To wonder when Americans lose their roots

What’s funny is that so many Irish emigrate. Does anyone tell them that their children will never ever be considered Irish (but someone who literally arrived last week is ‘more Irish than the Irish themselves!’)

Honestly funny

Native Americans were never a unified people, never saw themselves as a unified people and only held small territories which changed hands constantly. Some of them were not even very related by the way.

So on the one hand everyone in America is American - on the other - presumably people would understand if Jewish Americans or Asian Americans, for example, kept in touch with, or a memory of their roots and culture.

Historically, tribes always kept their genealogies - ie a narrative of their people and where they came from. It’s part of the human need to know or form a history and identity.

Question for anyone who knows about this stuff - do Australians and New Zealanders identify so strongly with their cultural heritage?

Maybe I'm wrong, but while an interest in your ancestry is very common, claiming it as an identity seems to be very much an American thing.

I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make. Irish people are entirely comfortable with living outside of Ireland, the huge Irish diaspora etc, yes. My own child was born in London.

We’re also comfortable (apart from an inevitable fringe of racist malcontents) with the fact that Ireland is now a destination for immigration, as well as a source of emigration to elsewhere.

My nephew, born to an Irish father and a Russian mother and growing up in Berlin, will have a different relationship to Irishness to my goddaughter, born in Ireland to a Polish father and a Nigerian mother, and to me (born in Ireland to Irish parents). And someone who grew up in Idaho with a granny who left Oughterard in 1871 will have a different relationship to Irishness again.

I think what I struggle to understand with this kind of mentality though, is how you pick which of your great great (etc) grandparents to foreground. Why cherrypick your Scottish ancestor when, once you’ve gone back a few generations, you’re got 16 or 32 people to choose from?

To me it feels like people are carefully curating a narrative, or particular identity. Like choosing to emphasise your Irish ancestors rather than the many German, Swedish or whatever ones, as you like the idea of Irishness more than the others.

Joe Biden to the BBC - "I'm Irish". What the fuck are you the US president then?!

😆😆😆

Try being a regular old American and being told that this land isn’t yours even though your family has been there generations, fought and died for it. Then being told (usually by the very same people) that some illegal migrant who arrived last year is just as American as you.

They just hate us and never attempted to hide it.

The vast majority of Americans identify as hyphenated or double-barrelled Americans. It's a deeply imbedded part of American culture to have some knowledge of your national and ethnic origins. The question is often asked on informational forms, etc.

I know I'm not Scottish, but I do have a Scottish surname and I know the name of the ship my many times great-grandfather sailed on when he left the island that had been his family's home for generations. Many of us Americans have this level of knowledge or greater of our ethnic origins, and it is part of our identity.

But all Americans have a story, and they hear it from birth and it means something to them. They never let it go, despite the fact that they would not only be incapable of finding Dublin on map, they couldn't even confidently point at the UK

How is this not saying all Americans are dumb and tedious

I don’t think that about all Americans.

I do think this aspect of American identity, while understandable, is overemphasised. But as I said, the reason I don’t do it myself is that my equivalent is dull.

What’s funny is that so many Irish emigrate. Does anyone tell them that their children will never ever be considered Irish (but someone who literally arrived last week is ‘more Irish than the Irish themselves!’)

Honestly funny

Does your husband know you think all Americans are stupid and tedious?
Honestly, why are people so sneery.

It's intrinsic to Americans' view of themselves. It's central to the American myth.

I'm married to one, and they bang on about it endlessly - the German roots, the Spanish eyes, the Lancashire..er...something or other. And, to be fair, their accumulated family narrative is a lot more interesting than mine. Which is London preceded by London. And more London before that. Oh, and some Somerset. And then a lot more London. It's quite dull, and does not make for interesting wedding conversation.

But all Americans have a story, and they hear it from birth and it means something to them. They never let it go, despite the fact that they would not only be incapable of finding Dublin on map, they couldn't even confidently point at the UK. But no matter - baby Wayne has two very pale freckles to the left of his nose and that's the Irish in him. Yep, that's O'Connelly, for sure. Or at least the one sixty-fourth of his DNA that's O'Connelly.

What’s funny is that so many Irish emigrate. Does anyone tell them that their children will never ever be considered Irish (but someone who literally arrived last week is ‘more Irish than the Irish themselves!’)

Honestly funny

When I was a visiting student liaison at an Irish university I dealt every year with upset Junior Year Abroad American visiting students who showed up in my office puzzled, weepy or angry that Irish students just saw them as foreigners when they saw themselves as Irish. Some of them had also literally never heard US foreign policy publicly criticised, and were dealing with a major loss of innocence on several fronts…

I think it feels over romanticised to British people because while Americans are keen to highlight if they’re Scottish-American, or Irish-American, you don’t get so many saying they’re English-American. Or German-American even. The highlighting of cultural heritage is much stronger when there’s a “marginalised” feel to it, but not when the culture is seen as the oppressor. It feels very pick and choose. If there’s this thing where everyone is proud of their heritage, why aren’t all the very many English-Americans always talking about it?

I'm Irish, and I find "Irish" Americans can be really bizarre about this, thinking they belong to an Irish "race". I was once told by an American that she had a DNA test to prove that she was more Irish than me. The loudest ones think they're Irish even though they have never been to the country, while knowing nothing about it. Not all Americans are like this of course.

Sorry to be pedantic but it wasn’t a “new” world it was already inhabited by indigenous peoples - up to 10 million in N.America alone. I don’t know why white colonial America persists with this narrative.

Texas rebelled against centralised Mexican rule when it brought it policies such as a ban slavery and immigration changes - the immigrants along the Texan Mexico border were mostly illegal, and not particularly inclined to adapt to Mexican culture, and many had slaves who made up around 15% of their then population, which they didn’t want to give up.

The state of California itself was founded on indigenous genocide, ethnic cleansing and forced labour by carried out by soldiers and settlers following the defeat of Mexican forces & the gold rush. The native population decimated from ~ 150,000 > ~ 15,000 in 50 years 1850-1900.

Sorry no, you don’t get to sneer.

The OP solicited these comments. The woman didn’t impose herself on you. We’ve been through it. Scottish-Americans and Scots are very different people who bifurcated 300 years ago. How can you tell her what her identity is supposed to be? Have you lived the American experience for generations?