To wonder when Americans lose their roots

[categorychaos]

Curious to know (especially from US Mumsnetters) but when do Americans stop referring to themselves as having heritage from where their forefathers came from?

Whenever I read a bio on someone famous reference is often made to their roots - so for example German, French, Scots, Irish, French, etc..

Along with a fair number of people I have heritage stretching back to different cultures/places but after a few generations I would not refer to myself as Irish or French and it wouldn't tend to crop up anywhere outside of genealogy

Is there a reason they do it so much in the USA or am I mistaken in that assumption?

I don’t think that this is just an American thing. Everyone I know who comes from a diaspora background continues to identify with that culture in one way or another. A sense of rootedness is important to all people, and that includes non-indigenous North Americans.

When families immigrated to America they often all came together en masse (several generations, parents, children, cousins, etc) and settled around families of similar origin, so culture etc was passed down pretty effectively and can be seen in place names, music, traditions and language in America today.

Bloody never. I'm married to an American and I have to hear about Grandma Catherine, who sailed to the US from England a hundred years ago, literally everytime we see his family. Every single time.

Every American who is not a Native American, came from somewhere(s) else. So that tag of all the various connections to other nations helps to establish a history and identity.

That's not true of my British family members, who just know they're British back as far as anyone knows. Or cares to remember. Which is pretty common across Europe.

One example.

Great grandparents immigrate.

Grandmother is fluent in language, food and culture.

Mother does not speak language, but knows some food and culture.

I enjoy the food, but don’t know how to cook it.

My daughter didn’t even realize there was a cultural connection. If you ask her what she is a mix of, she will need a reminder.

——-

on the other side of my family
I grew up constantly being asked about my “ethnic” surname. it was especially an issue because my appearance did not match expectations. In the 70-80s though, that ethic group was still othered and stereotyped to some degree.

today, no one notices my surname. No one has ever asked my daughter about her surname or her ethnicity. We are no longer a group that is considered other and just get lumped in with all the other people whose ancestors came from Western Europe.

it is not just about how you view yourself, but about how American society perceives your particular heritage.

"Everyone I know who comes from a diaspora background continues to identify with that culture in one way or another. "

Well, yes, but the question here is what counts as coming from a diaspora background. Is that really what you are if you have to go back more than a century?

😂

"it is not just about how you view yourself, but about how American society perceives your particular heritage."

I saw a video recently where Leonardo di Caprio was talking about he was told in his early career that his name was 'too ethnic' and he should go by Lenny Williams.

My many times great-grandfather (whose surname I have) emigrated from the Hebrides in 1735. Most of his descendants stayed in the same general area of North Carolina and married the descendants of other Scottish immigrants. I consider myself Scottish-American.

Come on now. That's a bit ridiculous.

It's woven into the fabric of the recent culture. They don't need to let it go, they need to remember it. As the pp said, if they're not native then they came over. It's important.

You consider yourself Scottish? Because of an ancestor from 300 years ago?

I couldn’t even tell you where my ancestors from 300 years ago were from. I know my great great grandad was Irish but my parents and grandparents are a mix of English and Welsh and I’ve only ever lived in wales so consider myself Welsh (technically if I was sporty I could play for either Wales or England , sadly I am not).

Tbf this does make sense if they have continued to keep their community through marriage etc

overall I don’t think British people can relate to it but it’s not really for us to judge whether it’s right or wrong. They’re the colonialists yet we can’t stop trying to control their culture form the motherland 😂

I didn't say I am Scottish.

I'm Irish, and I find "Irish" Americans can be really bizarre about this, thinking they belong to an Irish "race". I was once told by an American that she had a DNA test to prove that she was more Irish than me. The loudest ones think they're Irish even though they have never been to the country, while knowing nothing about it. Not all Americans are like this of course.

The vast majority of Americans identify as hyphenated or double-barrelled Americans. It's a deeply imbedded part of American culture to have some knowledge of your national and ethnic origins. The question is often asked on informational forms, etc.

I know I'm not Scottish, but I do have a Scottish surname and I know the name of the ship my many times great-grandfather sailed on when he left the island that had been his family's home for generations. Many of us Americans have this level of knowledge or greater of our ethnic origins, and it is part of our identity.

Fuck me 🤣🤣. My mother is Irish, born in Ireland, to Irish parents. I was born in England, (English father), lived in the UK the majority of my life. I would never consider myself English-Irish. Sounds bloody ridiculous, considering I've never even lived there.

We were talking about this just the other day, having seen someone on TV describe himself as 4th generation Irish-American. Surely you’re just American by that stage, if your Grandparents and Great Grandparents and Great Great Grandparents were all born in America and married other people who were born in America? My Italian friend was bemused in New York by people insisting to her they were Italian, with not a word of the language and often never having been to Italy, nor having any living relations there.

So it's not part of your culture to have a national origin identity that is different from your nationality. It is part of mine.

The OP asked a question particularly to Americans. I am American so I answered it.

For what it's worth but not at all relevant to the main point, I have lived in Scotland.

I call myself American and do not add any hyphenated ancestral statements (e.g., British-American). If I am asked about my ancestry, I will say that they came from England, Scotland, etc. I enjoy learning about my familial roots, but my personal roots are in American soil.

As was my father, and likewise.

I've also worked in Ireland and know my way round the country well, but as I was born in Scotland and have never lived outside the UK it would be beyond preposterous for me to claim I was Irish 🤣

My forebears were a chap called Adam, apparently, and his missues (they weren't married!😳)
Although I don't tell everyone this - it's a bit of a dark family secret...

Bit rude! She didn’t say Scottish, she said Scottish-American.

It’s relevant to other Americans. A Scottish American will have a subtle difference from an Italian American etc. The Scotts were mostly Presbyterians who emigrated to America 200 years before the Southern Italians who will be Catholics who arrived into an urban context rather than a wilderness. Just as an example.

White Americans generally know when their family went over. Black Americans who have been there for far more generations, don't, for obvious reasons. I wonder how much racism to blame for the emphasis that white Americans put on their family origin, having a sense of history that was deliberately denied to the enslaved people.

It's weird how differently this is viewed. I have one (black) Jamaican grandparent, 3 white grandparents from England and Wales. I'd feel like a fraud identifying as Jamaican. Tbh I feel judged even identifying as mixed race because I don't look especially black - more sort of middle Eastern. And I even used to live in Jamaica as a kid (no accent now though)

It's one of those things that Americans are well known for that I don't get, while being American.

I know there are dozens of US organisations about linking to how people arrived pre-War of Independence. It's a whole thing some are very proud and make a big part of their family or community identity.

I grew up in the US in a place and time when it wasn't really talked about. It just wasn't done, my father's side didn't at all, and my mother's side only in vague remarks that sounded more like guesses. The most I got was 'Yeah, we're a mix', but that in itself was in response to someone saying 'You look like a mongrel' - a guess based on looks, nothing specific heritage wise. I got the impression that digging into it was viewed as divisive.

I think it's one of those things that where the ones who do are really easy to spot, but there are also those who never talk about, families and communities try to be 'just American' as quickly as possible - or at least cutting off and being quiet about a few branches they don't want to talk about. I know there is writing on immigrants a few decades back who did not pass on their language in the thinking that their kids should focus on English and assimilating & the different ways their kids as adults have felt on that - some embraced that, and others have gone looking.