The danger is that a healthy interest in one’s ancestry can be misinterpreted by others (rightly or wrongly), particularly when it strays into contentious areas of current affairs. While British people, including myself, are not generally well-informed on Irish history (and Britain’s role in it), nothing makes me cringe more than the offensively simplistic analyses applied by tourists. I saw this most often at university in Scotland, where well-meaning tourist attempts to banter with the locals got some decidedly frosty reactions due to a lack of understanding of more recent history.
On the other hand, when hitchhiking through Ireland in my youth, I was frequently asked by the people I met if I had any Irish ancestry–and it was commonly phrased “are you Irish?”
Now, given that I was clearly Yank–clothes, accent, tourist maps, camera, etc.–I’m pretty sure they were not asking whether I was born in Kerry or Donegal.
Certainly, I would never announce to anyone that “I’m Irish” (or German in that country*), but I met several people in Ireland who used the typical American phrasing of the question.
- My Dad, who was of 100% German ancestry, although he was fourth generation American, took a business trip to Europe and kept being greeted in German. On more than one occasion, he responded, “I’m sorry, I’m from the U.S. and only speak English.” to which his German or Swiss waiter or hotel counterman would inevitably respond, “But you look German!”
I am actually Kenyan, I think.
Assuming the homo sapiens out-of-Africa theory is correct.
What I want to know is why so many people are so eager to point out any Irish ancestry. Why is it that if you have even the slightest amount of Irish blood, you immediately identify yourself as Irish?
Yet, when I lived in Oz, I met Australians who were generations distant from the old country, but claimed to be whatever old country nationality, but would never call themselves Australian!
Whaat?
Second- and third-generation born Australians who never called themselves Australian, but the nationality of their ancestors.
This I do not understand. Your ancestors arrive from the old country in a new place. Two and three generations later you still claim your nationality of that of the old country, but do not call yourself Australian. You were born, bred, raised, taught in schools, grew up in everything Australia and in some cases are unable to speak the tongue of your old country ancestors. (And quite a bit of the time you’ve never visited the old country and if you did you would stand out like a sore thumb, too!) Yet you claim that ancestral nationality to the point you are not an Aussie. What gives?
I’ve never come across this in America. On the contrary, I see new immigrants in America, barely weeks/months here, who can barely speak English but are so happy to now call themselves Americans. Why is it then born and raised Aussies refuse to call themselves Australian?
The thing is, Tom, that most Irish people are more than happy to call an American “Irish” if they like that American. During the last World Cup when the USA team was kicking ass you wouldn’t believe how many times people remarked to me about the number of “Irish” players (Donovan, McBride, O’Brien) on the team. I doubt very much that would have happened if the team had done poorly.
I have loads more examples of this, take my word for it.
I know a lot of English-born people of Irish ancestry who do the same thing. Of course, that’s mainly for political reasons.
I’m American. My ancestors came here from who knows how many different countries. My home and my life is here. By birth and by choice.
Not sure what side of this “debate” that puts me on…
People like their ancestry to have romance as well. Oppressed (or formerly oppressed) peoples are regarded as romantic by Americans. (See Braveheart.) So Americans latch onto Irish or Scottish ancestors. People whose ancestry might be 75% English (or higher) will nevertheless latch onto a Scottish or Irish ancestor and claim that heritage as a big part of their identity.
English ancestry is regarded as too vanilla, it seems.
When I was an American in Europe I saw flip side of this phenomena. It’s clearly a cultural thing.
As someone pointed out, America is such a mix of nationalities. I realize there is a stereotype of an American as a blue-eyed blonde (with some people) but in reality there is no “typical” American look. We’ve had people from every corner of the world move here and become citizens. If I see someone different from me walking down the street it would not occur to me to think “that person is foreign” because, in fact, their ancestors may have been on this contient 300 years (or more) before mine arrived.
So the “what are you” question becomes mired in context. When I was in France and some asked “what are you” the answer was easy “Je suis americaine”. (Frequently after I was first addressed in either German or Russian. I’m told I resemble both groups. In certain Chicago neighborhoods little old ladies address me in Polish or Ukrainian for the simillar reasons)
Here in the States, though, “what are you?” usually means “what are your ancestors?”, in which case I’m Russian, German, and (yes) Irish. Unless you’re talking to someone who has something other than one of the American accents (there are several) in which case it’s probably “Where were you from originally?”
Why is that important to us? Well, most of us whose families have been here awhile do have a mixed background and view being a “mutt” as a very American thing. In certain circumstances, it can almost be a matter of bragging - “I have 16 different ethinicities in my ancestry - I’m more American than you, who only have 2” (There are exceptions to the pride in being a mixed breed, of course - some folks are adamantly against this sort of thing). Families do tend to retain certain customs, food, and even to some extent language from the “old country” and they may be passed down for several generations. A person might be asked “Do you keep such-and-such custom?” It part of the way we are, especially in urban areas where this sort of cross-ethnic mixing is most intense.
Another language quirk is in asking an American “where are you from?”. About a third of time I have to think (or ask to find out) if the person means “Where were you born?”, “Where did you grow up?”, or “Where do you live now?”. Those three locations are all about 600 miles apart. For some folks, the distance between birthplace and current residence may be 3000 miles. I don’t know about Europe now, but when I was there 20+ years ago this seemed a source of wonder and amazement to many.
When you ask a local restaurant owner in my town “What are you?” It’s a 50/50 chance he’ll say “Mexican” or “American”. (Born in Mexico, naturalized US citizen) If you ask him what his ancestory is, though, he’ll list three or four nationalities, so there are times when someone will mention “I’m German” (meaning of German descent in this context) and Jose will say “me, too!”.
So, it’s not just the US and Oz - this is a feature of many places in the Western Hemisphere. Frida Kahlo, for instance, was very aware of her mixed Aztec/German heritage, but was also staunchly Mexican. And not too long ago Peru’s president was a man of predominantly (if not entirely) Japanese descent. Brazil’s population has a reputation of being more hybridized than anyone else’s on this side of the world.
All that aside, there are times when we are unequivocally “American”, usually in times of war or crisis. I’ve been told by some veterans who have served in war overseas that this can cause some confusion. A couple of gulf war vets I spoke with once mentioned how the local Kuwaitis were puzzled by three guys who clearly had ancestory from Europe, Asia, and Africa all identified as “Americans”. And once in awhile it comes up with tourists in places like Chicago, where a foreign visitor expresses some surprise at the variety of faces a city like that has, and you can’t pick out foreigners by the color of their skin.
So, I think it has a lot to do with immigration. I mean, a person born and raised in, say, Scotland, is probably Scottish ancestory back for centuries so it’s nothing to remark upon (maybe if they aren’t entirely Scottish in background it comes up?). Here in the US, it’s unsual NOT to be of mixed ancestory.
In sum, largely a cultural and language use difference.
Yeah, why is that? It drives me insane that so many must, because so many people seem to think everyone who is some part Irish identifies as such. Which in turn leads them to get upset at me when I point out that, no, I’m not Irish. Irish is only one of six nationalities my ancestors had, so I’m not going to make people happy by agreeing when they shrewdly guess that I’m Irish since I have fair skin and red hair.:rolleyes:
In regards to the OP Like others have said, I see the question as “where are you from?” (the US/New England/New Hampshire- asked by someone overseas I’m sure I’d simplify and just say " I’m an American") as being entirely seperate from “what are you?” (Portuguese/Irish/Scottish/English/French/African) because, well, it’s not accurate to say my ancestory is “American.” Besides the fact that many of my ancestors only came to the US in the 1900s, the only indigineous people here in the US are Native Americans, and I’m not one. It’s a similar thing with OZ.
An Irish guy I know was on an AmTrack journey last year, and he fell into conversation with an American guy, who asked “where are you from?” He answered “I’m Irish”.
“Yeah”, said the guy. “But where are you from?”
“Dublin.”
“Oh. Which state is that in?”
Meanwhile I had a drunken argument with some poor guy in Connecticut about this. He was banging on about being Irish, and I was saying “but you’re American - why not be proud of your Americanness…?” “But I’m Irish.”
However, these days, I have started to comprehend this habit more. We still giggle behind our hands at the “I’m Irish” claims, but I now understand (thanks to reading The Road to McCarthy) that it’s purely a semantic distinction - the identification of those in America who consider themselves “Irish” are actually identifying themselves as American-Irish - it’s merely a shorthand to miss off the “American-” part.
It also worries me that, if an American person’s ancestry was from the Indian sub-continent, say, and they said “I’m Indian”, we wouldn’t bat an eyelid.
Yeah, well, I’ve commented about that before in these threads jjimm. The British are, I think, particularly bad about insisting that anyone born in America is “American” while at the same time referring to certain of their compatriots as “Asian” (or “Indian” or “Pakistani” or whatever) even if they were born and raised in Brum.
There is an underlying racism to this distinction, even if it is (hopefully, in most cases) unintentional.
I’m Australian, and as far as I’m concerned only Australian (unless you wish to get into leftist principles of global citizenry, which I don’t, since it’s hardly relevant at the moment).
My great-grandparents apparently had something to do with Ireland, Scotland and England, but I don’t really know or care. I don’t remember ever meeting any of them (although I’m told that I did), so as far as I’m concerned I’m 100% Australian.
In fact, my parents are mystified by the fact that I have no special interest in discovering “where my family came from” - Ireland, Scotland etc. But why should it interest me? The UK and Ireland mean nothing to me - not that I wouldn’t want to visit those places, but certainly not for historial reasons. That said, however, my parents definitely see themselves as Australian, would never idenitify themselves as anything but, and I feel that most Australians are similarly inclined. Certainly I’ve never met any who wished to identify themselves as Irish etc. despite being born in Australia.
I would suggest that when a native of a country like Canada/America/Australia/New Zealand identifies himself by his ethnic roots, it would indicate primarily that such person has a high degree of genes from those roots. I continue to identify myself as Dutch, because although I have been raised in Canada, and am almost completely estranged from contemporary Dutch culture, I find pride and some identity from the history of my ancestors. I can not relate to the pride of Canada’s history for I have no ancestral connection to it. This irks my wife no end, who is the quintessential Canadian of many different ethnic ancestries and thus is unable to place focus on ethnic heritage. For my children, this is all completely irrelevant and they side with Mom. They have no desire to even visit Amsterdam.
Well, I have Irish, French, and English ancestry on my mother’s side and I’m American Indian and Scottish on my dad’s side. So am I supposed to wear a war bonnet because my father was Choctaw or carry a shillelagh and wear a beret in difference to my
maternal roots?
And how far back does this go anyway? If I were to trace my matrilineal line in direct descent, as in "Merry, daughter of June, daughter of Daisy . . " after the first 50 or so names, we’ll start coming to names like Clothilde and Radegunde and we’ll be talking about my Frankish ancestors. Am I a Frank? A Gaul? And then I’m sure that Italian settlers in Gallia and Britannia must have intermarried in my family line, so am I a Roman as well? And of course there were Phoenician traders buying tin from the ancient Celts, and no doubt they left some babies behind, so I guess I’m Phoenician as well, which then links me to the Levant and the Middle East, so I guess I’m part Sumerian also. Go back far enough, and my ancestors turn dark because they’re protohominids living in the Rift Valley, so I’m Kenyan along with Istara.
And if you trace my father’s line, eventually after a couple of hundred of generations, I’ll find I’m descended from Siberian bear hunters who travelled across the Bering Land Bridge. Am I Siberian, too?
Screw it, I’m an American and happy to be nothing else.
Odd, I’ve had the exact opposite experience.
I’ve never heard this from any born and raised Aussie. Different circles, different experiences, different age groups, who knows ? But every person I’ve met is first and foremost an Aussie. I’ve never had a second-generation Aussie say they were anything but Aussie. I have heard discussions of ancestry, but they were all with the understanding that that was the past, and they were Aussies now.
Part of the phenomenon we are discussing relates back to a quote I once read (can’t remember who, sorry):
“The third generation remembers what the second generation tries to forget.”
On my father’s side, I am third generation from a British family (My grandmother was born here, but her brother was born in the UK). I find myself to be very curious about my ancestry (the Mormon roots from my mother’s side don’t hurt there), and listen with rapt attention to any tidbit I can get out of my father or his reltaives.
My wife, on the other hand, is sdcond generation, the daughter of a Columbian immigrant, and has absolutely NO curiosity about her heritage, even though her family came to Columbia from Spain not too many generations ago, which I find intriguing.
And it does relate to the “newness” of both America and Australia. If history were geology, the Old World countries would each be vast mountainous continents compared to the US, the tip of an island just pokling above the waves. How can you really be FROM there?
Yeah that bugs me too. My way of looking at it is that you have to be either born there or lived a good part of your life there to call yourself Irish(or whatever else).
Just because your great great great grandparents were from Ireland doesn’t make you even a little bit Irish.
I have ancestors from Norway and England but I’m neither Norwegian or English…I’m Texan.
So many others in Canada have the same response that the census forms were changed to include “Canadian” in the list of ethnic origins as a result of the numbers who ticked “Other” and wrote in Canadian (myself included) on earlier census forms. My ancesters are apparently all from various parts of the British Isles (albeit some by way of the American colonies as refugees from the Revolution), and I am quite interested in my roots, but I have no feeling that I am English/Irish/Scottish in any way.