Would you say non-white people born & raised in England are English?

[rack909]

Just thought I should hear people’s perspective on this.

Some say it’s an ethnicity, some say it’s a nationality & others say it’s both of them.

I personally think it’s both a Nationality & ethnic group.

If someone says they are from England, they are denoting their nationality as English even if they don’t say it outright. It’s the same thing.

My parents are migrants, I was born here, I do not think of myself as English. British, as in I am a British citizen, but not English. I have no English heritage, and I find it mildly insulting to be “told” that I’m English when I don’t identify with the country culturally in this way. HOWEVER, if someone born here, like me, did feel like they culturally identified as being English due to being born in England then of course that is their right.

I think pp are confusing British and English, no one has an English passport.

I think British infers greater diversity acceptance and English infers nationalism. So it would be interesting to understand why they say that.

If they were born in England, yes, if they were born in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, then they're Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish. The only reason I'd say I'm English is because I was born in Oxford. I'm part Welsh and part Italian as well, so I say I'm European.

I'd say the opposite. If you're born somewhere but then leave immediately, what do you know about that place? I have no memory of the place where I was born.
It's where you're raised that matters.

So you support identifying your way into Nationality or ethnic heritage?

as opposed to the laws of the land to which you were born and the legal citizenship of your birth parents?

Agree with this for the most part but what if at they follow cultural traditions from another country or speak a different language at home? I'm not sure I would class them as British in these circumstances - its more of a complex mix of identities.

Ah that would explain why they’re screaming about Sudan , China, Iraq and Iran!

oh but they’re not, they only care when they can scream hatred at Jews

No less English than I am.

I (white, born in England to two Welsh parents) don’t consider myself English. I wouldn’t call myself Welsh either. I view myself as British.

But I have no issue calling people OP describes English if that’s how they view themselves, or calling them British if that is how they view themselves.

But I take issue with OP’s question. Why specify non-white? Why not ask about all those born here to foreign parents? My answer doesn’t change if the person in question has two white French parents or two black Nigerian parents.

Yes they are - I have non white friends born and raised in England, of course they’re English (and they consider themselves to be English too)

Obviously they know they’re not English genetically but most of the time people mean Nationality when they say English

"I have no English heritage, and I find it mildly insulting to be “told” that I’m English"

I'm afraid I would consider you English because you are from England. Of course, it's up to you how you self-identify.

Well I am aware of that but I was literally answering the thread!

The question in the OP was 'would you say non white people born and raised in England were English?' and so that's what I was answering

I was just responding to your answer

Why does it matter?
And there are plenty of white people from other nationalities here too…

Where you were raised speaks to culture and social beliefs.

which is different to which countries you are legally a national of, or what your familial ethnic heritage is - per the OPs question.

what you know about the country you left is entirely down to how important your time was there from you’re parents view and whether they think it worth educating you on.

where do you stop though?

Is someone who had a German grandparent not-English? A Hungarian great-grandparent?

My surname is probably Flemish in origin, and my colouring decidedly "celtic" - but that doesn't stop me being English.

Peter Davison has black ancestry, but start typing him into Google and you get "English actor"

I didn't leave another country, just a place. I know almost nothing about it and I'm clearly not really from there.

OP didn't specify that her question was about legal citizenship or family heritage. She asked whether a person of colour can be English. English is a cultural identity so it's something you have as you are brought up so the answer is...yes.

Of course, how is this even a question.

But where we’re born can be very arbitrary. Surely it would be ridiculous to think that because my older DB happened to be born in the Gambia whilst our parents were missionaries there, that he was Gambian? He left there when he was 8 months old! It also can’t really be the case that he couldn’t claim to be English for that reason whereas my DSis and I can because we happened to be born later than him, in this country.

There are a lot of people like my DB who happened to be born whilst parents were overseas for whatever reason but who have lived in this country virtually all their lives and are culturally English. (My DB didn’t have British nationality until 10 years ago, as I said in a previous post.)

Americans are extraordinarily proud of their European ancestry.
I was visiting a small US town, and in conversation my host said that he was German. I was confused. Upon questioning further, it transpired that his great-grandfather was German.

Hence so many nation-of-origin terms, e.g. "Italian-American", "Chinese-American" etc.

I guess because to say "I am American" doesn't mean anything, unless the American is saying it when abroad.

Who cares? People can define themselves how they like. Sick of these debates and this stupid idea of English blood and purity as if it's important.

Op why did you ask about just about non white English born people? What about other white nationalities, people with French, German, Swedish etc. parents who were born and live here. Seems odd to me to ask that.

Shit stirring.

To answer the question- yes, they are, no argument from me.

It might not be all they are though. They might also be described as British or a combination of English and British which takes in to account their heritage. They might also describe themselves as a proud Yorkshireman or Cornish and there would be fairly big differences in culture between people from those two places. For some people the town or county where they were born and raised is more important than the country, to others not so much.

It’s all a bit arbitrary anyway, we’re a total mishmash as a nation, how many generations back should you count for your heritage?

I would always say “ I’m English” if asked. Im not English at all as far as my dna goes- not one drop, and plenty from darker skinned continents. But then my friend with Scottish and Irish parents, she would say she is English too.
Because we are both culturally English, it’s the country that formed us.
Ethnically English-no. Culturally English- absolutely.
The reason people question Englishness and are saying it’s purely an ethnicity is because of the number of people living here who have no interest in English culture and will never assimilate. But there are thousands of English people who are not made up of Anglo Saxon dna and are as English as can be.