Well, just because you claim to be related to someone doesn’t mean you’re saying they are your grandparents specifically (or great-grandparents, or whatever).
I agree that ‘heritage’ is a more accurate word for what I was trying to convey. I certainly don’t identify myself as Dutch, and I don’t call myself a Dutch American–although if by a bizarre chance I had to fill out a form that asked me to check off whether I am a “Dutch-Surnamed American”, then I would probably do so.
I don’t quite get the outrage, though. Why does this piss people off, except in certain cases of “me too-ism”, where someone identifies with a foreign culture (or for that matter, a different ethnicity), for some manipulative purpose? For example, if as a Gentile you speak to a Jewish person about the disaster visited on “our people” by the Holocaust, because you went to a Seder once; or if you’re white and you claim the injustices against “our people” because you are 1/16 African American–in those scenarios I could understand the anger. But in most scenarios, no.
To be totally clear, I don’t mean to say that such examples as these exemplify the only type of offensive “manipulative purpose” that I can imagine–these are just examples.
Well, since you put it like that, I’m rather curious now and I do want to hear it. However, this would be with the understanding that whatever you think is brutal about your opinion results from the sum of your experience with Americans personally, and what conclusions you draw from the news and media. I don’t think it’s humanly possible absolutely to avoid generalizing.
But I might suggest that if your bad opinions revolve around our government, political process, foreign policy, lifestyle, and things of that sort, then leave it out. After all, you know there are plenty of threads on the specifics, or you can open one yourself. Please understand I’m not referring to anything specific I’ve seen you post in the past, but ‘brutal’ is a pretty strong word.
You may think we’re self-aggrandizing, but it’s a little more complicated than that. For one thing another stereotype is that Americans are monoglots who care and know little about other cultures, or at least we perceive it to be a stereotype held by foreigners, so we feel the need to dispel it. Certain other aspects of American culture that we personally don’t agree or identify with also may come across as stereotypes, or we fear that they do, based on personal encounters (or on the Internet). For instance if we’re not fundamentalist Christians who believe that dinosaur fossils were placed in the earth by Satan, in order to weaken the faith, then we might feel the need to make sure you don’t think we are. I think this is mostly because we are just so damn big, and everybody around the world has opinions of us, more than they would other foreign countries. Whatever stereotypical views there might have once been about Indians, or English people, or Germans, and so on, probably have been dispelled by the media in recent years. I suspect that our media does the reverse in our case.
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Americans who immediately start criticising America for its role in world affairs and apologising for it are equally annoying though - what some other foreigners and I refer to as ‘self-hating Americans’. Firstly, they’re an instance of what I mentioned at the start - American exceptionalism.
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But secondly, it’s clear that they don’t really see you as a person. Yes, I speak with a foreign accent… but that’s really not the most important thing about me, and you’re really showing how sheltered you’ve been when it obviously sticks out at you like a sore thumb.
This may offend some people here, but it’s the conclusion I and others have come to: the Americans you meet in Europe are often loud, self-aggrandising dicks. The Americans you meet in the US who immediately tell you all about their trip to Europe/passion for der Spiegel/fluency in language X or whatever, at tedious length, are usually the same. The good, cool Americans, the ones who make it worth living here, see you as a person and talk to you as an individual, and not as some icon of their insecurities. Often, they will discuss with you their trip to the UK when you know them a bit better, and that’s absolutely fine (that’s probably when I’ll tell them about my trip to Seattle in tedious detail).
I think it would surprise many self-consciously ‘international’ Americans to realise that they are viewed as the annoying ones by many foreigners. Same deal in Japan - those Japanese who ‘studied abroad’ and want to go on about it annoy the tits off people, but those who are regular, fun people and want to talk to you about random shit… everybody loves 'em!
I think this is an absolutely classic case of special pleading crossed with American exceptionalism?
Are you really suggesting that there are no widely-held stereotypical views about (for example) English people? 'cos, as an English person living abroad (in the US, as it happens) I gotta tell you, that’s not even within a million miles of the truth…
That’s all we have on a historical level–whatever our ancestors brought when they came. To deny any meaningful cultural connection is tantamount to saying we just sprang up out of the earth here in 1776. If you want to nail down what “American culture” is, I’d say it’s whatever was created here first or uniquely, like all the popular music from ragtime on. But many if not most of these accomplishments were the achievements of specific ethnic or cultural subsets within the larger population, and thus belongs to those subsets specifically, rather than to all of us as a whole–at least in the sense of claiming it as heritage. I play blues guitar and used to play ragtime piano. I love them both, but they are not my historical heritage, because I am not African American. Bach and Rembrandt are, in the sense of where my ancestors were during that period of history. Roughly speaking, of course…some had already come to America by then, but nevertheless.
I don’t see it as either. As I originally referred to “bigness”, I meant figuratively–military power, media, etc., but come to think of it the actual geographic size is a factor too. There are many, many places where you drive several hundred miles only to find another small town with a Walmart and a McDonalds, while covering the same distance in Europe takes you through several ancient ancient cultural regions. I think this motivates some of us to bring up our past associations or experiences in your part of the world, to show that we’re not limited to these things that we ourselves consider stereotypical.
I meant to ask you earlier what you mean about the link between self-hatred and exceptionalism. Can you elaborate on that?
Maybe there are new stereotypes, but I think the old ones are dead in the dust: for example, the notion that the British are all stuffy, or that everyone there is either a Cockney, or else speaks like an Earl. Maybe the very nature of a stereotype is that it is rooted in things or people that are authentic, but are only a very limited sample of the population in question. Aristocrats, butlers, and Cockneys were once stock characters in American portrayals of British life as seen in films and books. Maybe the class thing was fascinating to us, so those contrasts tended to be proliferated in such media.
As a kid I developed a theory that Americans spoke loudly because the place was so big they had to shout.
I’m English but my mother is Irish, and I have an Irish passport - firstly on her insistence but it’s definitely a plus over the English oops British one. I’ll say I’m Irish on my mothers side. My mother always maintained that the United Kingdom was far from being so and could barely stomach the British Isles either.
My American friends had a whole woah! thing going on when I breastfed. As a teenager American girls when getting to know you would include if and how many abortions they’d had - something an English girl would not disclose in a casual conversation. American guys like to dance. My Caribbean raised daughter was indignant that her American friends thought she wouldn’t know about the Moomintrolls - do they have that in the Caribbean they wondered . Are the Moomintrolls obscure? Americans are great hosts and very friendly. I wouldn’t be surprised if they havn’t grasped the whole England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Isle of Mann etc etc thing but it is annoying when people (not just Americans) say - oh well same difference. I’ve also met plenty of Americans who’ve done their homework on this one. Americans do the casual look thing very well and don’t wear socks to do it. I’ve met Americans with maple leaves on their backpacks - the US must have been doing something unpopular at the time.
That um hum thing got me until I realised it’s just what they do - I felt like they couldn’t be bothered to speak - it seems really rude. Americans tip and they use lots of napkins when eating with their fingers.
And here is a perfect example of what I was talking about. Read the headline, and then scroll down to the end of the tenth paragraph.
This is the hypocrisy that really gets to me: Irish people insist that someone born in America is American no matter where their parents were from, but if someone was born in Ireland it’s their parents’ origin that matters. :rolleyes:
In fairness, this “only Irish girl in class” was the only one in her class whose parents were born in Ireland. All others are first or second generation immigrants. That’s a bit different than saying they’re not “Irish” even though their family has been there for five generations. Add to this the fact that the US is emphatically built on immigration and is supposed to be a “melting pot”, while Ireland, while I suppose it gets a fair number of immigrants, still has a main ethnic group.
I believe what bothers people is the fact that some Americans identify themselves by what ethnic group they are a part of (or the most “interesting” ethnic group they are a part of, if there’s more than one), even though they don’t have much connection with the culture of their “homeland” anymore, if ever. That’s not quite the case with the children in this class, some of whom barely spoke English when the school year started.
Maybe, but the fact is that it doesn’t matter to an Irish person whether an Irish-American’s family has been there for one generation or five. A person born in America is considered American regardless of their family’s immigration history. Nobody here hears my accent and questions how many generations my people have been in the US before they decide that I’m “American”.
Yeah… not like the Irish are a mixture of Celts and Vikings and Anglo-Normans or anything like that…
Ah I think you’re reading a bit too much into one headline. Headlines are always written in shorthand. I get your point but this isn’t a particularly good example of the phenomenon. Also, the plantation of Ulster was about 400 years ago and alot of those people aren’t Irish yet. It takes time.
Although I was born in Miami, I´ve lived my entire life in the Dominican Repubic, bu I´ve been to college in the US for 2 years and I still visit Miami with frequency. I also go to Spain whenever I can and hence I have various perspectives on how Americans are viewed as by other cultures. I´ll combine my observations with my thoughts on Americans in general, for both good and bad.
Good “American” Traits:
Profesionalism. Most Americans I´ve talked to\worked with are extremely responsible and are very organized. Most of the time, things move smoothly with Americans.
I´d say that most Americans I´ve dealt with are very friendly, and I find that they make a consious effort to understand where the other person is from and respetive there differences in regards to other cultures.
Bad “American Traits”:
Sensibility. I find Americans to be very, very sensitive to many issues, much more so than other countries I´ve visited. Sometimes minor actions not even considered part of etiquette in other countries recieve an “excuse me!” response from many. Example, In a line at a buffet in a cruise ship, I just wanted a single slize of pizza, so I went to the line very quickly reached for a slice and put it in my plate. A (american) guy said to me “Hey, get in line like the rest of us pal!” Of course, I Undrstood his logic, but in Spain\ DR\ Mexico this would not be “rude”. As long as it is quick and discreet. Many other examples of this come to mind.
Americans, I find, are reluctant to give straight, no B.S points of views to many subjects. They tend to be TOO respectful in my opinion. This at first can be mis-interprted as a form of shallownes\insecurity\snobiness.
There are probably a few more observations I have not mentioned. But I´ll save those for later. All in all Americans are quite fine people, like most other people are.
Unless I’ve missed a comment I don’t see where anyone has said “Americans are not Irish, these people born in Ireland aren’t Irish either” or words to that effect. There are some thoughtful comments supporting your point of view, one or two racist bullshit posts but none of the hypocrisy you’re talking about. Again I get your point and know the phenomenon of which you speak but this isn’t a particularly good example of it.
The Irish are a single ethnic group in recent history. Ethnically speaking, I (think I) am French-Canadian. French-Canadians are a mix of French settlers to Canada and Acadia (themselves a mix of several ethnic groups going back to ancient times) as well as Irish, English, Scottish, Native and other ethnicities. But they’re still summarized as a “single” ethnic group.
In other words, it means something to be ethnically “Irish”, even though the Irish ethnic group doesn’t have ten thousand years of history.
That wasn’t my point. You suggested that the phrase “the only Irish girl in the school” was merely a headline abbreviation. The comments show that, to the contrary, the headline accurately reflects the way a lot of people here think.
Yes, I realise that people think of an “Irish ethnicity” in a way that they don’t think of an “American ethnicity”. But that doesn’t make it any less of an inconsistent way of looking at things. In reality, the Irish are a blend of origins just as Americans are.
Furthermore, if we are to take it that “Irishness” is something that can only be passed down through the generations, then what we’re saying is that the descendants of these Nigerian and Polish immigrants will *never * really be Irish, which is a route I really don’t think we want to go down. And it also takes us right back to the earlier point about Irish-Americans - if Irishness is jus sanguinis rather than jus soli, then surely they have a right to assert it.
put down the sabre, I am perfectly calm but I’m not about to go scrolling through five pages of a thread just to work out what point you’re trying to make.
