No, Iranian from Tehran. His family was very secular and did not support the revolution, but after the Ayatollah was burned in effigy in front of our student union he decided a change of nationality was in order for the duration.
I once got in a fistfight with an Amish guy cos he kept calling me English.
Tehran has a large Azeri population, larger than Baku IIRC.
OK, I just remembered an outstanding example from the 1990s. The model and actress Irina Pantaeva is billed as a “Siberian Eskimo.” In reality, she is Buryat, from the republic of Buryatia in southern Siberia on the shores of Lake Baikal, near Mongolia. The Buryat are a Mongolic people who have nothing at all to do with the real Siberian Eskimos who live on the tip of the Chukchi Peninsula, some 2,000 miles away from Buryatia. It’s the equivalent of a Lakota Sioux from South Dakota claiming to be a Yup’ik Eskimo from Alaska.
Small wonder why. Pantaeva (or her publicist) must have figured that everyone has heard of Eskimos, but no one outside Russia or Mongolia has ever heard of the Buryat people. And who* would care about the difference anyway? must be how they thought.
*apart from a very few geography nerds
It doesn’t have to be a guy. Also can be a woman. Besides, I don’t understand why you find it tedious and pedantic. Would you please be kind enough to explain it?
There are also countries where there are multiple ethnicities that are considered native. For example, Scots are commonly considered an ethnicity, and sometimes they may be divided into Highland and Lowland Scots, even though there has not been an independent sovereign Scottish state for hundreds of years. Sometimes an ethnic group splits when some of the members migrate elsewhere. On the US east coast, “Pennsylvania Dutch” is to some extent considered its own ethnicity that is not quite exactly the same as being a German-American whose ancestors settled on the Dakota prairies or came straight from Germany to California during the Gold Rush.
In the early stages of a friendship, hiding this kind of information is a way of protecting yourself from stereotypes. Personally, I tend to put out the information pretty quickly so I don’t waste time on people who would judge me based on my nationality, ethnicity, religious beliefs, or whatever, but I absolutely understand those people who don’t.
People also tend to self-identify with a particular portion of our heritage. Like most of the world these days, I’m an ethnic “mutt.” My father’s lineage is mostly Scot and my mother’s mostly German, and I tend to consider myself more German and/or Scottish despite being born in the U.S. Even though I have fairly recent ancestors from other parts of the world, I’m not likely to mention them to someone because they just aren’t a big part of my self-image.
And because of rude national stereotypes like that one, Americans travel overseas and identify themselves as Canadians.
Really, Johanna, saying that is just as obnoxious as calling all Irish people drunks or calling all Mexicans lazy. It’s simply not true.
I assume that this is no more true than your earlier comment in the thread.
I’ve known several people who have either lied about their ethnicity or simply refused to say what it was.
A friend of mine is half Palestinian/half Russian and her family moved to California around the time of the second Intifada. They changed their last name to a generic English name and all of them except her brother who already had an English name changed their first names as well. She goes by her birth name since it sounds like an American nickname, but her legal name is now different. She said that her family feared retribution from Americans who were Jewish and she thought her American friends would hate her if they discovered her true ethnicity. She didn’t “come out” until college and apparently most of her friends were a little confused, but nobody was upset. I was also kind of baffled when she told me this story (I met her after all of this), but maybe there are Americans out there who really hate Palestinians*. Or her family was just extremely paranoid because of their personal experiences.
In high school there was a teacher who was clearly from either Afghanistan or Iran, but she refused to say where. That was odd only because I grew up in an area with a large Muslim population and many of them were from Palestine, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc. There was another teacher who was openly Iranian as well and nobody cared.
I also knew a blond haired/blue eyed white person who refused to say what she was. Only identified as “American.”
I saw a film called Amrika* about a Palestinian family who won a lottery to come to the US and they moved to Michigan I think, and some characters in the film did mock them and call them terrorists, but the film took place post-9/11. I don’t know if there was widespread dislike of Muslims or Palestinians in particular in the US prior to that. I’m pretty sure that my friend moved to the States before 9/11 happened- I googled the second Intifada and it lasted from 2000-2005.
I also realize that most people have an opinion on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but I don’t know if that translates to hating individual Palestinians they happen to meet in the US.
Aye.
Three months after 9-11, I’m on the Yamanote Line (train loop) in Tokyo. Two “middle-eastern looking” guys approach me and start saying something that is gibberish to me.
I replied in Japanese that I didn’t understand what they were saying. They, in turn, asked me in Japanese if I am Turkish. I’ll admit that I was a little nervous, so I answered that I’m a Spanish citizen. They apologized and said that I looked Turkish to them.
We ended up talking soccer for a few more stops. :-))
FTR: I’m third generation American with some Spanish and Mexican in the mix. 
[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:67, topic:649059”]
In the early stages of a friendship, hiding this kind of information is a way of protecting yourself from stereotypes. Personally, I tend to put out the information pretty quickly so I don’t waste time on people who would judge me based on my nationality, ethnicity, religious beliefs, or whatever, but I absolutely understand those people who don’t.
People also tend to self-identify with a particular portion of our heritage. Like most of the world these days, I’m an ethnic “mutt.” My father’s lineage is mostly Scot and my mother’s mostly German, and I tend to consider myself more German and/or Scottish despite being born in the U.S. Even though I have fairly recent ancestors from other parts of the world, I’m not likely to mention them to someone because they just aren’t a big part of my self-image.
And because of rude national stereotypes like that one, Americans travel overseas and identify themselves as Canadians.
Really, Johanna, saying that is just as obnoxious as calling all Irish people drunks or calling all Mexicans lazy. It’s simply not true.
[/QUOTE]
I’m American and I say that out of a lifetime of frustration with my fellow citizens all around me.
With my (third-generation) olive Mediterranean Sicilian looks, nobody ever believes I’m American. When I tell people I’m from Cleveland, Ohio they shake their heads and repeat the question where am I “really” from. I get asked directions on the street in Spanish or Persian. Iranians who see me think I’m one of them too and try to greet me as their compatriot. I’ve been asked if I speak English. I get Arab guys hitting on me in the belief that I’m Arab. I’ve been told to my face by a white racist that “you people” ought to go back to the Middle East.
So, ironically, though I do my honest best to claim American identity, people think I’m dissembling. :smack:
We do refer to ourselves as English. I’ve noticed this increasing, quite possibly as a reaction to the increasing independence of Wales and, especially, Scotland.
I certainly consider myself English, and would describe myself as such if asked.
I’m identified as everything from mexican to japanese when I grew up in the USA and my dad is from-from Alabama and my mom from-from Germany, the funny thing is it seems to be getting worse lately. The last decade especially black hair has turned from normal to “foreign” somehow in the USA and beyond. Sometimes people’s insistence you are foreign gets surreal.
You have spanish in you I can see it, where did you grow up in the USA?
Texas…NO BUT WA…(Was gonna say that my parents moved there from Hawaii, which they were not from blah blah)
Ah YES that explains it you have mexican parts of your family.
GROAN
Personally I would think it speaks volumes about the person misrepresenting their nationality. But it would depend on my relationship with them.
If I am in a close relationship with them I would be offended they felt the need to lie to me. A stranger I might understand. Someone I consider a close friend, less so. There are few circumstances where I would not think this person at least slightly, a liar. And fewer instances where I would not question their integrity or honesty. But mostly I think I would see that as weakness, to be honest.
On the other hand, if they were new to the country, I’d cut them some slack. American’s pretending to be Canadian, yeah I find that a little offensive. Unless you’re a spy, of course. If you’re not confident enough to own your ethnicity some place, you should stay home. Not in every instance clearly, like real actual threat to yourself or your family. But because ‘It’s just easier!’, is a kind of crappy excuse, in my opinion. Especially as American’s are so caught up in their pride and patriotism, and so invested in being “proud Americans!” That’s probably what makes it seem galling to Canadians.