Same here. What do you tell people when you never spent more than one or two years in the same place your entire life?
Let’s see…for me it was:
Ozark, AL
Newport News, VA
El Paso, TX
Ruppertsweiler, Germany
Rodalben, Germany
Richmond, VA
Washington, D.C.
Ft. Walton Beach, FL
Shalimar, FL
Tallahassee, FL
Add to that the fact that in each place we moved from one side of town to the other at least once. It gets a little confusing.
When people ask me where I’m from, I usually tell them it’s a long story. They don’t press the matter.
The only one that’s really bothered me is a girl I knew in college, who would tell everybody she was Australian. She was, technically - her passport was Australian, since she was born there, but she moved when she was very little. She had no accent, and couldn’t tell you a thing about Australia when quizzed on it - how its government works, who its leaders were, anything about the geography or the cities or ANYTHING - but she would bring up that she was ‘Australian’ whenever she could fit it in, to seem more exotic, I guess.
I was born in a place that I’ll never admit due to a geographic fluke. Fortunately I was able to convince my parents to return to Montreal when I was 8 months old. My sibs are quite grateful.
I was born in Scotland, coming about 2 months earlier than planned while my mum was on a trip. I lived in Essex until I was 5, then came to the US and lived just outside Pittsburgh, then Cleveland for college, back to Pgh for grad school, now I’m in Oregon.
I tell people I’m from Pittsburgh for the most part, sometimes I say I’m from England, but I never have considered myself 'From Keith, Scotland"
I have a bit of a British voice, but being pretty deaf, I have a flat toned voice - so I get asked a lot where I’m from because of my voice. In those cases, I say “Cleveland” and you’d be amazed how many people just say “oooooh.” with a nod. :dubious:
It particularly annoys me when people act as if their family origins are the same as their own - i.e. people who claim to be Scottish or Irish because their grandparents were Scottish or Irish (or English, or Welsh, etc), when they were born somewhere else entirely. It almost feels like staking a claim to something you consider “cooler” or more romantic than your real background - it just feels a little, well, disloyal.
In order to be considered a native San Franciscan, you must have been born within the city limits. I remember an obituary a few years ago in the San Francisco Chronicle that went something like this: “Ellie Snodgrass, of a heart attack, age 97. Ms. Snodgrass considered herself a native San Franciscan, although she was born in New Jersey. Her family moved to the City in 1906.”
[sarcasm]Haha! Take that Ms. Snodgrass! We don’t care if you have lived in San Francisco for 90 years – you weren’t born here, so as far as as we’re concerned, you’re from New Jersey![/sarcasm]
I was born on the Stanford University Campus, and lived there until I was 18. This makes the “where are you from” question relatively simply to answer, but I get grief anyway, “No, you’re not from Stanford, you’re from Palo Alto.” “No, really, I was born on the Stanford campus, which is an unincorporated part of Santa Clara County, and I lived there for 18 years. It’s not Palo Alto!”
I guess there really is no way to win with that question.
Well, you’re in the UK, so I can understand your opinion, but you’ve got to understand that us Americans really only have our ancestor’s heritage to claim – unless we’re native american.
My family is Russian on one side, and French/Irish on the other. I don’t think my ancestors would consider it disloyal of me to own up to my heritage, as a matter of fact I’d think it would be disloyal of me not to do so. It’s part of what went into making me me.
I don’t think that people who claim their ancestry do it to seem “cool” or more romantic, but rather they do it as a celebration of the diversity in their lineage. Maybe it’s just an American thing, but I don’t see how that seems wrong.
I have no problem with people celebrating or taking an interest in such ancestry. I dislike people who use it to define themselves to the extent that they almost appear to be ashamed of their actual “roots”. I was born and raised in England to a Scottish mother and English father. While I have always been interested in my Scottish ancestry, and have spent many years in Scotland, but the fact is that my upbringing was in England and thus I am English (well, British, but the example would be damn tricky otherwise). I dislike the attitude that seemed very common among a limited number of English Britons and Americans in Scotland that they were Scottish because they have Scottish ancestry. Why not be proud of both your own upbringing as well as interested in your ancestry?
On review, XJETGIRLX’s point is spot on; I understand why people can enjoy being immersed in their ancestry, and I have no problem with that. I tend to get annoyed when it’s taken to the level that the person assumes that they are an expert in a country’s affairs, issues or culture because they have ancestry there - sometimes that is certainly true (and there are Dopers here who know vastly more about Scotland, England and so on than their “Location” field would suggest), but more often that not in my experience it’s an excuse for plain ignorance.