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America is not a real country because it has no ethnic group tied to it. Country= a genetic related group of people, borders, language and common culture. America was mostly empty and colonized by the British and Dutch and had a large German contingent (even the Indians what some call “native Americans” migrated over the Bering straight although that is just a theory). Later Irish and Italians migrated in large numbers the late 19th and early 20th century.
For practical purposes the Dutch, British and Germans are called “Americans” because they look pretty similar and have the longest ties to the original settlers. Italians, Irish, blacks, Indians, Asians and etc. tend to be qualified as Irish-Americans, Italian-Americans, African-Americans, Asian-Americans for reasons that are obvious.
The concept of being “American” by just living on the land, being born on the land or being a citizen determined by a government that half of the people alternatively oppose its leadership and probably 90 percent oppose in general, is ridiculous. We are not even a United States. 40 states would rather not have the other 10. If my neighbor looks nothing like me he is not my neighbor, definitely not my countryman.
There are so many problems in America today because a lot of states are the size of European countries and there are too many different races, ethnic groups within race, religions, political ideologies, different ways of life, different cultures, etc. that all have diverging interests, agendas and imperatives.
Just to add that I oppose this ethno-nationalism. My Q was based on a sense of common identity born from shared experiences, not on 'race' etc. African Americans for instance are the most real Americans for me (since they have largely been here since the 17th century) and they share that history and belonging with the early settlers. 1865 is the watershed event which marks the US in the modern sense from the original construct.
So, by this definition, the current president is not an American. His mother was born in Scotland and his grandfather in Germany.
Should we deport him?
2 points.
1. He is a fool and getting him out of office is everyone's best hope for a better tomorrow.
2. He obviously is an American in a civic sense but he cannot lay claim to the history in the same way as someone whose forefathers fought at Lexington for instance.
1. He is a fool and getting him out of office is everyone's best hope for a better tomorrow.
2. He obviously is an American in a civic sense but he cannot lay claim to the history in the same way as someone whose forefathers fought at Lexington for instance.
I thought you said the Civil War was the tipping point?
Just to add that I oppose this ethno-nationalism. My Q was based on a sense of common identity born from shared experiences, not on 'race' etc.
What shared experiences? The people who ACTUALLY experienced the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Civil War - they are all long dead. No one gets to claim their ancestors' experiences as their own. No one living today has a claim on pre-1865 experiences, regardless of when their ancestors came here.
And I say that as someone whose maternal ancestors where not only here before 1865, they lived on the same family farm until my mother's family was finally forced to sell it in the 1990s. Over 150 years of continuous settlement on a single spot, and I spent my childhood summers on that farm. But that gives me no closer personal ties to the Civil War than someone who just got off the boat yesterday. I wasn't there to see soldiers steal food from the smokehouse; that was my great-grandfather's experience, not mine, and I don't get to poach it.
I thought you said the Civil War was the tipping point?
Yes. That is why I said "for instance". It was just an example.
If your roots in the land go back pre-1865 your folk made the modern state. If not, you cannot claim *that* history.
When I was a little girl, I asked my father what our heritage was. I went to school in California. Some of my classmates had relatives whom they knew had emigrated from other countries. My father was a World War II veteran, and not an educated man. He said, "Honey, you are an American, and that is all you need to know. The other kids at school are all American, too." I didn't realize how wise that was for decades. As an adult, I did a lot of family research, and discovered that almost all of my ancestors were here before the Revolution. I confess to having been amazed by this, but they all had to "become" American. Whether it was 1650, or 2018 makes no difference, as long as we embrace our "adopted" country. If more recent immigrants follow the pattern of previous ones, each generation becomes progressively more "American". History is constantly in the process of being made - it is a "living" thing. Recent immigrants are in the process of making our "history" now, along with the children of those who arrived here long ago. They are participants in our current triumphs and tribulations.
What shared experiences? ... No one gets to claim their ancestors' experiences as their own. No one living today has a claim on pre-1865 experiences, regardless of when their ancestors came here.
I'd argue further, that in a large and variegated country, "shared experiences" are more regional, than generational. The people of Los Angeles have "shared experiences", whether they arrived in the US last Tuesday, or their families have been here since the Spanish missionaries of the 18th century. These "shared experiences" are different from, say, those of the people of small-town Ohio.
Or, consider two immigrant-families from the same village in, say Lebanon. One family settles in rural Ohio. The other settles in Los Angeles. I'd argue that as little as say 10 years later, those two families will have markedly different experiences, and even different values. They may each come to have more in common with their local peers, than with each other.
1. He is a fool and getting him out of office is everyone's best hope for a better tomorrow.
2. He obviously is an American in a civic sense but he cannot lay claim to the history in the same way as someone whose forefathers fought at Lexington for instance.
How many people do you think actually know their family history that well? Until I was middle-aged and interested in genealogy, I had no idea who my ancestors were beyond my grandparents, how they had gotten here, and why they had come. Even now, after years of research, I am still struggling to fill in some family lines. It's hard enough for someone to complete a five-generation family tree, much less one going back to the Revolutionary War. For reference, an eight-generation tree of direct ancestors, which would be pretty much the minimum for anyone living today to get back to 1775, includes 256 people. A ten-generation tree has 1,024! My own MIL did not even know her paternal grandparents' names until I did the research for her a few years ago. Most people simply do not have a firm grasp on their own family history, so it cannot effectively be made the measure of their American-ness. And just to throw another spanner in the works, let me tell you about my best friend, who identifies as Hispanic and grew up in a Spanish-speaking home. When I sat down a couple of years ago to help her with genealogy research, I learned that her gg-grandfather was not Hispanic. He was a famous bootlegger, who had come west from Kentucky and whose family could be traced back to Jamestown. So let me be very succinct in expressing my opinion of this thread topic: the concept of American-ness you're promoting is just thinly-veiled nationalism, and it's distasteful.
Last edited by randomparent; 11-21-2018 at 04:23 PM..
To REALLY be American do your roots in the land have to go back to before 1865?
I hope not. All my great grandparents arrived here between 1890 and 1907.
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