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?

I should say that's one of the reasons the differences are relatively small. Of course just being neighbouring and closely related groups would mean those differences would be smaller than continental scale comparisons anyway.

Agreed.

He is definitely not half-Welsh as OP described him. Both parents are Welsh. If he was half-Welsh, only one of his parents would be Welsh.

He is English by birth, Welsh by descent. He can choose either nationality or both. He has chosen to say he is Welsh. Anyone who insists he is English is indeed telling a Welsh person they are English.

So I'm Welsh then?

I wouldn't dream of telling you what YOU are.

What are these "relatively small differences", @Pollyputhekettleon ?

Though it is tempting to do so 🤬

Ok. He's been born and brought up in England and was presumably registered as being born there etc etc. Jesus.

To expand, he doesn’t just ‘identify as’ Welsh. He is Welsh, his family still all live there, he has a Welsh accent, he ticks Welsh when it’s an option on forms.

So therefore even by your definition, he's English.

English people like tea and cucumber sandwiches. This is why I am not English, both taste gross to me.

It read to me like a conversation that he got angry about, not a 'doubling down'.

But whatever.

I'll always see nationality by its definition: A citizen of a country/nation, either by birth, descent or naturalisation. You can also have dual citizenship.

Therefore, he's British (as his passport would say).

His parental heritage/ethnicity is Welsh.

He was born and raised in England.

I see why he'll choose Welsh and he's right to do so. If he chose English, he'd be right too.

If no one is 100% Welsh then someone needs to sort out those silly ancestry tests giving so many false results. You are of mixed ethnicity. The world is a big place and not everyone is you.

That makes him British, not English. Being born somewhere does not determine your ethnicity and/or culture, and nor does it determine your nationality unless you’re talking about a country that recognises jus solis.

Genuinely, why does it matter?

It clearly didn't go down exactly as the OP said. She's on here insisting he's wrong and trying to be proved right and no doubt that's how the actual conversation went down.

Only if you can’t read.

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.

No you were making massive presumptions about Welsh identity. Read back.

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.

The flippant and airy dismissal of someone unaffected.

And You wonder why the identity is so close to Welsh people's hearts.

If you met an aboriginal Australian who was born and raised in the UK, had British citizenship etc, was proud of his roots, and got annoyed when his English wife described him as only half aboriginal Australian, I think you'd understand his annoyance. If people then started saying that aboriginal Australians actually aren't an ethnicity at all because they've lost so much of their culture since colonization, I'm pretty sure you'd understand.

@Pollyputhekettleon Four Nations?

You've had a right mare there! 🤣

It's Six Nations with England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France and Italy all competing.

And only one of those teams DOESN'T represent a country. 🤷‍♂️

But if you (or anyone else) called me Welsh I wouldn't start shouting about how wrong you are. I could be classed as Welsh but I could also be classed as English, and that's how I would classify myself. OP is not wrong for saying he's English and he should not have reacted in the ridiculous way he did.

I personally feel like it would be weird for me to class myself as Welsh because I have never lived there, wasn't born there, don't know the language etc. Hence why I'm struggling to understand the husband's overreaction.

That is different because he is obviously mixed race.

I can see why he considers himself to be English as all that he's known, however, looking at his heritage, he's welsh to me.

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

The OP is actually telling someone born to two Welsh parents that they are half English, bizarrely.

Oh my goodness, please tell us you're not basing your grand thesis of ethnicity on the results of an over-the-counter DNA test, are you??

Ok yes the half English but obviously isn't right, but I don't think she was wrong to describe him as English.