My father’s side are Russian Jews who escaped the pogroms. My grandmother was sent to New York to relatives as a small child; her parents could only afford to send one person in the family. Those who remained were murdered. My mother’s side are German-Swiss peasants who emigrated to Wisconsin in the 19th century and did pretty much the same thing there – small farming – except they owned their own land. Eventually economics forced them off it here too.
Everybody got out if they could, when they could; there is zero romantic interest in the Old Countries in my family. I did learn to speak German as a teenager, because my maternal grandparents could speak it (though both were born in the US), and it interested me then. I’ve forgotten most of it. I briefly looked into becoming Jewish once. It seemed utterly foreign and hopelessly ancient. My sister later married a Jew, and went through the whole process, however.
I am thoroughly, loyally American, but I am proud of my ethnic heritage. Both of my parents came from small communities that were dominated by immigrant groups from particular countries, so certain old country traditions persisted as well as a sense of identity (Dutch in my mom’s case, predominantly Czech in my Dad’s). Yes, I find I do feel connection to the places where my ancestors came from. I can’t really explain why, but I feel like that heritage grounds me.
I also think I’ve always been interested in the geography of places and a sense of “the land.” But then, I grew up in an intensively agricultural area and a few generations ago nearly all my relatives were farming. I have an intense curiosity about what the land is like back in the old country.
I got really into genealogy a few years back and that intensified it.
I barely care who my parents were so the fact taht my maternal grandfather was born in Norway or that ultimately most of my paternal side seems to have been German is meaningless to me.
To me, the idea that I would just feels odd (not saying anybody else is wrong). Feeling an attachment to Norway because of a grandfather I never met feels as strange an idea as feeling an attachment to Kansas because that is where my dad was born.
Nope. In short, it would just take too much effort. I’m Scottish, Canadian, English, French, German, Polish, and Russian, and those are just the ones I know for fact…To try to feel loyalty or learn more about my heritage would just take up too much time. It’s cool to know some things, most of which I learned from Ancestry.com, and would love to listen to family members discuss what the past was like but on both sides it’s not very common that they talk about the past, and the older generations are dying off. Neither side has any traditions we celebrate beyond the usual Christmas and Thanksgiving…just never been tied to the homelands, and I don’t see a reason to start up now with so little family information known.
I am a recent transplant (first generation English on one side, second generation Polish on the other). So I grew up in the presence of a lot of “old country” ethnicity, and I do feel a strong connection to both countries. I’ve been to the area in England that my father came from, and I have to say I get this feeling there that I have never gotten anywhere else… like being in a waking dream. I don’t believe in past lives or any of that, but it is a very powerful emotional or aesthetic response to the place.
I’m American, with 1/2 Irish ancestry and 1/2 Ukrainian ancestry (in the sense that each of my parents is also 1/2 Irish and 1/2 Ukrainian).
It’s not so much Ireland that I feel a connection to, although I like Ireland a lot, it’s the concept of “the experience of people who left Ireland and came to the U.S.” that I feel personally connected to. It is very much a part of our family story, and being of Irish descent figures into a lot of it, sort of blurred together with being Catholic and being immigrants. When I think about the “pride” part, it’s the feeling of being proud and impressed with my older relatives and what they accomplished. (I love St. Patrick’s Day like a crazy person, and am always a little annoyed when others try to point out that it’s “fake” … yeah, obviously.)
The Ukraine is a bit harder to grasp, probably because when my Ukrainian grandparents arrived, they ended up in a mostly Irish-American community so there weren’t tons of opportunities to keep the Ukrainian culture front and center in the same way that it was with the Irish. I’m interested in the culture of the Ukraine, although there are only a few areas where I feel it became a part of my family experience.
Loyalty, of course not. If Ireland or Italy get into a war, I’m not going to go sign up or anything. I don’t stand up and salute the Irish or Italian flag or any such thing. As far as that stuff goes, I’m just plain American.
Emotional connection, absolutely. My consciousness of my ancestors is of great importance to me. You can see from this thread a significant part of American national character, which is that America has always been where you emigrate to so that you can tell the rest of the world to fuck off and leave it all behind you. But my mind just won’t work that way. I’m interested in the whole rest of the world and its cultures, not least those of my ancestors. I’m deeply fascinated with my family history, genealogy, and the ancient civilizations I’m descended from. Especially since my mom researched and drew up all our genealogy and even went to find cousins in Northern Ireland we hadn’t known we had. Oh yeah, that’s another thing about “loyalty.” Descended from Catholics from Northern Ireland as we are, technically we’re from the UK, but that just sounds so weird that we never think of it that way; if we were to feel a sense of belonging to anyplace over there, it would be the Republic of Ireland.
I’m entirely of Hungarian descent. Both of my parents are immigrants from that country. (They married in Europe before coming to the U.S.)
I have slight feelings of fondness for Hungary. I’m happy when it does well, as it was doing in the early 2000s, and I’m dismayed when it seems to be going down the wrong path, as it’s doing now.
I’m a genealogist and have been chasing my family roots for about 15 years now. I have no loyalty or emotional connection to any of those places: England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Germany, none of them. My family has been in America since the Mayflower, and while my German immigrants didn’t get her until about 1842, I have no emotional ties to that country. I don’t celebrate St. Patrick’s Day nor Guy Fawkes nor Walpurgisnacht, nor any other observance that’s not American (hell, I don’t even celebrate most of those, either).
I am a member of the Aryan Master Race as far back as I have ever researched, which wasn’t very far. But I don’t feel any particular affinity for Germany, even without the late unpleasantness with a certain demented paper-hanger.
I spoke German with my grandmother, and I’ve been to the country pre-unification, but I’m American, not German-American or anything like that. The only time my heritage ever comes up is when people ask my two kids why Asians have such a Germanic last name.
I’m from a mixture of European backgrounds (German, Dutch, British, and Italian, maybe others somewhere back there). On the Italian side, my great-grandparents immigrated around the turn of the century. That’s the most recent, and also the only one to which I feel any emotional connection.
I’m not sure why - I never met the Italian born relatives, they died well before I was born. I don’t speak Italian other than two college semesters study (in other words, I didn’t grow up hearing the language). Growing up, my grandmother and father cooked Italian food that was slightly more authentic than normal, but nothing out of the ordinary for a second generation family. Maybe it boils down to looks. I managed to inherit a physical appearance that is all southern Italian, almost no evidence of the other areas of ancestry. So I identify with it somehow.
I just thought of another reason - I am occasionally asked “what are you” and I answer some variation on “Italian ancestors”, because the asker is getting at why I look a certain way, what ethnicity. Sometimes it’s rude, sometimes the person assumes I’m Latina, askes a question in Spanish and gets a muddled reply in basic non-fluent Spanish, and I have to explain that I’m not hispanic, italian ancestors, blah blah blah. It’s annoying, but I suppose it brings about an identification with that part of my ancestry.
There has been a resurgence in what might be called “extremely nationalistic” political views. “Jobbik”, a poltical party with outspoken anti-Semitic views, has had some success in recent elections. There was a scandal last year when the leader of the party was discovered to have some Jewish background.
I have no feelings or emotional connections whatsoever, which is a little strange because I have immigrants from Italy and Ireland as recently as the great-grandparent level. But there you have it - I feel nothing. I feel far more connected to Germany based on some years when my family was stationed there when I was a kid.
(That said, even though I feel no connections, I will gladly pretend to if Italy or Ireland change their laws to allow me to claim citizenship by descent! I’ll just take their EU passport and move to Germany. )
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