It’s just a very foreign thing for us eurooeans. If we’re born in Italy, but some grandparent was born in Germany, we don’t consider ourself to be german in any way. We’d consider ourself italian and nothing else. It just seems so incredibly odd to even consider oneself to be german if you didn’t spend time growing up in Germany.
I think the reason it’s so prevalent here in the US is because the vast majority of the population ended up here at least in part due to immigration. So identifying as ethnically originating from elsewhere is a part of that self identity.
The disparity however, is knowing that while traveling through Europe, this style of self identification falls flat because simply being ethnically from a place doesn’t mean you can claim to be born and raised from there. And that meaning is what’s different between the US and Europe.
I wonder if some of it doesn’t come from the people who came to America through forced immigration (I.e. the slave trade).
I think it makes sense for people brought unwillingly to America to hold on to that ethnic heritage and culture work hard to instill it in their children, even if they were born in America.
I guess that makes sense. We have our “heritage” pushed on us from a very young age, or at least we did when I was a child. In the 4th grade we did an entire reenactment of immigrating through Ellis Island, NY in which we had to research our countries of origin, then draw from a hat to see if we died on the journey, got small pox, or any other number of things all before being “accepted into the wonderful cultural melting-pot that is the United States”.
Then we grew up and learned that all immigrants are evil and must all be deported. /s?
Regardless, my family immigrated from Ireland after having lived in County Cork for a very long time. This whole post just seems like shitting on people just to shit on people.
Sad thing to be, nonsensical thing to want to be
Well, thanks for calling me sad for a thing I’m mostly indifferent about and have no choice in, OP.
Idk lol some of our ancestors are just from a place and sometimes that place is Ireland. Want my white-ass to lie to you instead?
I’m Hatian now.
It’s just a very foreign thing for us eurooeans. If we’re born in Italy, but some grandparent was born in Germany, we don’t consider ourself to be german in any way. We’d consider ourself italian and nothing else. It just seems so incredibly odd to even consider oneself to be german if you didn’t spend time growing up in Germany.
I think the reason it’s so prevalent here in the US is because the vast majority of the population ended up here at least in part due to immigration. So identifying as ethnically originating from elsewhere is a part of that self identity.
The disparity however, is knowing that while traveling through Europe, this style of self identification falls flat because simply being ethnically from a place doesn’t mean you can claim to be born and raised from there. And that meaning is what’s different between the US and Europe.
I wonder if some of it doesn’t come from the people who came to America through forced immigration (I.e. the slave trade).
I think it makes sense for people brought unwillingly to America to hold on to that ethnic heritage and culture work hard to instill it in their children, even if they were born in America.
I guess that makes sense. We have our “heritage” pushed on us from a very young age, or at least we did when I was a child. In the 4th grade we did an entire reenactment of immigrating through Ellis Island, NY in which we had to research our countries of origin, then draw from a hat to see if we died on the journey, got small pox, or any other number of things all before being “accepted into the wonderful cultural melting-pot that is the United States”.
Then we grew up and learned that all immigrants are evil and must all be deported. /s?
Regardless, my family immigrated from Ireland after having lived in County Cork for a very long time. This whole post just seems like shitting on people just to shit on people.
Well, thanks for calling me sad for a thing I’m mostly indifferent about and have no choice in, OP.