To wonder when Americans lose their roots

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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?

There's been a change though. Every one of my grandparents' generation regarded themselves as British even though they had to go back two or three generations themselves to reach an actual British immigrant.

I think it's because NZ is forging its own identity and that means disassociating itself from its roots. The US has already forged its own so it's reaching back. Whereas NZ remains the most British country outside the UK despite this never being mentioned.

Some of them are probably wisely losing their roots as we speak to avoid deportation.

If you are pre-Civil War stock, you generally are just ‘white/black’ American. You don’t have particular heritage, although people are curious and look into it, but just as an intellectual exercise. I have this sort of heritage.

If you came during the Ellis Island wave, you likely had more Eastern European, Irish Catholic, Italian or Jewish roots. You tended to live in urban areas in urban enclaves. You didn’t necessarily speak English.

They caused a massive problem in America, political corruption, increased crime, labor issues, such that we basically shut down immigration with the 1924 Immigration Act and promoted ‘the melting pot’ to get them to assimilate with mainstream American culture. This group is the one that maintains their Irish/Jewish/Italian identity the most (the Catholicism and Jewish identity assists here).

Immigration was reopened in 1965 with no favoritism towards Western Europe, but it didn’t really accelerate until Reagan’s amnesty and George HW Bush’s immigration reform in the early 90s.

This was back when Republicans were all for immigration and Democrats generally against it for labor reasons (Clinton formed ICE), but we now just call it the Biden wave, I don’t know if they see themselves as American or not. I hardly see them as American tbh.

Or perhaps if you are Irish or Italian or whatever you can say your family didn't own slaves ?

Scots

And this is why we get annoyed, you know the culture so little you misspell our nationality or use offensive terms like 'Scotch'. It's very simple, when in Europe call yourselves American. And it's not just Brits who get annoyed at this, I've heard the same from people all over Europe. Not surprising when you get things like the (very rude) American at the next table to us in Venice who loudly announced that Italian pizza wasn't real pizza.

@CarolinaInTheMorning🤣 I’ve got some Norwegian DNA according to ancestry.com so that’s like me saying I’m Norwegian British! Quite the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard. I have noticed some Americans trying to outdo each other on the Scottishness scale. An American cousin of my DH asked about my roots and I said I was English going back centuries from every offshoot of my family. She wasn’t interested in England. Only Scotland. Odd!

Isn’t it inevitable that people from a. Country mostly comprised of descendants of people who immigrated within recorded history will keep their stories alive? Whether that’s Australia, US or New Zealand. I expect the British had a few hundred years of knowing who was Saxon and who was Norman etc.

I find it interesting that people these days will pick one aspect of their heritage and adopt that as their identity. So people who are 10% aboriginal Australian will say they are native and discount the bulk of their heritage. That daft ‘However much milk you add it’s still tea’ thing.

It seems fashionable to identify with the oppressed. So people who are part Native American will adopt costumes and keep aspects of heritage alive but are not interested in learning about Morris dancing to represent their equal part of English heritage or whatever.

@Absolutelydonewithitexactly it’s romantic and it adds interest in the US desire to outdoo one another.

I'm in NZ and yes I do agree with @SouthernNights59 . I'm 3rd generation NZ and consider myself solely a NZer, and while I am interested in my ancestry (a heap of Irish, Scottish, French etc), I don't really relate to those cultures at all. My kids are of Maori descent so they're more interested in researching their Iwi and hapu (tribe and sub tribe).

Scottish American culture in particular has roots that are incredibly deep, leaving an indelible mark on the country's history and culture, with many leading figures and ideas shaping the US. The culture came straight from Scotland itself and via plantation Ulster.

It's a funny thing to be proud of, to have had several generations of ancesters who colonised countries by violently suppressing the indigenous culture and stealing their land. Only the most ignorant Brits still want to celebrate the glory days of Empire.

As a descendent of emigrants from the early 1800s I will defend the Americans. It makes for really interesting family history, stories of hardship etc. Though in my view people tend to bracket out the English in favour of Scottish and Irish because the latter sound more sexy and oppressed.

Personally I wonder when Americans lost their minds rather than their roots.

That your ancestors emigrated at this particular period would indicate that to some extent, they were feeling as though they had to leave their Country (Highland Clearances were looming, at this point)

I’ve often wondered if the feeling of being driven to emigrate to make a new life in “The New World” (as so many were) is the reason that so many US citizens cling to their Ethnic identity for generations…

@CarolinaInTheMorning Would you say that is largely the case? I’m just curious (e.g. I know that I have Hugenot and Irish ancestors at 2nd level grandparents, but only every think of myself as British)

🙄

when i went to america, apart from the indian family i was staying with, they were all, "i am from Lithuania", the indian man said, I am American.
my roots are partly from another country, but I rarely mention it

What country were you born in?

The US

Well you're American then. Next please!

But my great-grandfather was....

NEXT PLEASE!

They don’t seem bothered about their roots in Australia. Maybe because US is so big with big population they want identity.

NRTFT.

Garron Noone on You Tube takes the piss out of Americans for this. Also this great SNL sketch featuring Paul Mescal.

I'm not Irish or have any blood from other countries at all. I have met Americans who say, "I'm in England to trace my roots. My ancestors came from (place) in 1854" and I'm expected to know it intimately.

My brother's kids have a very mixed heritage but if you ask them what nationality they are they say British.

When Americans tell you that they are Irish or Italians or whatever I often wonder whether that means everyone in their ancestry has that heritage? I know some groups lived in very close communities but surely some people married out? If then they have grandparents from more than one ethnic group how do they chose to identify eg if they have one Italian grandparent married to a Polish grandparent are they Italian/ Polish American? I’ve never heard someone say that though. Or do they pick which one they identify with and why?

I think in a nation of predominantly immigrants it’s understandable that people want to keep the culture and customs alive. I could live without Irish Americans telling me that they shouldn’t get on with me because I’m English though (as has happened a few times)

The more recent wave of immigrants (around 1900) tended to settle in urban enclaves so it’s very possible they could be mostly of that ethnicity. This would include Eastern Europeans, Irish and Italian descended people.

Although very often they may identify with a living relative who was foreign born (eg Polish granny), so privilege that identity due to familiarity.

Can I ask, you know that your many times great grandfather came over from Scotland, but what about all the other distant ancestors?

Assuming that 1735 is about 9 generations ago, that's 512 seventh great-grandparents. Are they all from the same place and moved to the US?

All the Americsns I know drone on about it all the time. I know one who is 5th generation Austrian and doesn't stop talking about it. I think it's uniquely American tbh

Tbh it’s a little fringe to call oneself Scottish-American. Most would just say they have Scots-Irish heritage. At the time there would have been loads of Scots-Irish but also plenty of British heritage people.

They say Southerners in particular can be almost fully British, although they won’t know that unless they do a DNA test since their heritage tends not to be well documented

That's very interesting.

I remember in the 90's there were a lot of people who claimed German ancestry under similar circumstances. They migrated to eastern Europe under Katherine the Great and settled most famously along parts of the river Volga.
Some even spoke a form of German dialect and identified as German.

I wonder how "Scottish" your own language is.

I would imagine small town America is similar. Now make that an island with a different language and culture than the rest of the country/ world and you will see why it occurs. They would be polite and kind but you can never be truly a part as you don't understand and don't truly share. But that should be something an outsider respects.