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?

Nailed it :)

You've never heard the term 'London Irish' then?

You've never had the misfortune of being called Irish as an insult, as my Irish relatives were when they emigrated to Britain, or learned anything of the experience of first generation British children with recognisably Irish surnames, growing up in Britain in the 70s and 80s. The experience fueled a lot of punk energy back in the day.

I wonder if most NZers, and indeed Australians, would tend to agree with you?

DP’s parents are American but both from the same European country which they both still strongly identify with (DP less so). I think it’s brilliant - we did Easter at their house and I loved all the quaint traditions they keep up.

I’m British so took some hot cross buns (which were a struggle to find!)

To the point where they are hoity toity.....about what...i dont get what.you mean...can you clarify

😂 i imagined you took the hot cross buns from.england and that they were really stale by the time you got there.

Excellent point.

Do Brits still care about social class though?

Sure. I mean that some British people (and I am sure other nationalities too but I don’t know about them) seem faux-offended by it and claim to not understand it at all. Almost as if it is beneath them to try or acknowledge different countries have different traditions. It comes up more often than you think.

It is interesting. I’ve been listening to US based podcasts about DNA surprises (generally biological father is a different person to who they were told he was). Obviously it’s quite traumatic to the person, but I’ve been surprised by the number of people who find out they have(example) Hungarian ancestry not Italian and then say I’ve been learning all the recipes and cooking Hungarian food, I never really like Italian food etc. The ancestry is obviously a huge part of the identity.

That is really interesting, thank you. I’ve not seen it put quite like this before. It seems like for many Americans, there has been a real drive to retain a sense of where their family was from pre-immigration, and that makes up a significant part of their sense of identity? Then as you say, religious and community ties etc. That is very different to immigrants in the UK, who regardless of whether they retain many cultural ties, tend to strongly identify as English / Scottish / Welsh etc within a few generations (I speak as someone with one set of grandparents who were from overseas, and I don’t consider it a part of my heritage - I couldn’t name anything in terms of language or culture or religion etc that my family have retained from there)

I think the reason that there’s much bemusement or even offence from people when Americans do this is that in my experience they tend to just say ‘I’m Irish’ or ‘I’m Scottish’ in the present tense rather than mentioning it as a hyphenated identity or a heritage identity.

If someone British were to discuss it (probably only if specifically asked, which would be unusual, or in the context of a genealogy conversation) they are likely to say ‘of Scottish descent’ or ‘I have Irish ancestry’ rather than claiming that nationality in the present tense.

The nationalities and national identities that Americans say they ‘are’ are living things which have evolved and changed over the hundreds of years since their families left. While they may have kept some cultural elements in America through generations it is a different culture to the one in the original country and the people who still live in the original country can have little in common with the American version.

I have an elderly relative who is Spanish. He was born and raised in Spain to Spanish parents and left as a young man in his twenties. He has lived in Britain since. He now finds little in common with Spanish people and considers himself more British than Spanish - even the language he speaks is old fashioned and doesn’t quite fit with modern Spanish because it’s stuck in the time which he left. Of course he’d be perfectly entitled to call himself Spanish, he is, but it’s interesting how he rarely would whereas americans with far more remote connections to other countries will say ‘I am Irish/scottish/german’ etc.

But the Danish queen is Australian so I'm a bit lost how you identify with her?

@CarolinaInTheMorning no Scottish person would consider you Scottish though.

Didn’t say I did. That‘s a stretch.

My granny was an immigrant to the UK from a European country. I don't identify as part of that nationality / culture (apart from as an interesting talking point) - I think of myself as English.

I‘ve never encountered this kind of disdain from people who are Norwegian citizens when we talk about heritage. Maybe some Brits are just salty about Americans.

Why does it matter to Scottish people (or more accurately, to you) that someone living elsewhere whose ancestors are all either Scottish or descendants of Scottish people considers herself Scottish?

Being Scottish is obviously something so important to you that you're willing to gatekeep Scottishness. Why?

And why not admit that it's OK for othwr people to feel a similar affection for their Scottish heritage?

Oh ok I understand

Each to their own.

If a person only has Irish blood running through their veins and they practise Irish traditions then they might feel Irish where-ever they live.
It was not their choice, necessarily, to leave their homeland.

It's fine to call oneself African-American, or Canadian-Australian or Irish-English or Indian-Australian or Italian-American. It is an extra description of the person that tells a lot about them.

One identifies with both their blood relatives and DNA, and their place of residence. I think there should be easier ways to obtain passports from our native (DNA) countries and easier ways to go back to live in our homelands.

And the British royal family were called Saxe Coburg Gotha until the early Twentieth Century, with the current incumbent's father's family originally called Battenburg, but somehow or other they're 'British'...

Yes, salty is the word.

You have to wonder why there's such a strong urge to piss on other people's chips.

No surprise there. I am not Scottish.

Imo it's bc lots of Americans with eg. Irish, Polish, Italian etc ancestry often still have a strong connection to that culture.

The culture tends to be an older version (time capsule in a sense) of Polish, Italian etc culture. Thus Polish Americans often use language and other cultural things which are no longer used in Poland now ('Busia' for grandmother when Poles now would say 'Babcia'). I've also heard that Italian Americans still sometimes use names like Dino which would be seen as dated 1950s names in Italy now.

This obviously fine - a more destructive example is that some Asian American parents still use extremely strict and arguably in some cases borderline abusive patenting methods which are less common now in their heritage countries. (Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother was exaggerated for the publisher but is getting at something rea

Yes, especially since you were talking about the Norwegian royal family, one of the most interesting in Europe, in my opinion. King Harald's grandfather was a Danish prince who was invited to be king of Norway. He was married to a British princess who therefore became Queen of Norway.