It frustrates me that “I’m martian too” can mean any of the following:
-The speaker was born, raised, and lives on Mars, and is only visiting or temporarily living here
-The speaker lives here but still has Martian citizenship
-The speaker had to renounce Martian citizenship when moving here as a kid, but still has a nostalgic spot and visits Mars.
-The speaker’s parents were born on Mars, though they’ve never been for more than a brief visit, and don’t speak Martian worth a damn.
-The speaker thinks their grandparents were all born on Mars.
-The speaker has an obviously Martian name
-The speaker thinks someone in their ancestry may have lived on Mars, though it might have just been while travelling from Jupiter.
-The speaker really wishes they were Martian, and thinks their skin looks a bit green.
Give me some information that will let me know if you’d be a good source of information on recent cultural changes, if you speak the language, if you are a recent imigrant, and so on.
Tee, if somebody asked me my nationality, I have to admit I probably would look at you funny. But if you asked me where my family came from, I might give you a more detailed answer. Many people in the South are very conscious of their family’s historical roots, and I’ve known many Southerners who proudly identify themselves as “Irish-American.” My family name is a traditional Irish name (well, traditional to County Antrim, to be exact), so I have occasionally identified myself as “Irish”–although I always qualify this to point out my family’s links to Germany and Spain (I sometimes borrow a line from The Godfather and identify myself as a “Kraut-Mick,” though I haven’t come up with a term that would also honor my Spanish roots).
However, my Irish roots are quite distant from the present time, particularly on my father’s side–as far as I know, my particular branch of the family moved to the States in the early 19th-century, even before the Potato Famine.
In the Northeast, you do have a more direct connection with Europe–particularly in neighborhoods and communities that still identify themselves with a particular nationality. When I was doing my MA program in NY, I used to attend meetings for an Irish-American club, and I was impressed with the fact that most of the club’s members were first or second generation Irish.
I have since realized that I’m just an American mongrel, although I still have a strong interest in Irish history (but then, I also have an interest in Italian history and I don’t have a drop of Italian blood, AFAIK).
Many years ago, I was chatting to a young lady on-line. She mentioned that she was Polish. So I started typing in (my very bad) Polish to impress her. Not only could she write or speak Polish, she also didn’t know anything about Poland including where it was. I think that is the point at which to say bye bye to the mother country.
Like Skopo, I would simply state “American” as my nationality. But my ancestry is Scots-Irish and Czech. Geneaology is very big in the South, and many people know where their ancestors emigrated from. (Harder to prove if you’re black, but I’ve met a number of Southern black geneaologists as well.) I suspect that there’s less of a sense of ethnic pride, however. What matters (to people who care about that kind of nonsense) is how long your family has been here.
Incidentally, my father (who’s Jewish, like our whole family) was born in Algeria. So my father is from Africa and I’m from America. I guess that means I’m an African-American. The admissions officers around here don’t seem to find it too funny.
Forgot to mention…within those Irish-American groups can be anything from immigrants to here-since-1800. But Ireland used to grant citizenship to Americans if one of your parents or grandparents was born there and you apply for it. I forget the specifics. This would add murkiness. It might also explain why ‘nationality’ is more often used. (Or maybe not. I dunno…)
Well, “Scottish/English/German/Bohemian/Korean” is shorter than “Canadian of Scottish, English, German, Bohemian, and Korean descent,” and everyone knows I’m Canadian already anyway.
On a side note, I’ve decided that any further inquiries as to my race (as opposed to my ethnicity) will be answered “queer”.
Funny thing, I guess I tell people in the US “I’m Irish”. Not out of the blue, if they didn’t know me from Adam I would probably tell them that I’m full blooded Irish (in the rare instance where it would come up out of the blue), which intones ancestry. There is no way in hell I’d go to England or Ireland and exclaim “I’m Irish”
But, if you are foolish enough to hear my white bread midwestern accent and still confuse ancestry claims with nationality claims, I’ll suggest it’s time to get your ears cleaned.
If someone asks my nationality, I’ll say American.
If they ask me my heritage, I’ll tell them my main influences are Irish and Cherokee. I look extremely like my Cherokee great grandmother (just fairer skinned), and being Cherokee is a great source of pride in my family.
I’ll also claim the Irish. I speak very little Gaelic, but my grandmother is steeped deeply in Celtic origins, as you can tell when she talks–she’ll sound curiously Irish a good deal. And most of her “proverbs” are traditional Irish ones.
My family is also German, with smatterings of African-American (hooray for my kinky hair!), Dutch, and French, but Cherokee and Irish are the big two, as it were, the ones that actually have had an impact.
I’m only about 1/1024th part Dutch, but that’s the part I got my difficult and mangled family name from. Seeing as I have to live with this name, I consider myself Dutch.
My sympathies. But that is funny.