Who is English?

[mids2019]

I see reform have started a debate about the meaning of being English which has stirred a few feathers. To my mind anyone who is born in the country is English..

I would say moving to a country does not necessarily make you a national of a country e.g. if I moved the South of Spain as a retired I don't know if could reasonably call my self Spanish but children of English people definitely could.

One thing that is worth debate is how you frame heritage and is this important? For instance would 2nd.generation immigrants from India would want to be referred as English but if Indian oriigin? Is there an actual desire for people of foreign heritage to maintain a part of their identity connected to their country of family origin for cultural reason?

I think you’re saying the Japanese is an ethnicity but there’s a Japanese identity which anyone can adopt and be.

I’m wondering if that’s the same for the English in your view. It is an ethnicity?

But also an identity. It’s both?

But an American who apes English culture won't be English.

Although will they? Ethnically they might be.....🤔

It's just an identity. No such thing as an English passport. I always get annoyed on the ethnicity forms that I can't pick British and Irish. I have both passports yet am forced to choose. I live in England but have family in all the nations of the UK and Ireland.

Another interesting group in Japan are the Nikkei Brazilians. Brazilians of Japanese descent who have moved back to Japan to work.

Many of them have entirely Japanese heritage and yet most Japanese people would regard them as being Brazilian because they are culturally very different from the Japanese.

Obviously if Andy B gets his way re PR, the nats in each nation will ask for a referendum. So maybe in future there will be an English passport!

And an English ethnicity in the same way there’s a Japanese ethnicity?

It would be interesting to compare them to tbe Russians who moved to the Soviet satellite states during Russification. They usually still describe themselves as Russian.

I regard ethnicity as a type of identity.

So I don't really see a difference between English identity and English ethnicity.

Or Japanese identity and Japanese ethnicity for that matter.

ETA I don't think it's as simple as saying that anyone can adopt and be any ethnicity. It's more complex than that. But I don't think it's solely dependent on genetic heritage.

Tbf there is a difference between race and ethnicity. Is there an English race?

I’m Irish so just skimming this thread out of interest and just come on to say I’m surprised that nobody has mentioned English literature, art and culture in terms of representing English culture and its positive impact, I just see references to maypoles and fish and chips which I’m sure are culturally of interest but in terms of powerful aspects of English culture most people think of English literature. Wordsworth, Shakespeare, Keats, Austen and on to Monica Ali, Salman Rushdie, then the music, Handel to Blur, Stone Roses, Oasis. Similarly in Ireland, our music and literature lind of ‘is’ our culture.

I’m not following this one as much. If Japanese is an ethnicity and an identity how could someone adopt the ethnicity?

If that can happen can someone say they are any ethnicity?

I think we need to distinguish between race and ethnicity.

If Prince Charles was born in Japan would he then be Japanese?

Thinking about this it reminds me of British expats I knew who were born abroad grew up abroad because their parents worked abroad. Someone who grew up in Malaysia, someone who grew up in Tamil Nadu. All white British though. They grew up there. Went to boarding school there. Does that then make them Malaysian and Indian? Would that person also be Tamil because she was grew up in Tamil Nadu?

I don't think it's as simple as the question of where someone is born. The question of ethnicity is much more complex than that.

I'm not really sure how helpful it is to take someone quintessentially "English" (despite his extensive foreign heritage) and ask whether he could be Japanese, because Charles wasn't born there and doesn't have the kind of strong cultural and social ties to the country that make this a valid point to discuss. Reducing the conversation to place of birth alone massively over simplifies a very complex issue.

Rishi Sunak is a much better example. He has Indian heritage, but he was born and educated in the UK, and he has been heavily influenced by English culture and society. He chooses to identify as both British Indian and English. Nobody has put forward a good explanation yet as to why this isn't valid.

The children of expats, living largely expat lives and not really integrating into local society, are going to have very different experiences from people who grow up deeply embedded within local communities. So, for example, DH has friends of Punjabi heritage whose families have been in Thailand for several generations. They speak Thai, they have Thai passports and they are heavily influenced by Thai culture. They regard themselves as Thai. That doesn't mean that they deny their Indian heritage. It just reflects how they see themselves now.

And I'm still waiting for you to provide details of the genetic and biological facts that you said I was ignoring. I'm interested. Please do elaborate.

No. I don't think anyone can just say that they are anything. I couldn't just rock up in France tomorrow and claim to be French, for example.

But I don't think it can be reduced down to simple questions of ancestry either.

He can, Kemi can say she’s English and Suella Braverman can say she’s British Asian and no one should be made to feel hurt or get rancour over it. Fiona Bruce, the BBC generally and Miriam Margoyles should learn questioning is othering and rein it in. And FB in particular should not follow up to SB with a ridiculous accusation.

I don’t think ethnicity changes, but cultural identity can. And English is a cultural identity rather than a race.

Well, if you follow your logic Prince Charles can't call himself English although he was born in England because the Royal Family has German roots...

If you applied for French citizenship then you would become a French citizen.

Also French people are not one single ethnicity either.

They are a mixture of germanic, roman, Celtic and of course as a former colonial power they have French people who have ancestors who lived in these colonies including people who moved from North African countries and consider themselves French.

I am French (I was born there) and British and I did a DNA test which shows my DNA included: German, English, Scottish, Irish, Spanish, Italian and Algerian!

If you tell me I cannot call myself French because I am such a mixture of ancestry I would tell you where to go...

So Western European ancestry then?

He has an unbroken line to William the conqueror and to Alfred the great as well.

So basically what you are saying is that unless you are white, with Western European ancestors you can't be English?

Why not be honest about it?

How does it work though for someone like Boris Johnson who was PM, writes for the Daily Mail and I am sure calls happily himself English, but was born in the USA and has a Turkish great-grand father? would he meet your test?

Then what does it mean to mean to be Francais de souche? Or is it not a thing at all?

He's of mixed ancestry, a true melting pop as he describes it. A lot of his ancestry is English though. But he's a mix.

What do you mean by banning religion from public life? Should add I’m a died in wool atheist.
I suspect borders prevent people getting along. Divide and rule etc.

This thread is the usual silliness when it comes to Englishness. I taught English in Spain for a number of years and was resident there but never described as Spanish. I was "La Inglesa." Lefties can't bear the idea of English culture or people describing themselves as English. Irish, Scots, Welsh, Basques, Catalans, Palestinians fine and every other nationalist movement. Just not English

As it happens I am of Irish origin but still referred to as La Inglesa by the Spaniards. Since the Government insists on collecting stats I always put my ethnicity as "white Irish" on all questionnaires.