"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.

to engage any further on that point, that is.

Good, so we have established that Americans are not obsessed with the RF.

Americans are definitely not obsessed with the RF

They had a lot of affection for Princess Di, as did many people around the world, so it makes sense for a movie about her to be promoted there.

They were interested in William and Harry as Diana's sons, and of course when Harry married an American that was a big deal.

Otherwise the vast majority of Americans really do not care very much, except when there's a scandal, which is basically treated like celebrity gossip. The US is very anti-monarchical, they don't take royals seriously. It's tabloid fluff.

This is true I think. Im from Scotland but lived in the states for 7 yrs. When inevitability asked where I was I from I’d say ‘I’m Scottish’, to be met with an oh me too! type response. They clearly meant heritage where as I meant actual country of origin. I got around it by saying I’m from Scotland, and that seemed to work better.

Annoyingly though, on several occasions I was informed by people who had never been, that I don’t sound very Scottish etc.( I’m from the central belt) I also don’t have a traditional Scottish name which seems to lessen my proper Scottish standing in their eyes 😂

It was definitely the definition of "obsessed" that prompted my comment about Americans generally not being obsessed.

"Obsessed" is what a certain coterie of posters on MN are about Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. And not in a good way.

[quote JassyRadlett]@RavingAnnie because pride in one’s heritage in countries like the US, Australia, Canada or other countries with populations where the overwhelming majority are the result of immigration in the last few centuries is very closely tied to pride in their communities and their countries.

Being part of the Italian or Greek or Maltese community in different parts of Australia, for example, confers a strong sense of belonging and pride for a lot of people.

There is an odd refusal on this thread to recognise that there is a sense of community and identity resulting from immigrant heritage in these countries that just doesn’t exist in, say, the UK or other countries whose history isn’t so hugely tied up with immigration, where not just one of your great-grandparents came from somewhere else but all of them did.

It also ignores, in a really tin-eared and ignorant way, the impact that immigrant communities had on the development of those countries. Some English people seem to think that immigration in those countries was about people arriving and then assimilating - completely ignoring how those immigrant communities shaped the development of their towns, cities, regions and even their country, which also confers a sense of pride in what their ancestors achieved (as well as pride in those people for what they did and overcame.)[/quote]
What I don't understand is how you can have pride in something that you haven't done or experienced or influenced? Why pride? I also don't understand "national pride". I'm not proud of just happening to be born somewhere. Likewise how can you be proud of something your past ancestors did or experienced? It's interesting, I give you that but otherwise it has little to do with you. I find it very odd.

What I don't understand is how you can have pride in something that you haven't done or experienced or influenced? Why pride? I also don't understand "national pride". I'm not proud of just happening to be born somewhere. Likewise how can you be proud of something your past ancestors did or experienced? It's interesting, I give you that but otherwise it has little to do with you. I find it very odd.

Ok, if all ideas of externalised sources of pride or national or subnational identity are odd to you, then you’ll never understand those who do experience a sense of pride in a different way. You’ll feel the same about someone who describes themselves as a ‘proud Yorkshireman’.

For me, it’s not a sense of personal achievement, it’s a sense of being linked by my heritage and birth to people who did some things that were objectively incredibly difficult and overcome huge hurdles and hardship, and thinking ‘fuck me, that’s what I came from, what an example I’ve been set, that’s something to live up to and aspire to’.

It goes beyond the ‘interesting in a dispassionate and objective sort of way’ into a feeling of connection and kinship with those roots. So there is pride in a community and the heritage of that community, and the journey that community has been on and what it’s overcome.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the strongest senses of immigrant community and identity are from those who were in the minority, who had to leave their homelands because of particular hardship or persecution and weren’t part of the ruling class in their new land.

This odd idea that Canada doesn't have such a powerful individual identity as the USA is one I have come across before. It is American exceptionalism at its finest.

The look on the Canadians' faces as it was explained to them by American the was quite something. I imagine that an Australian might also have the same look.

This one certainly does.

For me, it’s not a sense of personal achievement, it’s a sense of being linked by my heritage and birth to people who did some things that were objectively incredibly difficult and overcome huge hurdles and hardship, and thinking ‘fuck me, that’s what I came from, what an example I’ve been set, that’s something to live up to and aspire to’.

This is it, in a nutshell. A few years ago, I stood close to the spot where my Scottish many times great grandfather sailed in the late 1700s to North Carolina. He took most of his children with him, but left a married daughter in Scotland, knowing he would likely never see her again. Standing in that place and looking out at the vast ocean, I had a sense of the kind of courage and optimism it must have taken to embark on a journey like that, leaving everything that you know behind. And it is a story that has been repeated over and over again in the history of immigration to the US.

Raving Annie is right--different communities bring different customs and values that persist across generations, and one reason we are aware of peoples' heritages is that it helps us to communicate in respectful ways. For example, a young Jewish woman I know was working with a group of South American immigrants. She thought she was being respectful by only saying hello to people who weren't busy working with clients when she entered her workplace. She didn't want to disturb or sidetrack people who were working with clients. But her boss took her aside. He said she needed to go around and greet everyone. That was what they did in his country and that's what he adn all the workers there expected.

As far as identity goes,obviously the US is a much more exceptional nation. Its people fought for independence from a colonial rule. it became the richest and most powerful nation in the world. For all of its problems, it still is. Meanwhile, weak little Canada still sells stamps with a foreign country's queen on them.

What I don't understand is how you can have pride in something that you haven't done or experienced or influenced? Why pride? I also don't understand "national pride". I'm not proud of just happening to be born somewhere. Likewise how can you be proud of something your past ancestors did or experienced?
Because you can IMO.
I'm proud of my DGM mother running the streets passing letters risking her life for the future generation, her younger brother was shot during the revolution.
It was a very big part of my life growing up and gives me a sense of pride.
I wasn't born had nothing to do with it, fine if you can't understand it.

@PrincessNutella

As far as identity goes,obviously the US is a much more exceptional nation. Its people fought for independence from a colonial rule. it became the richest and most powerful nation in the world. For all of its problems, it still is. Meanwhile, weak little Canada still sells stamps with a foreign country's queen on them.

Earlier in this thread you said “I think this thread is incredibly condescending and shows the narrowmindedness and lack of imagination of some British people” You may have been right but to then say “weak little Canada” and your comment yesterday about how Australia and Canada never developed their own distinct identities shows a remarkable level of condescension and narrowmindedness of your own.

Meanwhile, weak little Canada still sells stamps with a foreign country's queen on them.

Aaand we’re back to my earlier point about the idea some people have that shared history severed and erased when people emigrate, and belongs solely to the country they left, and not to the new country - even if they helped to build it.

I’m not a monarchist, but fuck me. ‘A foreign country’s queen’?

@PrincessNutella

As far as identity goes,obviously the US is a much more exceptional nation. Its people fought for independence from a colonial rule. it became the richest and most powerful nation in the world. For all of its problems, it still is. Meanwhile, weak little Canada still sells stamps with a foreign country's queen on them.

I think we can all agree that the US is “exceptional”.

What I don't understand is how you can have pride in something that you haven't done or experienced or influenced? Why pride? I also don't understand "national pride". I'm not proud of just happening to be born somewhere. Likewise how can you be proud of something your past ancestors did or experienced?

It's the month of remembrance ceremonies in the U.K. for people who lost their lives in the wars. You hear people saying how proud they are of their ancestors all the time even though they may never have known them.

We have similar commemorative events in Ireland, North and South. I lived in England during the 400th anniversary of the Spanish Armada, which was interesting. Very different to the way the wrecks are viewed around the Irish coast.

I grew up in a state named for "a foreign country's king." Interestingly, no one thought to change its name after the revolution or the names of the other seven states named for foreign royalty.

@JaneJeffer

What I don't understand is how you can have pride in something that you haven't done or experienced or influenced? Why pride? I also don't understand "national pride". I'm not proud of just happening to be born somewhere. Likewise how can you be proud of something your past ancestors did or experienced?

It's the month of remembrance ceremonies in the U.K. for people who lost their lives in the wars. You hear people saying how proud they are of their ancestors all the time even though they may never have known them.

Well put

[quote NotAnotherPylon]@RavingAnnie you did some delving into your ancestry and made a few interesting discoveries. That's vastly different from a person who has grown up with a sense of identity which has been handed down for generations. People generally don't declare themselves Irish American after a quick internet search. Also, it's not everything about who they are, but rather a part, albeit an important part. I think your comments are rather dismissive and it's a shame you 'just don't understand people who do that'. Maybe read the thread and discover that your position is not the default.[/quote]
But this thread (and my posts) isn't about people who live in strong communities who have a direct connection to a specific country or culture. That's completely different.

@justmaybenot Lots of things are different from me but make sense, this doesn't. It makes no sense to suddenly decide you are Irish for example and that becoming a strong part of your identity when you've just found out that one of your GGGPs is Irish and you've never been there! I don't think that opinion is that controversial but obviously it's the internet so people are behaving irrationally as appears to be compulsory these days when someone has a different opinion to you.

[quote RavingAnnie]@justmaybenot Lots of things are different from me but make sense, this doesn't. It makes no sense to suddenly decide you are Irish for example and that becoming a strong part of your identity when you've just found out that one of your GGGPs is Irish and you've never been there! I don't think that opinion is that controversial but obviously it's the internet so people are behaving irrationally as appears to be compulsory these days when someone has a different opinion to you.[/quote]
Lots of things about people's sense of their own identity don't make a lot of rational sense, though. I mean, people's strong emotional connection to 'their' football club (which may be in another country they have never actually been to I discovered when I lived in the ME that all Omani sardine fishermen appear to be ardent Arsenal fans...?) makes zero sense to me at an immediate level, but it doesn''t need to. Likewise people who anthropomorphise their pets, or people with a strong, unquestioning religious faith, or who camp out overnight on the routes of royal weddings or funerals waving flags, or any number of things. I find the strong investment by many English people in a royal family some appear to genuinely feel are their 'betters' absolutely baffling I first arrived to live in England just before Princess Diana's funeral, and found the level of hysteria deeply odd.

There's a current thread on Mn from a woman worried that her 17 year old DD has suddenly said she wants to start going to church. It may of course be that she has her eye on some guy or girl who goes there, but to suddenly start believing in an invisible, but omnipotent supernatural being who never appears to intervene in his creation, but requires regular worship nonetheless is at least as strange as identifying with a newly-discovered Irish heritage and a country you've never been to, surely?

@RavingAnnie The OP specifically referenced the fact that, for many Americans, 'roots are a big part of their current identity'. She then went on to say that she had Irish great grandparents and didn't feel connected to her Irish heritage in the same way, perhaps because she is English.

What post are you reading?

@Verfremdungseffekt Yes I agree those things are also very strange and I don't understand them either. People seem to form very odd emotional attachments to things that are actually nothing to do with them. Presumably gives people a sense of belonging but it seems the basis of this is a falsehood in many of these examples.

[quote NotAnotherPylon]@RavingAnnie The OP specifically referenced the fact that, for many Americans, 'roots are a big part of their current identity'. She then went on to say that she had Irish great grandparents and didn't feel connected to her Irish heritage in the same way, perhaps because she is English.

What post are you reading?[/quote]
Same post as you, not sure what your point is?