of me being white, she said it was my skin color but I tried to tell her I was tanned at the time and so she said well my hair's not blond either so I can't be white. Apparently where she's lived (LA area) you need light skin and blond hair to be "white", being from Europe and living on the East Coast most of my life that was completely alien to me. But really, aside from certain racists who don't consider Slavs or other "white ethnics", "true whites" who would seriously argue Poles aren't white? That association in my mind is kinda what made it hurt. We just ignore the topic now but I'm pretty sure she's still convinced I'm not white like that has to matter so much, the fact that it does to her, it bugs me a lil sometimes, I don't care what she is.
Interesting you mentioned this. I know a few people who are Polish. Among them is a childhood friend of mine. He told me that Polish people are orginally blond. He has dark hair, dark eyes, and his eyes have somewhat of an almond-shape to them. He told me that he might have some Turkish from way back when. There is another Polish person that I know. I thought he was Hispanic(possibly of Colombian ancestry). I found out he was Polish. He also has dark hair and dark eyes. He was even mistaken for Asian because he of the slanted shape of his eyes. I thought it could possibly be that it might date back to when Ghenghis Khan had an empire that stretched from northeast Asia westward to Romania and Poland.
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Old 02-12-2011, 11:36 AM
 
73,009 posts, read 62,598,043 times
Reputation: 21929
Quote:
Originally Posted by california-jewel View Post
Dang it nope. Most guys don't know why but say to me your italian aren't you, dang it yes i am, i never get mistaken for anything else. Infact i had some asian delivery people last week deliver some furniture i had just bought, yes American made, but not the delivery men. My daugher was laughing, they went outside to get more furniture, and my daughter said, ohhhhhhhhhhh they like you. When they came back in one of the guys can't say his name looked me over, gave me the creeps, and said your an Italian women aren't you. So no i don't.

But i have light strawbeerry blond hair, greenish hazel eyes and longggggggggggggg hair, somewhat wavy naturally, and yes a curse very busty!
Wow. That sounds alot like something that happened to me. I am African-American, but I happen to have some Native-American ancestry in me. I was out one night talking to a woman. She looked at my face and could pick out that I was mixed with something. She said that it was my cheekbones.
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Old 02-12-2011, 12:04 PM
 
Location: Boston
1,214 posts, read 2,519,897 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pirate_lafitte View Post
Interesting you mentioned this. I know a few people who are Polish. Among them is a childhood friend of mine. He told me that Polish people are orginally blond. He has dark hair, dark eyes, and his eyes have somewhat of an almond-shape to them. He told me that he might have some Turkish from way back when. There is another Polish person that I know. I thought he was Hispanic(possibly of Colombian ancestry). I found out he was Polish. He also has dark hair and dark eyes. He was even mistaken for Asian because he of the slanted shape of his eyes. I thought it could possibly be that it might date back to when Ghenghis Khan had an empire that stretched from northeast Asia westward to Romania and Poland.
Yeah, there's been mixing for centuries with Turks, Mongols, Gypsies and other Eastern groups, there's still even unchanged Tatar groups living in Poland. You definitely do see people who look Asiatic like you do in Russia and stuff, and there's some limited racism I've seen towards some of those people, like it's not a great thing for it to be known you have Gypsy blood or "Gypsy hair" for instance.

It's interesting too if you think about it, looking at people form one country to another as you go east from say Poland through Russia all the way to Mongolia and even Japan with the Ainu, especially looking at the indigenous people's in lower Russia and across the east. From one extreme to other like Poland to Mongolia the people look so noticeably different but if you go through all the peoples slowly you see all the similarities in features and even dress and stuff. You can clearly see how we're all interrelated, even if people don't want that to be true.

Anyway, I don't really have so much recent intermixing in my family as far as I know and if any average person saw me I don't think they'd guess I was something other than white, even tanned which is why my friend caught me off guard. I really don't care what someone thinks I am because we all choose to define ourselves however we want, I just really don't like how she decided that I'm just not one of "those people" because she made so it obvious she doesn't like them so much and so I couldn't be "one of them" because she likes me. It's just a weird position to be in.
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Old 02-14-2011, 05:07 AM
 
10 posts, read 78,036 times
Reputation: 23
No one has ever, ever called or considered me something other than White.

My father says he has a little Cherokee too, but you probably know how that goes. Even if true, it has no effect on appearence.

Other than that, nothing but European nationalities. People have said I look very German.

Last edited by DiscoDaemon; 02-14-2011 at 05:15 AM..
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Old 02-16-2011, 06:20 PM
 
Location: California
1,191 posts, read 1,584,528 times
Reputation: 1775
I get a lot of people thinking I am Puerto Rican or Cuban. I am African American. However, based on my skin tone and hair texture I can see why some would think it. I have had quite a few Puerto Ricans, Cubans, and even Brazilians tell me I look like a family member back home. The truth is my genetic breakdown is probably very similar to that of a lot of Latin Americans. The difference is acculturation and native language. Otherwise, I come across people who are "different" but look like they could be my relatives. It's kind of wierd.
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