To be confused about my partner's nationality

[ForestryForever]

Good evening,
My partner's parents were both born in Wales. They both lived and grew up in Wales. As adults they both left Wales and lived in England, where they remained.
Whilst married and living in England, they had a baby - my partner. My partner was born, raised in and grew up in England, and still lives in England.
What nationality is my partner?

And you're not wanting to accept the opposite argument. Doesn't make you right.

When you see English people right here on this thread deny that Wales exists as either a nation or an ethnic group, do you honestly think that has nothing to do with colonialization?

have only read OPs posts.

It's an interesting concept. I don't think you have the concept of jus soli in the UK? so even if you are born there you are not automatically British. So it doesn't matter that OPs husband was born anywhere within the UK - what makes him British (whether he likes it or not) is that he was born in England to British parents.

He's British.

If we did have the concept of jus soli in England he'd be English. Like it or not. But i do think the UK has the concept of jus sanguinis so that your nationality is related to the nationality of your parents. So again. British. Soz.

However. Your nationality isn't always related to your cultural identity. So you can be English or Welsh (or Scottish or Manx whatever) if you are born in the UK. (are you British if you are from the Isle of Man?) So culturally, despite not being born in Wales, OPs husband considers himself culturally Welsh and I'd agree since i am assuming that his parents didn't suddenly ditch all their Welsh cultural heritage the second they settled outside of Wales.

It's a concept that a lot of people can't get their heads round. It gets especially complicated when the parents aren't from Wales but a different country. The Tebbit cricket test and all that. It's perfectly possible to have a nationality, especially if you had immigrant parents, and have a different (national) cultural identity. My DCs have this too.

Not the English. If being pendantic the Normans. The English were actually almost annihilated in several ways for example only a few Anglo Saxons owned land after 1066.

Btw don't blame the English for NI. That was the Scots and James IV. Conveniently forgotten by the Scottish government. I wonder why?!?

Did you explain the objective measure of ethnicity and I missed it?

I’m not wanting to accept fallacies as truth, no.

The literal definitions make me right.

Hawaii isn't Australia. In the example, the child was born in Hawaii and that was the beginning and end of their connection to it. There's zero comparison between that and people who have lived for generations in a place and founded a state there.

sunglassesonthetable

I'm really starting to think that you don't actually want to discuss anything here - you just seem to want to tell other people that they are wrong and that you are therefore right, without ever giving any reasoning to your opinions at all.

What are you on about? Where are you plucking these scenarios from.?

I am responding to people on this thread - including you - who are going on about how oppressive the English are to the Welsh to this day, but not troubling yourself to say how; nor why Wales as a whole is surprisingly not interested in being free of us wicked English oppressors.

Your definiton of ethnicity is wrong. I'll repeat the Oxford dictionary definition:

"the quality or fact of belonging to a population group or subgroup made up of people who share a common cultural background or descent" [my emphasis]

All of you claiming that Black people cannot be "ethnically European" or "ethnically Welsh" are, at best, wrong. A Black person can share a Welsh cultural background and can therefore be ethnically Welsh.

Ethnicity is not race.

How far should we go back? Should I now hate Italians, because of how I'm still apparently suffering from the Roman invasion of my country, many centuries before I was born?

🤦‍♀️

Is your country governed by Italy? Is your language a minority language dominated by Italian? Do Italian people insist you are Italian when you're not? Do they deny the existence of your cultural identity? You clearly have no idea what you're on about if you think this is in any way relevant.

The literal definition of being born in England making you English?

Instead of just telling people who disagree with you on this how stupid they are, tell us WHAT much more recent effects of colonialisation you are so devastated by - and why they're not so devastating to make you actually want to regain your independence, when it's right there for the taking.

Why are you even bringing up independence?
Did OP's partner mention wanting to be independent? It's irrelevant.

I'm not here to deliver a sermon on the mount, I'm sure there's enough of that on here. We've all got google.

The desecration of the Welsh language in the 19th and 20th C would be a starting point.

Nobody is trying to tell a Welsh person they're English. They're telling an English person they're English.

When you see English people right here on this thread deny that Wales exists as either a nation or an ethnic group, do you honestly think that has nothing to do with colonialization?

It's mainly about semantics - as to what country/state/nation/land mean; but if people are denying that Wales exists as a nation, then that surely means they are also denying that England exists as a nation too.

Nobody is trying to tell a Welsh person they're English. They're telling an English person they're English.

Tbh they're telling a Welsh person they're English.

Why are you ranting and raving at people because they said he is legally British.
That's what he is. British.
He has a British passport so his legal nationality is British.

I don't know why you are causing all this drama. He shouldn't have shouted at you. But why won't you accept what he says. He says he is Welsh. He has Welsh parents. He is culturally Welsh. He identifies as Welsh. He happens to have been born in England. He is not half-Welsh - that would be the case if one parent was Welsh and one parent is English.

I think you are being ridiculous and to avoid further conflict with him you should drop the subject.

Ooh, what an interesting thread. I haven't read it all but bits. The overriding jist for me was that - it's a complicated mix of personal identity, culture, ethnicity and legally, not everyone agrees and people can claim many different identities at the same time. And its largely all made up, like all human cultures and law. I have a duel national friend, she gets quite annoyed if she's described as half British and half American. In her words she is 100% British and 100% American. I think she's right.

If you want an interesting window on the world, watch the opening ceremony of the Olympics when the countries all come in carrying their flags. You'll see white Australians and Kenyans, Asian looking British and French people, Black African looking Americans and so on. You can see the movement of people's around the world on the faces of the athletes and their enormous pride to represent their country.

No one is not saying you aren't Welsh? Think you need to read posts a bit more carefully.

Yeah…that isn’t the ‘literal definition’ of being English at all. Jesus Christ. Here you go:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_soli

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_sanguinis

@Kiswahili , of course people can be african and not black. North African people generally aren't black.
There are people who are not white who are Welsh.
Black Welsh people - Wikipedia

My husband is the exact opposite - born in wales and grew up in wales, to English parents. He identifies as Welsh.

People are deeply confused of course. But several of them have been clear that they believe the differences between the Welsh and the English culturally, genetically, linguistically etc are so small that they aren't a separate ethnic group or nation. They go so far as to deny it even when the governments of the UK and Wales officially recognize it as such. Of course, the reason those differences are relatively small (compared to say, the differences between Japan and Iceland) is because Wales was colonized by England. Do you see the problem?

He's English. You can't say he has Welsh genes because this island has mixed so much that there are no Englsh or Welsh genes. I consider myself Welsh. I was born and grew up there, as did my parents. However their parents are Englsh Irish and Scottish, with no Welsh in my grandparents generation. But how far back do you want to go? Great grandparents? Should everyone consider themselves a 16th of each nationality, or a 32nd?

If I happened to be in India for a few years when I gave birth, my children wouldn't be Indian. They have no links to the language or culture and would be brought up by British parents and would spend most of their lives in Britain. They would not be entitled to an Indian passport. It's not comparable.

My children are English. They were born in England and have spent all of their lives here. They go on holiday to Wales and my family occasionally slip into talking Welsh with them, but they know only a few words of Welsh. It would be insane for them to consider themselves Welsh. My sister's child was born in England with an English father, but they moved back to Wales when the child was 4. The child is culturally and linguistically Welsh. She was born in England but knows nothing other than being brought up in Wales, and so obvioulsy considers herself Welsh.

Why are you even bringing up independence?
Did OP's partner mention wanting to be independent? It's irrelevant.

No, as I already said to you, I'm addressing how the thread has moved on and not just the question asked in the OP.

The desecration of the Welsh language in the 19th and 20th C would be a starting point.

Yes, that was atrocious. Much of history is. Thankfully, that's now what it very much is: history; and nobody is preventing anybody from being able to learn and speak Welsh nowadays.

So I'm Welsh then?