People who have moved countries

[Amymayapple]

How do you introduce yourself?

I was born in England and I moved to Ireland when I was age 7. I have an Irish accent. I grew up in Ireland, but I don't live there anymore.

If people ask me where I am from and I say England, they say to me, immediately "that is not an English accent".

If I say I am from Ireland, it feels wrong , because I am English. And I feel English. But I have an Irish accent.

I spend way too much time stressing about this when I introduce myself, because people make me explain myself.

I would just love to say "Hi I am ann, I am from England".

Not

"Hi I am Ann, I am from England"

"You don't SOUND English, hahaha"

"Well I was born in England, and we moved to Ireland".

It is a big song and dance every time, and it is extra stressful because I have gotten insults about being both English and Irish in the past.

How would you introduce yourself in this situation?

When people ask where you’re from, could you say “England then Ireland”?

OP, you’ve developed an understandable complex because of ongoing prejudice about Irish people in England — I’ve just left England after spending more than 20 years there, and a minority of people (always white, usually 50s and over) would make cracks about my accent and their perception of Irish ignorance, alcoholism, violence, superstition, poverty, having twelve children, being in the IRA etc etc etc.

I understand entirely your apprehension about a normal social situation/introduction going suddenly sour when someone comes out with something like this, because it’s certainly often happened to me — if I went into the village pub, one of the regulars would regularly come up and start talking about the time ‘your lot’ (ie.the IRA) bombed the local army recruitment centre (at a time when I was still a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl in another country) and all his mates would sit there sniggering because they thought he was being such a badass — but you need to challenge individually-prejudiced remarks and not let them trouble your actual sense of self. It’s them, not you.

@pondskimmer thank you! Yes I would have no problem sayin "I was born in England, moved to Ireland" as it stands.

The fact of the matter is that there is still alot of hatred between the two countries, and I feel like I am bracing myself for an insult. I am never English enough for some people, never Irish enough for some people.

The man who insulted me in the hiking group in England was white and over fifty, as you said!

Thank you for your perspective. Did you ever get upset at what they said? Or were you able to brush it off

I've moved countries a few times and find this a tricky question. I was born in NZ but have dual nationality with Australia.

When people ask me where I'm from I just say "Australia" as my accent is closest to that.

Here in the Netherlands it's common to hear "oh you're English!" when what they really mean is "oh you speak English."

I just say yes, and move on.

When we were in Asia it was easier to say "Holland" as we switch between speaking English and Dutch.

So I'm basically lying all the time just to get the small-talk over with and avoid the inevitable "you don't SOUND like a Kiwi."

"Having lived abroad, I don’t get the upset of being asked where you originate from if you have an accent."

There are probably things that upset you that wouldn't upset OP.

Certain things are more bothering for some people than others.

I'm not sure why so many people have trouble understanding this.

Also recommend ‘Third Culture Kid’. I have an accent (UK), my children a have a totally different accent (UK) event waiters comment. We are constantly asked why! Because my accent isn’t from where we now live I’m constantly asked if I’m on holiday...No, I’ve lived here 16 years! As soon as I ask a question in a shop a whole conversation ensues - it’s wearing.

Head them off at the pass. Say

'I know I don't sound like it, but I'm English'.

There is anti-English sentiment in Scotland. Its mostly the 'anyone but England', lighthearted sport stuff, but there are idiots everywhere and sadly that includes Scotland.

Somewhere like Edinburgh or Aberdeen, where they have had a lot of people come in from other places, it's a better bet than smaller places. It's not so far away though, so you can always come up for a visit and see how it feels for yourself.

Maybe not for a couple of months though...

I'd introduce myself as "I'm Ann'
if anyone asked about my accent, I'd maybe respond that I'd grown up in ireland, or lived there for a while.

I was born in London, and my parents 'emigrated' to Essex when I was a baby; I really hope that I have lost ANY accent.
I never get asked, so fingers crossed!

When we lived overseas we would get asked this all the time. It took quite a while to perfect our answer. In the end we went with “We moved here from England, but I’m Irish.” (It really wasn’t worth saying Northern Irish because they just didn’t get it. Having lived in England though, where most people I met also didn’t get the difference, I was used to that.

That was generally accepted for me, but DH always got the follow up “and where are you from?” because he’s brown. He considers himself British rather than English (has lived in England, Scotland & N.Ireland), but when pressed would say he was from England. Then he’d get the “but where are you really from?” “But where are you from originally?” questions. He’s had those his whole like (xenophobic people everywhere) and just resolutely says “Southampton” over and over. His mum moved to the U.K. as a young child (primary school age) from India and his dad is white British. He has zero connections to India. He’s British.

reminded me of an American I worked for, with a very broad US accent, who proudly introduced himself as Irish at every opportunity.

When I asked him about the disparity of accents, & which part ot the States was he from, it turned out he had an Irish Great Grandfather, and was so, so proud of it.
I have two Irish Grandparents, and wouldn't dream of claiming a similar description, although I did investigate getting an Irish passport a couple of years ago after The Referendum

@EveryDayIsADuvetDay when we lived in the States we met someone who introduced themselves not only as Irish, but actually told me which town they were from. It turned out to be my hometown. I was so surprised, and they said it with such assurance, that I immediately asked them whereabouts in the town they were from. They had a very clear/strong American accent by I thought perhaps they had been from my hometown originally and moved to the US as a child/teen. Where I’m from is a little bit of a 2 degrees of separation place - we really do all know each other, especially people within christian communities. If this person had moved as a child or a teen we would definitely have had mutual acquaintances if not friends.

They responded with just the name of the town again. I then told them which part of the town I was from, and what schools I had gone to, but they couldn’t give me any details for their family.

It turns out their great grandfather had been from our town and had moved to the US in the late 1800s as a young child. Not one member of the extended family had ever even been to visit Ireland/Northern Ireland and certainly knew nothing about my hometown. They didn’t even understand the difference between ROI and NI, yet maintained they were from x town.

I met a lot of people when we lived there who told me they were Irish, (half of America claims to be Irish), but that one really pissed me off!

@Amymayapple, yes, absolutely I did get upset. I won't depress us both by listing individual encounters, but some of them enrage me to this day.

One I've told on here before, forty namechanges ago -- was when I went home in the vac with a friend on the same degree at Oxford (I first came to the UK as a student). Her parents had a dinner party, and one of their friends simply could not get his head around the fact that this Irish girl with her comical accent was at Oxford with his old friends' brilliant daughter. He clearly thought I was lying and that my friend was sparing my blushes, and kept smirking and putting on a stage-Oirish accent and asking me questions about my college and rowing and how exactly I'd met my friend that were designed to trick me, and in the end, he actually said 'And you're sure you're not at the Oxford Secretarial College, you're actually at the university? Because you're not really the usual type.'

Compounded by the fact that the friend's mother, who sat there and let a young girl be publicly humiliated at some length at her house, said afterwards 'You did quite well, considering', and it turned out she'd been scrutinising my table manners because 'Somewhere like this must be quite new to you'.

I think that was enraging because I was young, it was new, I hadn't developed a method of dealing with it yet.

I remain friends with the friend, who is now no-contact with her awful parents.

@lightacandlehoney I think that comes from America being a very young country. Many of them still feel like Europeans who have emigrated to America.

Of course I can only speak of the Americans that I have met, but any American that I have met has introduced themselves to me as French, German, Irish.

The United States white population is entirely made up of Europeans that emigrated there not that long ago.

An American man said to me once that "America is a mew country and struggles with it's identity".

Really, I think it is an old fashioned notion to see ourselves or anybody as French, English, Irish, American, German, Indian etc.

Our ancestors have moved around alot, we have moved around alot. The country we are born in is not that important in the grand scheme of things. We are all from the world

*new

@Pondskimmer yes, it is always the older men that are the worst!

I was visiting my English cousin in England. She brought me round to her friend's house . We were early twenties at the time. Her friend's parents had all of their friends over. So there was a bunch of people there in their fifties. Who I found out - didn't like Irish people.

They all turned on me, talking about the IRA etc. it was awful! They were six people in their fifties, and I was 22.

As I left the house, one of the men shouted "Good riddance" after me.

I send you a hug. It is horrible

"Having lived abroad, I don’t get the upset of being asked where you originate from if you have an accent."

The upset gets when they continue to ask the same question because they seemingly don’t believe you or can’t wrap their head around it because you don’t fit whatever image they have made in their head of your country/culture.

I think that comes from America being a very young country. Many of them still feel like Europeans who have emigrated to America.

This is true. The US is 243 years old. European countries explored and settled on the land before it established itself as a country. It grew through purchasing land from the European countries who owned it and battles.

Oh my goodness these sound like awful people! Where are you finding them?!

"Really? You don't sound English, are you over here taking our jobs" etc. And then they will throw in a joke about Irish people being stupid.

I'd be tempted to ask "are you a professional racist or is it just a hobby?" Or perhaps if feeling less confrontational I'd look at them with a very puzzled face. "gosh, how bizarre".

If simply asked where you are from then "I'm English, raised in Ireland" does sound the simplest.

@palavah as @pondskimmer said, these people are usually parents of friends. They are the older generation. You can like your friends, and have no idea what their parents are like, until you go to their house.

I remember an awful story that I heard once . I had a friend from London who was black.

She told me that she had a really good friend at Uni, and he invited her around to his house. When she got to his house, her friend's father looked at her, and said "get that n**r out of my house".

When she was telling me she said, "I thought , why didn't you tell me that your father was like that, you shouldn't have brought me to your house". But the friend hadn't known that his own father was that extreme

@BritWifeinUSA
That's funny. My dh is Essex born and bred and when we travel he is always asked what part of Australia he's from. Tbf his accent is now very Essex but i can definitely see why people say it.

Many of these questions are innocent in intent. I have a cousin in Ireland who asked a young man (19) of African origin where he was from, as an opening conversation starter, which is very much in the cultural habit of the Irish. They ask each other the same question all the time, in relation to counties and towns etc. He blew up on her, shouting about being Irish, and then went on to describe having been brought there with his family from Nigeria as a school-going child, and wanted to know why the Irish couldn't just accept him as Irish! The needless animosity in that conversation blew up because the African guy didn't have the common sense to say 'I was born in Nigeria, but Ireland has been home for quite some time.' That would have been the conversation opened pleasantly, as was intended. It is not hateful to have eyes in your head and to recognise that someone is not of native ethnicity.

I say I’m from Manchester, not England. 😬

@LouiseCollina I have seen alot of racism towards black people in Ireland, so that is why he probably got annoyed.

The British Isles?

@Genevieva The British Isles

It is not remotely appropriate to refer to the Republic of Ireland as part of 'The British Isles.'

@Amymayapple I have seen alot of racism towards black people in Ireland, so that is why he probably got annoyed.

I'm sure he sees a lot of it himself; anyone who can't distinguish between racism and a friendly question will see racism every day of the week.