"I'm Irish American"

[MacMahon]

I've noticed that to many Americans their Irish, Scots, Italian etc. roots are a big part of their current identity. As a nation of immigrants in a New World I can see why this link to earlier generations is interesting and important.

But it's also something I find confusing.

I live in Yorkshire. I'm English. I have Irish ancestors on both side (great grandparents and great x2 grandparents). If I was in America this would quite possibly be a big deal. I'd be an Irish American and identify with the struggles and persecution that my people suffered at the hands of the English. But I wasn't born in America, I was born in Leeds, and my Irish ancestry play zero role in my identity.

I'm on an ancestry group and Americans are getting that DNA test done and finding out that, contrary to family lore that they are Cherokee or Mexican or Italian Americans, they're actually pretty much 'just' 100% British.

It makes me wonder how authentic this celebrating or identifying with their Irish/First Nations/Italian roots is, and how much is just (mistaken) tribalism and division.

@znaika

Nope. But it means that when you accuse me of being a troll you won't be able to back it up

Ah. So you think long-standing forum membership exempts you from being a troll. Got it.

@secretllama

I'm Scottish and whenever I've been in America we always get Americans telling us they're Scottish. I feel bad because they aren't doing any harm and genuinley think that scottish people take this seriously but I aways want to tell them that it's a bit of a joke amongst us.

Also find it annoying when Americans refer to themselves as Italian. Not Italian-American... just Italian. When they've clearly never been and neither have their parents. I suppose it's just identity/tribalism as other posters have mentioned.

Would it help you to realize that when an American, who is clearly American, refers to themselves as being Scottish, it's shorthand for being of Scottish descent? They are not trying to claim they were born and raised in Scotland. Similarly, an American who refers to themselves as Italian means that they are Italian American. They aren't pretending to have come from Italy. They are telling you that they are of Italian heritage. And usually that it's a pretty important part of their identity, affecting the way they celebrate holidays like Christmas, their religion, and the foods they eat.

I think the confusion mainly comes from the fact that when British people say or hear "I'm X-nationality" they take it to mean I was born and brought up in that place, whereas Americans often mean that it's where their ancestors came from before settling in the US.

@znaika

Nope. They hate the English and it rings through the text. Why they come in to an English forum to rile themselves up god in heaven only knows. Its been noted. I eveb recognize the names and can predict their presence.

No. I've been critical of some posters but I don't hate 'the English'. I dislike the attitude certain posters express in relation to other nationalities. I'd characterise it as xenophobic as it is expressed as finding things that are specific to another culture as weird or ridiculous.

Even if this is mainly a UK site, there are at least 430,000 Irish-born people resident in England, Scotland and Wales and far more that may identify as Irish due to their parents.

@znaika

Nope. But it means that when you accuse me of being a troll you won't be able to back it up

For someone with so many deleted posts I'm surprised you're still around TBH.

@znaika

It's UK based in London. Maybe UK more accurate. Majority nationality of UK is English. I am not English. Just an observer.

So is everything in the UK 'English' because most people in the UK are English?

How ironic that you're criticising Americans for not understanding other countries.

@MarshaBradyo

Tbh U.K. / English gets a fair amount of attack on here too.

It’s pretty constant

Maybe we should say what we like about other cultures instead

It's the reaction that is offensive. Say something offensive about America or Ireland and it's not taken up by moderators or the post removed. Say something about certain other countries or continents and the reaction is totally different.

Is it poor ickle-bickle syndrome?

Is it poor ickle-bickle syndrome?

What do you mean?

I don’t think it’s different. I’ve seen so much negativity re U.K. it’s picked up a lot in last year.

It doesn't matter. I have said as have others that this can be an offensive appropriation. It is as I see it as it happens to my culture. This is not anti- American. It's actually Americans being offensive to my culture.

@MarshaBradyo

Is it poor ickle-bickle syndrome?

What do you mean?

I don’t think it’s different. I’ve seen so much negativity re U.K. it’s picked up a lot in last year.

Marsha is correct. It's noticeable.

@znaika

It doesn't matter. I have said as have others that this can be an offensive appropriation. It is as I see it as it happens to my culture. This is not anti- American. It's actually Americans being offensive to my culture.

This thread is about Irish Americans so I fail to see how it affects you in any way. You have come on here with the sole purpose of agitation.

Read the op again. Its about different cultures that Americans claim as their heritage even though the link to the homeland maybe only 1 ancestor out of 16 or 32. I hate it when Americans do it about my culture as it normally involves lots of offensive stereotypes. I am entitled to my voice.

@secretllama

I'm Scottish and whenever I've been in America we always get Americans telling us they're Scottish. I feel bad because they aren't doing any harm and genuinley think that scottish people take this seriously but I aways want to tell them that it's a bit of a joke amongst us.

Also find it annoying when Americans refer to themselves as Italian. Not Italian-American... just Italian. When they've clearly never been and neither have their parents. I suppose it's just identity/tribalism as other posters have mentioned.

But as other posters have pointed out, when we Americans say "I'm Scottish" or "I'm Italian", it's shorthand for Scottish-American or Italian-American. We certainly understand that we are not citizens of a country in Europe when we say that. Also I think it's cultural insensitivity for people outside the US to make fun of this when it is an important part of American culture and identity to know, acknowledge, and even to honor, their family history.

And it's certainly not cultural appropriation as some have suggested; it's a different cultural expression. We are all hyphenated or double barreled Americans.

I have never been deleted btw. I asked mn to delete all my posts following a massive data breach and they did.

My hypothesis is that it's different as modern Irish are wealthy and comfortable for the most part. Laughing at challenges antecedents faced and attributing stereotypes as to how they overcame those challenges might be fine if you're sufficiently removed from it all. If the home country still experiences poverty it's not so amusing.

I guess for many it's not enough to be American. Most who claim to be xxxx-American have little idea of what xxxx is actually like these days.

But as other posters have pointed out, when we Americans say "I'm Scottish" or "I'm Italian", it's shorthand for Scottish-American or Italian-American. We certainly understand that we are not citizens of a country in Europe when we say that. Also I think it's cultural insensitivity for people outside the US to make fun of this when it is an important part of American culture and identity to know, acknowledge, and even to honor, their family history.

This. The history of the U.S, is vastly different from that of the U.K. and the U.S is a very young country compared to those in the U.K and Europe. If it wasn’t for them and their explorers that stepped foot on North America, on top of the mass immigrations from some of those countries, the culture wouldn’t be what it is It’s two sides reading the same sentence and coming away with something different and wanting to be right.

@BigFatLiar

I guess for many it's not enough to be American. Most who claim to be xxxx-American have little idea of what xxxx is actually like these days.

'American' is a political nationality, it is not an ethnicity.

For some people that's fine, for others who feel close to their ancestral ethnic heritage, they want to acknowledge that.

We are all American, but we are not all the same. The lived experiences of a Mexican-American, an Irish-American and a Japanese-American are really quite different in many ways. Why should we erase that? It's part of who we are.

If you don't get it that's fine, but don't tell us we're all wrong or dumb. We're just different.

@logsonlogsoff

Almost ALL Americans were immigrants original and it’s a huge part of their identity. Many still are. DW for example has one set of immigrant grandparents on one side and immigrants great gps on the other - so her family really haven’t been American that long. I bet if pretty much everyone in England was from immigrant Roots in the last couple hundred years you’d be much more interested.

But most people in England/Wales etc do have other roots to the same degree that Americans do. E.g. if it's Joe Biden's g-g-grandfather that is Irish that still means his ancestry is only 1/32 Irish! How can that be enough to identify himself as Irish? Why does that one great great grandfather take precedence over all his other non-Irish ancestors? It's not 'acknowledging your family history,' it's 'picking and choosing one element of your family history you don't really understand.'

I am Welsh, my parents are Welsh, as were my grandparents, so I consider myself to be Welsh. But if I looked back any further my great, and great-great grandparents were English, Scottish, Welsh, French, and German, but I don't go round saying I'm German because a great grandmother was born there in the 1850s!

Interestingly I know a number of people who have immigrated to the statutes and now citizens and consider themselves Americans

But as other posters have pointed out, when we Americans say "I'm Scottish" or "I'm Italian", it's shorthand for Scottish-American or Italian-American. We certainly understand that we are not citizens of a country in Europe when we say that. Also I think it's cultural insensitivity for people outside the US to make fun of this when it is an important part of American culture and identity to know, acknowledge, and even to honor, their family history.

And it's certainly not cultural appropriation as some have suggested; it's a different cultural expression. We are all hyphenated or double barreled Americans.

I know it's fiction, but the episodes of The Sopranos when they are in Italy are hilarious - the Americans think the Italian food is crap and the Italians think the Americans are rude and obnoxious

It's not 'acknowledging your family history,' it's 'picking and choosing one element of your family history you don't really understand.'

So what? And who is to say that the chosen element is not understood? My many times great-grandfather left an island in the Hebrides to sail to North Carolina. I have his surname, which is still very much associated with that part of Scotland. Yes, I happily have picked and chosen this element to claim. So what?

I've had a few close American friends over the years and they seem as a culture to be more centred on themselves as the individual, so they tend to have an interest in anything that makes them different, if that makes sense. Same with therapy, everyone seems to be in therapy to know themselves better, whereas the majority of Brits might go if we have trauma.

Also, I wonder if it's a lack of history (in comparisons to ours) so they have more of a focus on the more recent generations?

*'American' is a political nationality, it is not an ethnicity.

For some people that's fine, for others who feel close to their ancestral ethnic heritage, they want to acknowledge that.

We are all American, but we are not all the same. The lived experiences of a Mexican-American, an Irish-American and a Japanese-American are really quite different in many ways. Why should we erase that? It's part of who we are.

If you don't get it that's fine, but don't tell us we're all wrong or dumb. We're just different.*

Exactly. The only 'wrong' and 'dumb' people are those who laugh at other peoples' culture - and as the convention for so many people in the USA is to hyphenate their identity, that is a part of American culture. Just because it isn't the same as the UK doesn't mean it's wrong, just different. The intolerance on here, and sense of entitlement to pronounce on the norms of other cultures is unreal!

if it's Joe Biden's g-g-grandfather that is Irish that still means his ancestry is only 1/32 Irish

All eight of President Biden's great-great-grandparents on his mother's side were born in Ireland. Two great-grandparents on Biden's father's side were born in Ireland. Not sure what the math is on that, but I'm pretty sure it's more than 1/32. But even more to the point, the Irish identity was especially strong in his mother's family, the Finnegans, and he was heavily influenced by that.

This thread is honestly making me feel unwell, as someone who has been living in the UK for almost twenty years. There is no respect for Irish people or Irish history here, and if you have an Irish background almost certainly you were brought up to forget about that and hide it rather than celebrating it. Maybe it's worth thinking about why that was rather than sneering at people who do celebrate their culture and history and roots.

I always find it interesting that people in Britain focus on Noraid and the IRA bombing campaigns in England when they think about the Troubles. I grew up in the Republic of Ireland and the news headlines every morning on the car radio on my way to school were full of deaths that happened fifty or sixty miles away: civilians shot by British soldiers at checkpoints, or loyalist paramilitaries killing taxi drivers who were overwhelmingly from Catholic background, or rioting, or IRA punishment shootings and beatings, or IRA massacres of innocent Protestants for no reason other than their religion or their job as a prison officer or a police officer. The 'mainland' bombing campaign was a tiny, tiny part of the Northern Ireland troubles. It says so much that you all focus on that when you think about Irish Americans.