Further Diversity

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Eve’s post about diversity in religion, politics, sexual orientation and socio-economic status got me to thinking about diversity in ethnicity. I haven’t seen any posts that I recall that were based on the poster’s ethnic origins, other than some mild American/Canadian/European (and the odd En Zedder, GuanoLad) info. Is that because it just doesn’t figure into things much or are we so homogenous in that regard that it’s not there to see?

If people don’t mind I’d be curious to discover how diverse we are in this regard.

I’m Scandanavian on my dad’s side and British Isles on my mom’s. No real ethnic family traditions although my mom makes a mean Yorkshire pudding. Both sides of my family have been in America for generations but my grandfather spoke with a strong Swedish accent because he didn’t learn English (although he was born in Minnesota) till he was five or six.

Anyone else care to share?

Let’s see. I lathered and I rinsed. But did I repeat?

2

From mom’s side I’m half Polish. On my dad’s side, let’s see… Swedish, English, and a little Potawatamie. Yeah. I said Potawatami. < snork! >

Mom’s parents fled Poland under the Nazi regime and came to America to start a new life (and boy am I glad!). They spoke the language and my mom knew some, but about all I can say is “Please pass the piroges” (sp?). :wink:

As far as (“ethnic”) family traditions go, pretty much none. Food-wise we did a lot of Polish sausage, potatoes, saurkraut, that kind of thing, but nah…

I consider myself a simple mutt American.

StoryTyler
“Not everybody does it, but everybody should.”
I Spy Ty.

3

My father’s side is from Spain. His great-grandfather came to this country, met, and married a Comanche indian woman. My mother’s side came from Mexico. All of them.

Gosh I’m so boring!! Would it really have killed my ancestors to have some royalty in the family? I blame them for my not being tall and rich. =)

“Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be.”

4

I am mostly French, then Cherokee Indian and a small amout of Dutch.

5

My family is primarily Danish, Scottish and German and Russian, and a large segment of the family lives in Argentina.

The Argentinian segment is the most interesting…one of my uncles (Argentine) married my aunt (American) after becoming friends on a trip to the states. She, speaking no Spanish, moved to Argentina, and has lived there for over thirty years, raised three Spanish-speaking children…and has never learned Spanish. The kids, on the other hand, speak French also. But English, their mother’s only language? Only very slightly. The youngest of these three cousins really doesn’t speak any English at all.

My grandmother made it a point to speak Spanish to me growing up and I lived in Argentina for a while, so now I am fluent in Spanish, while my parents don’t speak a word of it. Weird, huh.

6

Yep, I’m a New Zealander. My Father was Maori (though his Father was European, and his Mother was half-caste) and my Mother is 100% European origin - her ancestors are from England.

I’m therefore 3/8 Maori. But only my brother is in any way aware of that part of our culture. He’s a fluent speaker of the language.

-PIGEONMAN-
Hero For A New Millennium!

The Legend Of PigeonMan - Back in the new year! Honest. I promise. No, really.

7

My mother is British (Manchester) and my father’s family is German, settled here four generations ago. Both my brother and I have dual citizenship (U.S. & U.K.) I guess you could say that my lineage isn’t very diverse at all!

…what the French call, a certain “I-don’t-know-what”

8

My mother’s parents are both Danish - born and met there, married and had kids in the US. Danish was my mother’s first language. The family has kept the traditions pretty well, like for Christmas and stuff. All my cousins at least understand the language, except me, which is why I moved to Denmark. I’ve met a whole bunch of my extended family that still lives over here. On my dad’s side it’s a general hodge-podge of British Isles, with I think a smidgen of German, but the family’s been living in the US for at least a hundred years. The only ethnicity my father’s side ever showed an interest in was the Scottish (I think the largest bit). I know we’re the sept Gillespie of the clan MacPherson, but that’s it.

Il vaut mieux gâcher sa jeunesse que de n’en rien faire du tout. – Georges Courteline

9

A Viking/Puritan mix here. I guess that’s either a reformed Viking or a racy Puritan in the end.

10

15/16 Dutch, 1/16 German. Sorry to disappoint :wink:

Coldfire

“You know how complex women are”

  • Neil Peart, Rush (1993)
11

Let me break it down for ya :slight_smile:

Moms side: German, Dutch, English, Scotish, Welsh, French, Shawnee.

The most interesting parts are, my grandma is descended indirectly from Mary Queen of Scots IIRC. On the Welsh side (Edwards), we are descended from Jonathan Edwards (one of the most infamous preachers in US history). We are also descended from a Maritime Seaman who lost our deed to the property of Trinity Chruch in NYC in a gambling game. Mom says it was lost to Aaron Burr’s Lawyer (Grandpa saw the deed, which has a square cut out of it for some reason).

The only real traditions from my moms side is our Christmas dinners which ALWAYS included Ham, something that was from my Grandpa’s family.

The Dutch and German side comes from my great grandma (who was of Dutch descent) and my grandpa (who was German descent). There were no real traditions there because my great-grandma never felt any need to hold onto her past (which is why my grandmother doesnt know dutch, and why our family has so few antiques left after great-grandma died)

Dad’s side: Filipino and Spanish.

My grandmother and grandfather are both 1/4 Spanish ancestry. My grandma says her grandfather was fluent in Spanish. I like to think that my majoring in Spanish is a part of my heritage :).

We also have land in the province of Aklan in the Philippines, which has probably been in the family for a while. I know that I also am related to one of the Filipino/Chinese families (a minority of the Philippines) who own several shipping businesses.

My Grandparents were born and raised in the Philippines, and my dad was born in the US. I never learned my grandparents languages (Hiligaynon and Aklanon), but dad can understand a lot, and kind of speak it.

Our traditions at home from the philippines aren’t very many, but I am familiar with a lot of the culture, and the food. I also try to learn as much as I can on my free time, since i never really grew up with those traditions at home (mom rules the house :)). I am the only one of my brothers who really knows anything of his Filipino side.

12

Whhops.the part about the dutch/german side looks bad the way it is. The Dutch and German side comes from my great-grandmother, and my great-grandfather not my grandfather :slight_smile:

13

On my dad’s side, there’s English, Dutch, and one Cherokee Indian great-grandmother. Unfortunately, nobody has compiled the info on them, so we don’t know an awful lot about any of them.

On my mom’s side, Scottish by way of Ireland and Canada. Kind of interesting, some of our Canadian relations did a geneology book, and travelled to Scotland to take pictures and look in archives and stuff. Turns out we can trace that side of the family tree back 31 generations from me (which would still make me a mutt by royalty standards, but hey). There were some minor royals back in the feudal period, some dukes and knights and such, but nothing major or of great historical significance. The only downside was that my mom’s acquisition of said book coincided with my being assigned to make a family tree in 6th grade or something. Dragging those 4 taped together pieces of posterboard to class was a real bitch, especially when most of my classmates could fit theirs onto a piece of notebook paper.

It may be that when an ornithologist says the Water Ouzel walks under the water, he only means that he has seen a Water Ouzel or some other bird sitting on a stone in the general vicinity of a body of water.
–Will Cuppy

14

Dad’s side - Scottish/Irish
Mom’s side - Cherokee/whoknows

There is supposedly a castle in Scotland that still bears our surname. I need to go there sometime, if for no other reason than to track down the dog who lost all that money.

The overwhelming majority of people have more than the average (mean) number of legs. – E. Grebenik

15

Father’s side: Italian
Mother’s side: 3/4 Welsh, 1/4 Dutch.

I’m Italian-Welsh. A very interesting combination: I get really depressed, and I get real loud about it.

My father’s father’s side is the interesting one: a young boy from the village of Corrado, Italy (we still haven’t figured out if the family name came from the village, or if the village name came from the family) sent in 1904 to live with his aunt in New York City. I can’t even imagine being an eight-year old boy, crossing the Atlantic alone to live with a woman I had never seen, in a country I had never seen, and which spoke a language I knew nothing about.

My grandfather eventually moved to Washington D.C., and I make a lot of jokes about how we’re the inverse of the standard immigration tale- most Italian immigrants were Southern Italians who moved to the American North; our grandfather showed his independent streak by being a Northern Italian who moved to the American South.

As far as traditions go- I can’t think of a single tradition our family has that wasn’t created out of whole cloth by our grandparents. The closest thing to a true Italian tradition in our family is the fact that we were all raised Catholic.

JMCJ

Die, Prentiss, Die! You will never have a more glorious opportunity!

16

Mom’s side: Irish
Dad’s side: Polish
Me: Fire and Ice

The odds that the bread will fall butter side down are directly proportional to the cost of the carpet.