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I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently. It's hard to be PC about this topic and I the best way to describe my point is by using an example*:
Let’s say my mom emigrated to the US/Canada in her teens from India with her parents. She subsequently married a man who emigrated in his teens from India as well. Both receive American citizenship. They have son who are born in the US. In the house only English is spoken (parents speak different dialects so English is the common language) and North American traditions and customs are widely adopted. Let’s say they’re not particularly religious. Can this son consider himself truly American/Canadian? His skin tone won’t be white so will he always be ‘Indian’ and be lumped together with those who just immigrated?
What if he goes on to marry a woman in the same boat as him and have children. Now these children will be born in the US/Canada, parents born in the US/Canada (and only speak English), grandparents, and great grandparents living in the US/Canada and have no ties whatsoever to India. Will they be truly considered North American? If they marry others in the same boat and have their own kids?… and so on?
What I mean by ‘considered’ North American is… I often read here on CD about neighborhoods being predominantly Indian or Asian or whatever it may be. I also have witnessed that when, for example, a family of Asians move into a predominately ‘White’ neighborhood, concern is raised that it will change the neighborhoods reputation (as much as you try to deny it, this mentality exists). At what point does skin color or ethnicity stop mattering? If you’re 2nd generation? 3rd? As long as you have an American accent? Once they start having mixed marriages and the children become more North American looking?
*This is by no means my actual history – just for argument sake.
FWIW- This is for discussion only. I’m truly curious, not trying to argue or be accusatory.
***I added Black in the title as I believe Black people are among the few visible minorities that do not fall victim to the "what's your background" type questions in my experience.
It takes a while. Only when it's common to have native-US born people of Indian heritage living here, will the neighbors stop pre-judging and think "American" first instead of "Indian". Even now, after they meet a person/family, presumably they'll think American before Indian as long as they don't have foreign accents.
This isn't a new subject, German/Irish/Italian immigrants did the same thing except due to their skin color, they integrated more quickly. Usually for those ethnic groups I'd say society starts seeing them as "American" first, not in the immigrant generation, but probably 2nd generation (immigrant's grandkids). More-or-less I think this holds in the Indian case as well.
As to what a child of immigrants should consider themselves, they should consider themselves American even if others consider American to be their secondary status.
The only people I consider to be TRULY North American are Native American Indians.
Fair enough, but let's put that aside for now.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ker8
It takes a while. Only when it's common to have native-US born people of Indian heritage living here, will the neighbors stop pre-judging and think "American" first instead of "Indian". Even now, after they meet a person/family, presumably they'll think American before Indian as long as they don't have foreign accents.
This isn't a new subject, German/Irish/Italian immigrants did the same thing except due to their skin color, they integrated more quickly. Usually for those ethnic groups I'd say society starts seeing them as "American" first, not in the immigrant generation, but probably 2nd generation (immigrant's grandkids). More-or-less I think this holds in the Indian case as well.
As to what a child of immigrants should consider themselves, they should consider themselves American even if others consider American to be their secondary status.
What baffles me about this is that these children, let's say a 4th generation American born Indian person (or Chinese or Egyptian), has absolutely no ties to their so called home country (India, China, Egypt) whatsoever. But not being considered truly North American leaves them in a sort of limbo.
ETA: I know a couple that lives in a very wealthy, predominantly Caucasian area in North America. They are born and raised in this same state, but of Indian ethnicity. They became very successful, moved to this town, and went on to raise their own 4 children there. Recently, they were featured on a television series focused on families of this area. People were outraged that a non-white family was featured on this show saying it did not truly portray what the neighborhood was like and even went as saying it would bring down the value of neighborhood (this was of course behind the safety blanket of the internet). This is what got me thinking about it.
***I added Black in the title as I believe Black people are among the few visible minorities that do not fall victim to the "what's your background" type questions in my experience.
Maybe for Black Americans, but As a Black Canadian I can say that's not true.
i probably missed the point of this nbut i think that's more a question of racism or stereotypes than it is nationalism and being "American". why?
Quote:
Originally Posted by LaFemme86
I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently. It's hard to be PC about this topic and I the best way to describe my point is by using an example*:
Let’s say my mom emigrated to the US/Canada in her teens from India with her parents. She subsequently married a man who emigrated in his teens from India as well. Both receive American citizenship. They have son who are born in the US. In the house only English is spoken (parents speak different dialects so English is the common language) and North American traditions and customs are widely adopted. Let’s say they’re not particularly religious. Can this son consider himself truly American/Canadian? His skin tone won’t be white so will he always be ‘Indian’ and be lumped together with those who just immigrated?
What if he goes on to marry a woman in the same boat as him and have children. Now these children will be born in the US/Canada, parents born in the US/Canada (and only speak English), grandparents, and great grandparents living in the US/Canada and have no ties whatsoever to India. Will they be truly considered North American? If they marry others in the same boat and have their own kids?… and so on?
What I mean by ‘considered’ North American is… I often read here on CD about neighborhoods being predominantly Indian or Asian or whatever it may be. I also have witnessed that when, for example, a family of Asians move into a predominately ‘White’ neighborhood, concern is raised that it will change the neighborhoods reputation (as much as you try to deny it, this mentality exists). At what point does skin color or ethnicity stop mattering? If you’re 2nd generation? 3rd? As long as you have an American accent? Once they start having mixed marriages and the children become more North American looking?
*This is by no means my actual history – just for argument sake.
FWIW- This is for discussion only. I’m truly curious, not trying to argue or be accusatory.
***I added Black in the title as I believe Black people are among the few visible minorities that do not fall victim to the "what's your background" type questions in my experience.
thing is this - the country as a whole is not united by races, or genders or sexuality or anything like that - it's united by ideas and common goals.
if you are born and grow up in Oregon, you're an American, but your experience is going to be different to someone who was born in Colorado, or Vermont, or Alabama. but if you speak American English, you like hot dogs and apple pie, watch baseball, etc and you drive a Chevy you'd be considered American by most standards, no?
i think the cutoff is this - which culture, and how much, do you carry? because the thing is this - as i understand it immigration has always played a big role in the history and growth of the US, and groups of immigrants have come in and assimilated, absorbing the American culture, while imparting some of their own here. it makes for a mixture of diversity which is why in a lot of cities you have areas - the culture of the US will vary according to region and previous settlement patterns.
i don't know if skin color or ethnicity ever stops mattering since it does get used for some benchmarks (census info for example) and sadly does segue into racism/stereotyping, but as to making you any less American i don't agree. there's no one thing that makes anyone more American than another.
i probably missed the point of this nbut i think that's more a question of racism or stereotypes than it is nationalism and being "American". why?
thing is this - the country as a whole is not united by races, or genders or sexuality or anything like that - it's united by ideas and common goals.
if you are born and grow up in Oregon, you're an American, but your experience is going to be different to someone who was born in Colorado, or Vermont, or Alabama. but if you speak American English, you like hot dogs and apple pie, watch baseball, etc and you drive a Chevy you'd be considered American by most standards, no?
i think the cutoff is this - which culture, and how much, do you carry? because the thing is this - as i understand it immigration has always played a big role in the history and growth of the US, and groups of immigrants have come in and assimilated, absorbing the American culture, while imparting some of their own here. it makes for a mixture of diversity which is why in a lot of cities you have areas - the culture of the US will vary according to region and previous settlement patterns.
i don't know if skin color or ethnicity ever stops mattering since it does get used for some benchmarks (census info for example) and sadly does segue into racism/stereotyping, but as to making you any less American i don't agree. there's no one thing that makes anyone more American than another.
I agree with you completely. It shouldn't be about the color of your skin, but your habits and practices. But it isn't like that yet.
The problem arises in regards to culture when these great-grandchildren of immigrants are trying to define themselves. They may still have the skin color of an Indian but absolutely nothing else (culture gets lost/ no connection to India after so many years), so you don't really fit in with Indian immigrants. Yet despite that, you don't completely 'fit in' with Caucasian Americans either (given the mentality I mentioned above). This leads to them marrying other 3rd-4th generations Indians in the same 'limbo' as they are in, continuing an 'ethnicity' that nobody has any links to. It seems like a sort of endless cycle. Again, I'm primarily basing this off of observations, and this can apply to almost any race, just using Indian as I know someone in this situation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheViking85
Moved to P&OT to avoid mass deletions.
Thank you, my mistake.
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