My parents were both born in Ecuador, but I was born in the US. I know that alot of my peers say they identify with their ethnic background quite a bit.
I have never felt this way. I’m not shameful of where I came from, but at the same time I’ve never felt a need to identify with being “Latino”, nor have I ever felt more (or less) comfortable with fellow Latinos. I don’t feel the need to subscribe to “brown pride” philosophies, and I don’t feel the need to automatically like someone because they are a “latino brother/sister”. I don’t speak with an accent, and my musical tastes are not limited to stereotypical rap and hip-hop.
Alot of my friends (and my wife!) jokingly call me “a coconut”, and I’m usually pretty good-natured about it. I wonder, though, if some people really feel that the “Americanization of Bryan” is a bad thing.
I’d like to know if there is anyone else out there besides me that doesn’t put too much stock in identifying with their particular ethnicity. I’d also like to know if there is anyone out there who find this to be wrong, and why I shouldn’t be totally Americanized.
Yea, me too. I don’t care about it. But I think we might be in the minority. People seem the need to associate themselves with something.
I think we might be a bit forward thinking as, eventually, everyone will be so mixed concerning their ethnic background, we’ll all be just considered gray humans.
Same here, parents born in Puerto Rico and me in in Ohio. While I love visiting the island and I’ve made it a point to learn the language to better communicate with my extended family, I’m just plain old Amp. Not Puerto Rican - American Amp, not Hispanic Amp, just Amp.
I’m with you there, it’s always seemed a bit silly to be proud of something that you really didn’t have any choice on being. When I was getting ready for college my mother somehow applied to a Polish-American organization and I got a $500.00 scholarship a year for college (my college’s tuition was a bit over $13K a year back then). I refused to take the scholarship and called the whole thing “racist” which really offended my mom whose intentions were pure (and I still feel bad about that). Financially I kick myself for not having taken the scholarship but I’m kinda glad I didn’t.
I’m of Italian descent, and I couldn’t care less. That’s not to say I don’t appreciate Italian culture. I’ve been there, speak the language (a little), and love the food. But BEING of Italian descent is of little consequence to me.
If I wanted to trace them back, my roots would go to England and Scotland. I’m aware of that, but my parents didn’t consider themselves English or Celtic, and neither do I. I never felt any cultural tug to the ancestral homeland. I’d like to go there someday, but I don’t have any illusions about visiting relatives. I’m a Yank, not a Brit or a Scot.
I’m American first, Texan very close second.
My Hispanic heritage is something I almost never think about.
Why should I be any more ethnic than my friends of Irish descent or of German descent?
And the term “coconut” is very racist. My friends have called me that but I choose not to put them on the spot. It assumes that someone of ethnic origin is supposed to act a certain way.
I have a great deal of pride in all my ancestors (white, black, and who knows what else) just for surviving and breeding so that I could exist. I try to stand up for the Melungeons when I can because we’re such a forgotten and marginalized people that I feel a greater responsibility to them.
By the way, am I the only atheist who refers to other atheists/agnostics as “brothers” and “sisters”? I mean, some ethnicities and religions do it, so why can’t we?
I agree, but I can tell the difference when it’s meant in a demeaning fashion, and when it isn’t. From my friends and wife, it’s light hearted ribbing, and I take in the spirit it was meant.
Ah, but the hardcore atheist would not subscribe to the metaphorical belief that all atheists are brothers and sisters.
I’m an Australian. That’s what it say on my passport. It may be the greatest or the worst thing in the world to be, but it’s good enough for me. Tacking ancestral ethnic prefixes onto that is of no interest to me.
I’m holding a UK passport, and that’s usually enough to bamboozle idiots. Pretty much consider myself to be a banana, but it’s not like I give a damn anymore.
Well, you’re a bloke called Bryan, you’re whoever you are on any particular day, your parents were born in Ecuador, and all of the above means to you… just exactly what it means to you.
Which is a completely empty answer, I know, but the point is that you’re the arbiter of what your background means to you, compared to various other stuff in your life.
I’m Japanese but the time someone asked me “hey, are you listening to music in your language?” I answered without thinking (and a puzzled look on my face) and said yes, it’s english.
Well, I am proud of that fact that some of my ancestors managed to walk to here from Siberia(hey, it is a long walk) and that most of my ancestors have done pretty well, coming from across the Atlantic, but really I am an American first, with the English, Scottish, Cherokee, Dutch, and Irish parts are mere footnotes in my life.
I’m in (counting on fingers) the third generation of my family to be born in the US. While my ancestry is Italian, Spanish, Swedish, German and French (and I look Japanese - go figure) I generally identify myself as Italian because I was raised in a fairly “ethnic” set-up. Imagine any stereotype you can think of for Italians, and someone in my family is out perpetuating it.
If I were to travel away from the US, I would identify myself as an American.
I see myself as all kiwi all the time. I know where the anscestors are from, it just doesn’t really matter.
My son however had a Romany/Scot father. I like him to give some thought to that. During the world cup rugby he has cheered as loud for Scotland as he did for NZ. He considers himself all Kiwi though and I’d imagine his kids would find little signifigance in a Scottish grandfather.
My paternal grandparents and maternal great-grandparents came to the US from Poland in the early 1900s. I never learned to speak Polish. I know a few of the traditions, but most of those really have no meaning in my life. The closest I ever came to declaring my ethnicity was to not wear green on St. Patrick’s Day.
I’m neither ashamed nor proud of where my family originated. It’s not as if it was an accomplishment on anyone’s part to be born anywhere in particular. It’s interesting, but it’s not me. I’m American and I expect I’ll always be American.
I’m a New Zealander, born and bred. I’m proud to state that as my country of origin. My mother worked hard to become a naturalised NZ citizen, because this was her home from 1958. She never pined to go back to the “Old Country” or England.
That said – I’m also half-Pom, and proud of that. English trads were part of my upbringing. I’m proud as all heck of being quarter Scot, with a touch of Irish. I don’t have allegiance to the nations that now comprise the home of my ancestors, but they’re part of who I am, nonetheless.
Though I have Caribbean and Irish roots, I see those roots as nothing more than a diverting curiosity, but they in no way define me. I’m an Englishman.
I mean, some ethnicities and religions do it, so why can’t we?