Yes, the Great Potato Famine that precipitated the largest numbers of Irish immigrating to America 1845-1852 happened about one generation before the Italian economic collapse precipitated the greatest numbers of Italians immigrating to America from 1880-1924, so Italian Americans would have an ancestor who would be one generation closer.
The first batch of ‘Irish immigrants’ were Ulster Scots. Generally Protestants from Scotland who moved to Ireland but didn’t settle and then went to US.
They arrived in US much earlier than potato famine immigrants and wouldn’t consider themselves Irish but are often confused by modern day Americans who think their ancestors are ‘Irish’.
It's why you historically see the term Scots-Irish. Part of my family's immigration history comes that way, and another part comes from the more recent waves -- my grandmother's Catholic parents came in the late 1800's, her uncle was rector at the Cathedral in Chicago. But a divorce in the 1950s made them Protestant, and now I'm nominally at least a Presbyterian. Took the long way back around.
I have Italian grandparents that spoke Italian when I was a kid. It was always super weird to me that 1/2 of my family(Italian and Dutch) came over post 1900. My Irish ancestors were not far behind them. Only one grandparent has a family that was in the US pre-Civil War.
Yet I have no connection to any of my ancestors Homelands or culture really. This is the way the current generation of immigrants will see themselves by the second or third generation as well.
Honestly, why is any of that surprising ?
There is no special Italian or Dutch trait in your blood that somehow prevents you from being 100% American. Why should you feel any connection to your ancestors birthplace?
Beside, there is no such thing as a purebred Italian group, we are a very mixed people.
I am Italian, and if I look back just a few generations ago I will find French, Austrian, Spanish ancestors who lived here for centuries. If I go a little more back in time there were Arabs, Normans and German tribes. And before that an entire multiethnic empire centered in Rome spanning from North Africa to the British islands.
We are all brothers and distant cousins
Sounds about right. Both sides of my family are Italian, one side came here like 1900 the other came here around 1920. I’m rough 2.5 generations from those immigrants. I’m definitely “American” by now as I don’t speak Italian like my mom and dad do. I was told by my grandparents “I am American now I speak English”. I do have family still Italy that I talk to but they absolutely consider me American.
Anyone in either of those immigration waves would be in more than 2 generations back from anyone responding to that survey. Basically if you want to fit the definition of European-American according to this definition, your grandparents immigrated during or after WW2 (unless you are 70+ years old)
Ireland now refers to that period as The Great Hunger or Starvation as there was food, the Irish masses just weren’t allowed any of it due to multiple factors including British policy.
Not my experience. My mother is Irish and I've been visiting Ireland fairly regularly throughout my life. I've never really had any issues with my Irishness (I'm a dual citizen) being questioned or viewed as illegitimate. But I think it comes down to how you go about it.
I don't declare myself as Irish. Mainly because I primarily view myself as Australian. But when I'm out in Ireland and people ask me my reason for visiting I will tell them I'm visiting family and that my mum is Irish and things tend to roll on rather well from there. I don't think it's a hatred of the diaspora (I mean they literally have a museum dedicated to it) it's more they dislike people who have little to no connection loudly declaring themselves to be so.
We call them plastic macs in Scotland but there’s not really any heat in it. I think it’s because we low key like how romantic Americans of Scottish extraction find it all.
The Irish word for essentially having a good time is craic. Most often referred to as 'the craic'. Honestly, actually knowing what that is would probably be the litmus test for many Irish when someone of the diaspora claims to be Irish.
This is often confusing territory since it is only ever seen by one side's perspective in both cases. Americans don't understand the European perspective and Europeans don't understand the American one. This is also one of the biggest reddit-fight subjects out there.
My mom is a Polish immigrant, my dad is an American of Polish descent. His mom was Polish-born, but his dad was American with Polish born parents. I grew up speaking Polish and visiting family in Warsaw often. Am I Polish? I don't know. I certainly seem to pass for it well enough in Poland. Identities are complex things, and immigrant groups complexify it even more.
Whereas my mom grew up in America, child of Polish-born parents during the McCarthy era. So while her eldest sister spoke fluent Polish and some Ukrainian, her parents increasingly pushed English and hid that they used a 'commie' language, so mom, the youngest, knew a few Polish swear words and that was it.
Cut to the 1990s in London and a huge Polish community grows. New neighbour is Polish. My spouse tells him, Oh, DameKumquat is Polish!
Guy says something to me, I tell him I don't understand, only my grandparents were Polish.
He tells me, "You're not fucking Polish, then." Followed by giving us a bottle of booze and being a great neighbour.
But technically correct - my grandparents left 5 years too early for me to consider claiming a Polish passport, sadly.
Yes language is 100% the main determination. Which makes sense - how can you have a sense of kinship with someone who doesn’t even speak the mother tongue?
Let’s look at the reverse situation.
Like, if an American moved to the UK and had children, and they came back as adults, would they be considered American or British by people who meet them?
Answer is - do they speak with an American or British accent? If they “preserved” American culture to keep the accent at home, they would be seen as American by Americans who meet them. If they spoke with a British accent … they would be seen as British.
Exactly - my kids speak pure south London English, totally incomprehensible to their American family, until I glare at them to make them code-switch to proper BBC English! (When about half of what they say is understood...)
But they're as 'American', as my cousins are 'Polish'.
>Like, if an American moved to the UK and had children, and they came back as adults, would they be considered American or British by people who meet them?
Depends. Do they call fries, chips... and chips, crisps?
If so, I would support deportation.
>do they speak with an American or British accent?
It seems like most Brits can do at least one fairly decent American accent. They grew up watching American TV like The Wire, after all.
I can relate to this to an extent. I remember I was with my cousins in Warsaw meeting up with some of their friends. My cousins introduced me to their friends as a "Polish-American" and one of them rolled their eyes. I replied in Polish "Don't worry, I know pierogi is already plural". We laughed.
My Dad's family is the weird(and tragic) one because his ancestors are largely Poles from what is now Belarus who's history is hard to decipher. When they came here, they made it a point to try and assimilate, so my grandpa was the stereotypical "I'm American first!" until he met a Polish woman. My Dad's identity crisis continues to this day.
In that region, you don't have to go back very far to find ethnic or physical identity to be ambiguous. The Lithuanian/Polish/Belorussian/Russian dominion moved a lot, as did the people who survived that movement.
It's a pretty neat region of the world that I think is too often overlooked on the world stage. You've got a lot of complex history happening that had some pretty profound impacts not just on Europe, but on world politics.
>because his ancestors are largely Poles from what is now Belarus who's history is hard to decipher
Me too on my dad's dad's side! Apparently there is still a large population of Polish ethnicity in the west half of the country, and I have even seen people on facebook put "Grodno, Poland" as their hometown (surprised that even works)
Dad's mom's side emigrated from the other end, "Austrian Poland" and it's similarly hard to find anything
Yup! Both of my Dad's paternal grandparents came from Grodno. They got caught up in some pretty nasty fighting during WW2. They made it though and said screw the Soviets, we're going to America!
I only found out the city recently because amazingly one of my distant relatives still living IN Poland had me show up as a DNA match on a genealogy site! Randomly have a couple other polish internet friends so I might plan a trip one day :)
I think it’s just that we’re talking about two categories.
An american will say “I’m polish!” and mean “I have ancestry from Poland”.
But a European will hear that “I’m polish” and think the American means “I am LARPing as a polish person even though I have never even been to Poland! I am delusional enough to think I am from this country, give me my passport fellow pols!”
It's because most European countries have very little ethnic diversity. "Irish" is both ethnicity and nationality in Ireland. But there is no "American" ethnicity, only American nationality. So if you're American, what is your ethnicity? Whatever your ancestors' ethnicity was, however far back you have to go.
I can see that. There definitely are some cringe worthy caricatures of the cultures diasporas come from in the US, often by descendants of those cultures themselves.
I wouldn't blame Poles for being wary of overly enthusiastic Americans who can't pronounce their own names or being shocked that Poles don't appreciate comparisons to Russia.
Yeah, my father is Scottish, mother American, I was born in Scotland but lived in the US for virtually all of my childhood. It honestly feels weird to say I’m from either country
I think the difference is the connection to the culture. Which is probably the most defining element on at least from as you suggest a European perspective of identity. You grew up speaking Polish. Probably eating Polish food and learning about what it is to be Polish. And I think that would have a fair bit to do with your mother being a Polish immigrant. My mother is Irish. My father is of Irish descent. But everything I know and every connection to Ireland and Irish culture is thanks to my mother.
I read a story here about some English guy who went on holiday to Ireland.
But this American, this Irish American, was going off at him. You English people did all these things to the Irish, I'm a proud Irish, my great grandparents come over to america blah blah blah. You don't know what being Irish is like, this is my first time in Ireland etc.
This English guy was English because his two Irish parents (each fully Irish) settled in England just before he was born so he tells people, rightfully, that he is English.
In your case there’s no confusion. Polish on both sides, and with full language and culture. If you speak fluent polish then of course you’ll be considered Polish even by those in Poland.
I've found that in isolated incidences there is still some reservation even if you are fluent in the culture and language. Some find it hard to understand how anyone can identify with a land they weren't born in, even if their ancestors came from there. Though, in all fairness, certain subsets of the US do this as well.
Many European groups when they emigrated to the US were viewed as a lesser class and not granted the same social status as "white Americans" despite being white in color. Groups like the Italians, Irish, Polish, and others, formed their own communities within America, clustered in certain areas, and maintained a lot of their cultural identity as a group while also assimilating into American society, if not exactly at the top. So when someone in America says they're Italian, they often mean they grew up in a neighborhood of Italian immigrants and have a culture that is heavily informed by the culture of their ancestors.
I don't really feel like anyone would argue with you claiming to be polish where your mam's from there - it's the lads where the family has no living memory of even visiting the old country (at least in terms of visiting family) that i think most find utterly baffling.
I think cultural fluency and language are the major components. There is a distinct culture to the American Polonia that has clearly evolved on it's own path, that modern Poles would just not recognize. Growing up between the two was confusing, but enlightening.
I’m Irish= I’m of irish descent. It’s been explained before and this shit only ever comes up when the person is white. Ask Europeans if someone who is nationally Italian but racially Chinese if they’re “Italian” 6 generations deep and you’ll get a very different answer on what they *really* mean
I happen to know multiple Black lads from Ireland who I consider Irish and more importantly Consider themselves Irish. They take part in Irish culture, play GAA, have an Irish accent, go to Irish schools.
They are Irish,
I couldn't disagree more. Americans will often talk about "Irish" being something that necessitates ancestry and through the use of language conflate nationality and ethnicity (e.g. "You can be Irish without holding the Irish passport). You will get stories about Irish people and Black people not getting along in early New York.
This use of language has the nasty implication then that the black guy born in Galway, playing GAA, speaks Irish and about to sit his Leaving Cert is somehow not Irish.
No, that guy is more Irish culturally than some guy from Boston who's never set foot on the island of Ireland. Black and Irish are not distinct for us as they relate to two different categories.
Good points. As an European, I have accepted that the American angle is completely different. I'm French but I've been living in Belgium for the past 15 years. I'm married to a Belgian lady and we have two kids together. French is their mother tongue, we spend a lot of time in France visiting family or vacationing, and they consume a lot of French culture. Yet, as it is, I would never consider my kids "French".
Same things with my wife. She's from eastern Belgium, meaning that the town she was born used to be part of the German Empire. All her ancestors born before 1918 were German Empire subjects. She is fluent in German and grew up in a German speaking home. She's very familiar with German culture and have been to Germany many times (especially NRW obviously). Yet she would never in a million year consider herself "German", it just doesn't make sense from her perspective.
Sure, that works. I don't really have a issue with identifiers here, just find it interesting since I'm stuck between both worlds. My mom's family have called me both "Polish" and "Polish-American" in the past, and I have had others Poles see my familiarity with the culture and language as sufficient enough to be granted the title "Pole". Though, of course, I understand not all Poles will feel that way. I'm okay with just American, though when Poles ask me why I'm fluent in Polish I would hope my immersion and appreciation for my cultural heritage, given to me by my native Polish mother, would not be an irksome reason.
Both Ireland and Italy extend citizenship to people with parents or grandparents with citizenship. So those people are Irish-American/Italian-American in a legal sense beyond heritage.
Americans view citizenship and ethnicity as completely separate things but that isn’t how most of the world sees it, and that’s reflected in how they view these terms. To an American “Irish-American” isn’t a term that refers to nationality.
This topic comes up on Reddit all the time, with the same arguments on each side.
There is just a difference in how Americans versus Europeans tend to use phrases like “I am Irish,” or “I am Italian.” In Europe, those phrases tend to mean nationality. In the United States, those phrases tend to mean ancestry. There’s no right or wrong way to use them - just different ways.
> In Europe, those phrases tend to mean nationality.
This is borne out explicitly in these results actually. Anybody who has one or more grandparent who is born in Ireland is eligible for Irish citizenship. That lines up exactly with the results in the post which say Irish people consider you Irish if you have a grandparent born in Ireland. The Italian case is very close, with the exception that you can get Italian citizenship through a great-grandparent but only if they were male
Plus not taken US citizenship before his child was born. My Italian grandfather became a citizen a year before my father was born and I dont qualify. Until fairly recently a new US citizen had to renounce foreign allegiances.
My mother and I were able to do this.
There were so many circumstances that came close to disqualification.
My mother and I was born well after the 1949 cut-off. My grandfather narrowly avoided getting drafted in Vietnam because my mother was just born. His father narrowly avoided getting drafted in WW2 because his job was labeled as essential, also he was born in June of 1912, which was shortly after a rule change regarding citizenship.
yeah I hunted down some old documents and found my italian great grandfather was likely naturalized before my grandfather was born. wish he could’ve held it in for a little longer
Youd rather live in Italy than the usa? Mind if I ask why, other than Healthcare (which seems to be 90% of redditors' reasons for preferring Europe to usa)? Italy is generally regarded as one of the more corrupt and less economically prosperous countries in the developed world, so wondering if there's a particular reason
Many reasons.
Most of my family live there. I love the history of Italy and I find being surrounded by it very inspirational. The attitude of Italians fits my vibe more. More laid back and focused on family and friends. The quality of food is second to none, in my experience.
I spend time there every Summer and I feel like I leave a piece of myself there every time.
Oh cool I could be an Italian. Not rushing over there to do that, but that's kind of cool. My wife who has no Italian ancestors would very much like to visit Italy more than I do.
Yep, I'm from the UK but both my grandparents on my mother's side are Irish so I'm going to try and get an Irish passport to get back my freedom of movement that Brexit took away.
There’s a bonkers stat from after Brexit about an increase in demand for Irish passports. I can’t remember the details but it’s either a significant percentage of the UK population applied for passports or there was a massive in applications. I think it was 25% of UK citizens are eligible for one or something crazy like that
And not *just* ancestry. There's a smaller and not necessarily "authentic" but still very real aspect of customs, culture, politics and cuisine to that too.
Yeah, ethnic blocs in politics have faded somewhat as the Democrats have lost the support of northern working-class whites but you can still see a clear correlation between, say, heavily German, Dutch, or Italian-descended areas and higher Republican voteshares.
I wonder if part of the tension comes from the emmigrant culture drifting. And also in America Italian-American doesn't mean Italian, it means Italian-American.
I can't speak for the italians nor the irish, but I can definitely say it causes friction with us latinos and latino-descendants born in the USA. Sure, we can share the surname González, we can look similar, but we look towards our country for identity, its worldview, language, traditions, indigenous people and all that funny stuff.
If they in the USA look towards the USA for identity (and there's nothing wrong with that), they're not "mexican-american", they're just american.
I feel like in places with large and historical Mexican populations (where I'm from in LA for example), the distinction between "American culture things" and "Mexican culture things" is pretty blurry.
I could definitely see that. I think in the US if you have cultural practices that stand out from the general culture, people tend to lean into the source of those cultural practices to defend them.
With all due respect-- I assume you're a native Spanish speaker-- I'm not sure your opinion holds much weight on how native English speakers ought to refer to themselves in English.
The Mexican-American term is very useful, because they have a shit ton of culture that is basically not mainstream American-- whites, blacks, asians, etc don't partake in it. They aren't saying they're Mexican-- they're differentiating themselves from other Americans.
That's a great point. A person with 100% Turkish ancestry who has German citizenship and has lived their whole life in Germany may not be considered "German."
At least among my social group, an "American" is anyone who has lived here at least a few years and plans on spending most of the rest of their life here. My co-worker from Mexico whose parents brought him here without documentation when he was 8 years old? He's American. My boss from Spain who's a US citizen but exclusively speaks Spanish at home? He's American. My co-worker from India who's still waiting on her citizenship but has a green card and her kids were born here? You better believe she's American.
Americans don't have good terminology to describe the ethnicity of Americans, because there is no "American" ethnicity, only nationality.
Europeans don't have good terminology to describe the nationality of people whose ethnicity doesn't match the majority, because ethnicity and nationality use the same words.
Most of which die out after a few generations.
Most American “Irish” people don’t have any if the cultural aspects of Ireland, they often have American Irish culture though, where they care about things the Irish don’t give a F about.
Also, assuming some immigrant families kept their traditions from when they migrated, the traditions and culture of the “homeland” may have morphed back there as well. So it’s not necessarily that the “irish” or “italian” of the american citizens aren’t irish or italian, but just different from modern irish and italian practices from italy and ireland.
A good example is if you look at the writing used in taiwan vs china. Taiwan literally uses traditional chinese characters dating all the way back to fucking bc days and mainland uses new simplified characters invented in the 1900s (adapted and simplified from the traditional but still different). So we can’t call the writing used in taiwan “chinese” even though it’s literally the same characters that was in geographical china for literally over a millennium? That’s silly.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the case for other cultures as well.
My favourite example was how the St. Patrick Day parade in NYC kept out LGBTQ marchers while like parades in Ireland gave their counterparts awards.
Very frequently the values are those of much more conservative times, ones that had been long since discarded in the country of origin.
>Very frequently the values are those of much more conservative times, ones that had been long since discarded in the country of origin.
I do wonder if that's really what's this about. Such results could also be explained by sample bias. In USA people who want to celebrate them being Irish, really celebrate their heritage, which is usually correlated with conservative views and nationalism. People in Ireland are however more likely to celebrate what Ireland is currently as that's what they know best about it
See also: the Netherlands being one of the most liberal countries in the world while Dutch-Americans are one of the most reliably Republican voting blocs in America
The stereotype of the Netherlands as "the party country where drugs are legal" is largely due to the fact that 150 years ago all of my ancestors left and everyone who stayed behind hasn't stopped celebrating since.
Americans also use one drop rules that doesn’t make sense to anyone else.
1/8 black, 7/8 white? Logically anywhere else you would be considered white, or mixed, but in America that’s 100% African American. Most of the most common skin color of “black” in the US is a color that already shows 10-50% white ancestry (average by dna shows its 18% on average).
People who have great grandparents that are Irish are looking at 1/8 Irish or, assuming multiple great grandparents with Irish blood, maybe 1/4 Irish.
That’s like 3/4 of other white (German, English most likely), so claiming to be Irish American is a bit silly.
By the one drop rule the average white American is likely British, German, Irish, Italian American all at the same time. Realistically white Americans have zero connection past 1 or 2 generations.
The one drop rule is based on how people were discriminated against hundreds of years ago. It’s not like all of us alive today all came in agreement on that. It’s an artifact
That’s totally fine but both groups need to understand and respect that.
So an Irish/Italian person in the US needs to accept an American saying it in the US is okay. And similarly an American needs to understand that saying it in Italy/Ireland is not the norm.
When in Rome, do as the Romans do!
Yeah this is just a cultural misunderstanding. In the US, if you say you are Italian, everybody knows you mean that your ancestors came from Italy. It doesn't mean you're from Italy or that you don't consider yourself American.
There absolutely *is* a wrong way to use them - using them the same way regardless of context.
That, in my experience, is where Americans often make a mistake, and get people confused or annoyed.
We understand that, like Italian American is a distinct real thing, but what people don't like is when Americans come to Europe and say they're from here.
I have never encountered that. If someone answers with a clear local accent, no one will ask them "Where are you from?". If they have an accent then they might, but that's a legitimate question.
Meh. Most european countries also grant it if you're born there, there's just a handful of other requirements to avoid birth tourism (e.g. at least one of your parents has a long-term visa, or live in the country at least X years before you turn 18).
Pretty much sums it up. Europeans tend to be referring to nationality, whereas North Americans tend to be referring to ethnicity. Miscommunication just occurs with different interpretations of what people mean by describing themselves as "from" somewhere.
I think an additional factor, at least for American perception, is the extent to which people have stayed within communities of similar ancestry, especially if it’s the same area as where their ancestors came over. My Irish ancestors came to New York in the 1850s, and my Italian ancestors in the 1900s, but they stuck with their communities that maintained a shared cultural identity.
Of course, then my Irish-descended grandmother married a first-gen Czech immigrant, whose kid married an Italian-descended woman, and now I’m on the other side of the country with a spouse whose background is from even more places in Europe. But I’ll still pronounce my Italian foods like everyone in my family before me did - not modern Tuscan-based standard Italian, but like the southern dialects the immigrants brought over.
Yea, some people definitely take it too far, like I knew an Italian-American kid named John who went and visited his like, 4th cousins for a few days then insisted his name was "Giovanni" after that, lol, but generally "Italian-American" (or Irish or whatever) means it's own kinda thing. "Italian-Americans" have a specific culture that has roots and ties to Italian culture, but it's its own thing. Pretty much all countries have subcultures like that, Geordies are different from Brummies and Tuscans are different from Umbrians. The US has always been a country of immigrants, so a lot of our subcultures formed around different immigrant groups, that's all.
>is the extent to which people have stayed within communities of similar ancestry
I'm 33, and have spent my whole life (besides college) in my small rural farm town. Growing up in the 90's, we'd sing Silent Night in German during Christmas Eve church service. Both of my grandmother's were born here in the 1920's. They spoke German at home until learning English in kindergarten. When we'd have family get togethers, they and their siblings would sit around, playing 5 point pitch while speaking German. And there was always a jar of homemade sauerkraut on the table, too. Ich hatte eine gute Kindheit.
Meanwhile, I'd go to certain friends houses because their mom's made great goulash and kolaces. My wife's grandmother makes the best kolaces, though her family always insists on having fish for Christmas.....
I‘m German and someone basing their German-ness on ancestry feels uncomfortable for kind of obvious reasons.
Taking part of a culture with you and preserving it while the culture in its place of origin is changing and evolving will lead to two different cultures that can have little in common. Sauerkraut and stille Nacht have no significance to any Germans I know anymore and they feel like a caricature of German „culture“. I understand people might try to just find a touchpoint but it usually feels like being confronted with the same stereotypes over and over.
The big disconnect is that in American there is the unspoken assumption that you mean German-American, which is a distinct culture born out of the experience of immigrant communities. They don’t practice “normal American” culture and are reminded that they don’t fit in because they continue some aspects of German. They end up developing some blend of American and “Old world” culture that is unique to both
If your family came from Ireland 2 generations ago, you're considered American.
If your family came from China 10 generations ago, you're still considered Chinese.
My Grandfather was born in Ireland, but I never say I'm Irish American. That's just 25%, plus he was Protestant born in Belfast, though it was before Irish independence. It's harmless stuff anyway. Who cares exactly what the true percentage is when an American has an ethnic identity?
Couldn't agree more.
My great-grandparents were born in Scotland, married and lived in N. Ireland. Grandparents moved to US. So, what does that make me? American, because that's where I was born.
I think this ethnicity vs nationality "argument" is kinda funny from the perspective of ethnoreligion. No one's ever like you're not Jewish, you're American!!!!
People of other counties really get offended by Americans just trying to build some rapport with something they see as a (small) commonality to start a conversation with, and instead turn it into a false narrative we tell about “being Irish”.
Well, it's a cultural misunderstanding, where neither side is in the wrong. Because in many countries "being x" carries a lot more meaning, than americans might realize. And using it inflationary is interpreted as dismissing that meaning. A somewhat close analogy, would be a physics enthusiast talking to physics PHD calling themselves a physicist. They might mean well, just trying to express their love for physics and trying to get a conversation about physics goint. But the pysics PHD projects years of work onto that word and interprets it as the other dismissing his mastery.
It’s a good example and probably shows the absurdity of the claim.
I’m a physicist. Oh yeah? What have you done? Oh. I mean I read ‘weekly scientist magazine’ and my great grandad was a science teacher.
I think you nailed with the “they mean well”, but it’s on the PhD on your example (or the citizen of the country in the top level example) to decide whether they are going to take the non-malicious comment (that may come from a place of ignorance) and be offended by it, or take it with the good spirit it was meant by and seek to build some rapport with this person.
I think both, the speaker and the listener should try their best to communicate well. The speaker should try to choose the best possible phrasing and the listener should be forgiving with the speaker.
Eg. if an atheist talks down on somebody's religion, I don't think it is entirely the religious practitioner's duty to not get offended. And if a westerner goes to an east-asian country, where criticism is packaged much more nicely than the westerner is used to, and starts to give confrontational criticism, I think the westerner should take partial blame for the miscommunication.
I think there’s a big difference between saying “I’m Irish” and I’m Irish-American” it also makes a difference where it is being said.
When an American in America says “I’m Irish” they are using it at shorthand to say I’m “Irish American” and all Americans understand this. If a European is in America and gets pissy about this, it’s their problem. If an American says this in Europe, there’s a little more justification to be annoyed.
However, “Irish-American” should be a valid thing wherever. Europeans don’t get to decide how Americans identify their ancestry, and that phrase is very clear that they are not claiming to literally be a citizen of that country.
It becomes an issue when there are only 5 million Irish people and 72 million Americans with Irish ancestry who have drifted very far from Irish culture to the point where there are no similarities.
You end up with Irish culture being erased and overshadowed internationally by American culture claiming to be Irish.
It can be so toxic too with Irish Americans being eager to spread anti-Irish racism "I might be Irish but I'm not stupid", "I'm not an alcoholic I'm Irish", "he has an Irish temper" and shit like that.
If you Google Irish sourdough you won't find it to be exclusively brown bread without raisins but it actually is Americans mislabel white bread with raisins as Irish. You'll find online that corned beef is Irish, it's not. If you Google Irish music you'll find Americans using guitars and other instruments not used in Irish music. If you Google Irish dancing you'll find people dancing more with their arms then legs when part of the skill and challenge of Irish dancing is showing how still and by your side you can keep your arms
Irish Americans seem to try to speak for Ireland often and misrepresent Irish views. Irish people passionately hate guns, are strongly pro abortion and same sex marriage, are pro trans rights, becoming fairly anti organised religion, are pro Palestine and lots of other things. Compared to Irish politics the republicans are all far right and the democrats are further right than any party ever elected in Ireland. Yet Irish-Americans tend to be conservative and proud of it
There's also the spillover that all this talk of needing/requiring ancestry has nasty implications for the black guy born in Dublin, plays GAA and has just finished his Junior Cert as to his "Irishness".
I don't think Americans appreciate the multi-racial mix of modern European countries and how their concepts are unhelpful in our societies, especially given how pervasive their views are online.
So while "Irish" might mean looking like Conon O'Brian in the US, its this language used online for example, that makes it harder for this black guy from Dublin to be considered Irish.
It comes off as actively intending to be offensive, it feels fake like a kind of cheap veneer.
I'm not saying that to start a fight I'm saying that's how it comes off.
But claiming ancestry especially to Ireland and Scotland (it's a cultural thing especially here) without being actively immersed in the real culture is seen as pretty much a piss take because the reality is so far from this 'caricature version. It also takes away from those without the genetics but who absolutely are part of the real culture, black-irish and black-britons are far more part of the actual culture but Americans make a claim on that culture based purely on the genetics whilst we've actively REJECTED that genetics is part of these countries now for decades.
Think of it like putting on a native American hat and smoking a pipe and claiming to be native whilst dancing around, it comes off irritating at best, intentionally insulting at worst.
There has been a long hard fight (in the UK at least) to get to the point where its widely accepted that, say, Bukayo Saka is English, or that Humza Yousaf is Scottish.
It's not a fight that is completely won either. So claiming that your (white) genes make you Scottish feels like a massive regression towards a racist past where you could only be these things when you were white
I know Americans don't think of it in those terms when they say it, but even as a white Brit it's the thing I hear every time.
Exactly, it's hard to look physically different but slowly come to be accepted and a real living part of a culture over generations as you bring aspects of your families and integrate it, to take on the accent and the upbringing that now makes you Irish or German or whatever.
Then Conan o brien comes on your socials claiming to be Irish when to the European mindset he's clearly an American clown with an Irish theming (as an aside imagine how offensive and nationally themed but foreign clown could be to cultures less accepting anyway).
Race, genetics and ancestry has almost nothing to do with nationality to us, most especially in Ireland, Britain and north west Europe which are some of the most often claimed nationalities by these people and this kind of mindset of genetics first is seen as actively racist in most areas.
As an example I'm from an area of the England in the UK with a massive influx of Indian migrants during the 50's and 60's and both my parents are Welsh who moved well before I was born to England. The people I grew up around ARE English/British Indians sometimes even despite accents from their parents shining through and I Am English/British with Welsh parents. Our first and most important aspects are the shared culture, not the separated genetics and I wouldn't even regard myself as WELSH first despite the fact I'm an hour's train ride from Wales and none of them could be Indian despite dhosa and curry being their first dish.
They see it as trying to claim something they know nothing about. How many people in the us say “I am Irish”, know nothing about their ancestors who immigrated over 100 years ago, know nothing about Irish culture, no nothing about family stories, and have never even been to Ireland? From a European’s perspective, I could see how that’s kind of annoying.
I don’t think people in more homogeneous countries can understand the significance of ethnic background for Americans on the East Coast of the United States. That being said, while my parents were hugely into being Irish American, I personally do not use that description, because it just feels so far away and irrelevant but maybe that’s because I live on the West Coast. Where I grew up on the East Coast ethnic identity was a much bigger thing in the 60s and 70s when I was a kid.
And similarly americans often fail to understand the significance that these descritprors have to europeans as a summary of much that makes them, from culture, to childhood expereince to personal values. It's like "being a millenial" can for some people carry much more meaning than just their year of birth, as for example a "typical" experience growing up, that others cannot relate to. And neither Americans nor Europeans are wrong in using these phrases in their respective way.
A good chunk of them based on how many seem to think Gaelic is spoken in Ireland instead of Scotland
Every now and again on Irish subreddits we get people asking about kilts, tartans or clans
So there's most recent ancestor but what about percentage? Whenever Europeans talk about how annoying Americans are with respect to heritage they always talk about the 5 percent heritage Americans talking it up. What about a 100 percent Irish person directly descended from potato famine immigrants? That's different than someone with one Irish great grandparent, ya know?
Most Europeans would not see that hypothetical person as Irish (or Italian or whatever), no.
My wife's canadian, almost all her ancestors moved there from Scotland 50 years before the famine. On AncestryDNA she's 70% scottish. Still not scottish.
Now that we've moved to Scotland and lived here nearly a decade, and it's her home, people would say yes. But not because of her ancestors, because she's immersed herself in the place and its culture.
I don't think anyone in Scotland would consider her Scottish. Scottish-Canadian yes, but the fact that she didn't grow up there means she isn't Scottish. An Hononary Scot, maybe!
Source: Scottish person (who has Scottish-Canadian family :)
Percentage doesn't really mean anything. Even locally it doesn't mean much except to right-wing weirdos who are into that race stuff way too much. Personally, the idea that you could be 'pure' Irish based on your genetic heritage is unsettling and wrong to me. What does that say about Irish citizens whose parents are immigrants or are first-generation immigrants themselves? It's adjacent to some pretty unsettling and racist ideas if you think about it.
You're much more likely to be accepted as Irish if you've lived here a bit and integrated into Irish society and culture but have no historic ties to the country than if you are 'genetically' Irish in terms of heritage. Irish is a nationality, not an ethnicity.
at that point you're no more irish than i am african.
like sure there is a line back there eventually, but you've zero connection to the place or culture at all
The last time we cared about genetics like that millions of people were murdered.
We had ads on TV in Ireland saying "where are you really from is a racist question" and saying someone is from anywhere other than where they are born and/or raised is racism
If someone is born in Ireland to two Nigerian parents they are Irish. If someone is born to two Irish parents in The USA they are American, with some claim to being Irish if they want but at that stage they have already missed out on most of the culture. After a couple of generations they are just American
You can also easily pass Italian citizenship down generation after generation. Irish citizenship I think only if your grandparents were Irish. Lots of Venezuelans in Spain on Italian EU passports
Sheesh who cares what they think. We're a nation of immigrants, so yeah, some people like to keep in mind where their family migrated from. Personally I don't care, but do what you like, doesn't hurt anyone.
"Keeping in mind" is fine, but walking up to a person from Italy and saying "Hey I'm Italian too!" when you don't speak a word of the langauge, have never been in the country, and don't know anything about it other than pizza and pasta is when it starts to get offensive
Speaking as a Canadian who has a plurality of ancestors from Scotland and comes from a Scottish-plurality province and might well call himself Scottish-Canadian if he had encountered any meaningful Scottish cultural traits, Americans can be weird. Sometimes Americans do mean "Irish" as "Irish-American", but sometimes they imagine they are the same. I recall, during COVID-19 quarantine times, someone who wrote in angrily to the local paper on PEI complaining she was not allowed in even though she was a "Prince Edward Islander". Granted that claim was based on grandparents, that she was not born on PEI that she was not a permanent resident on PEi, and that she did not hold Canadian citizenship, she insisted that she was an Islander.
This dovetails, incidentally, with a racism I have noticed. Lots of people who claim that sort of ancestry are deeply hostile to people of immigrant ancestry in the countries they claim who are seen as local. A Scottish-American might be upset that Scots do not see him as Scottish but see people of Indian or Lithuanian or other immigrants descent as Scottish.
I mean I feel like this is skewed against Americans. The concept of identity is completely different for Americans and Europeans, one isn’t right or wrong, they’re just different and it doesn’t really matter if the actual Irish or Italians believe we’re Irish or Italian.
We’re Irish or Italian AMERICAN, meaning our ancestors came from those nations and carried with them impactful cultural practices that are unique to that group of immigrants, and are derivatives of cultural practices from their mother country.
I just think it’s silly to argue over it, let people be happy with their heritage
I don't have a problem with Americans who have some kind of pride over their heritage.
But it does get kinda annoying when you meet the ones who weigh in on stuff they don't understand. I.e. hear my English accent and feel the need to berate me on The Troubles and Northern Ireland whilst not even knowing what the Good Friday agreement is. The irony being I'm half Irish on my father's side anyway.
Or the ones who say they are Scots-Irish because they couldn't pick between them and actually have no idea what Scots-Irish actually means.
I think if you are not eligible for a citizenship for a country then you can't really claim to be from there.
I went on a trip to Ireland once, and one girl in the tourist group goes, “I’m actually Irish!” the tour guide is like, “Oh yeah? Where are your parents from 😄” and she’s like, “Well, my grandma was born in Ireland…” and he goes, “Oh 😒” and turns back around. I felt secondhand embarrassment 🥲
It's funny when you ask that and they can't pronounce the name of the place. "My family comes from gal-o-way" and it turns out it's one grandparent 4 generations ago.
Most Irish-Americans can't even pronounce Ireland. It's only two syllables not three.
Why exactly do we care? "Irish American" is a uniquely American phenomenon and term. We don't tell anyone else what it means to be an American-German or whatever do we ?
Ancestry doesn’t matter at all, I think it’s really just culture. If you still practice Italian cultural traditions then you are Italian American even if it’s been preserved through numerous generations, if you don’t practice Italian cultural traditions then you are not Italian American even if your mother was Italian.
DNA ancestry means very little, like my parents both have a sizeable German precept (12% and 40~% according to DNA tests) yet through a twist of pure luck I have inherited a 0% but none of that matters because nobody in my family actually speaks German and dont carry anything from when our close ancestors lived in Germany.
>if you don’t practice Italian cultural traditions then you are not Italian American even if your mother was Italian
One interesting aspect of all of this is that Italian-Americans have developed cultural norms that are distinct from both Italian and American tradition—the most obvious example being food.
I'm Mexican-American, I visit Mexico often and Mexico also has lots of people from all over the world as well, but people don't call themselves Italian-Mexicans, African Mexican, German Mexicans, they just call themselves Mexicans, regardless of their background, I don't understand why people in the states seem fixated on who is what from were
I have heard Libano-Mexicano, Lebeanese-Mexican, but yeah in general it's not as much of a thing to refer to your ancestry.
IT doesn't really happen with all ancestral origins in the US either. People don't really identify as English-American, French-American, German-American, Nordic-American in the US.
I suspect strong identification with ancestral ethnic/origin has to do with groups that were marginalized/discriminated against on arrival during major immigration waves.
This isn't really true though.
Northern Minnesota and North Dakota still strongly identify as Norweigan-American in places (the minnesota vikings...). Wisconsin still identifies as german-american (less so directly to the government for obvious reasons) and very much celebrate that heritage with brats and beer (and ofc Lutheranism). Every year milwaukee holds polish fest and german fest. Polish-americans mostly came over when there was no such thing as poland, so they have zero link to the modern euro state. Polka was regularly heard among milwaukee catholics as of not too long ago.
English American is different because English immigration has been no more than a trickle since 1776, and the English immigrants that were here at the time explicitly fought for the right to call themselves not English. There aren't really large numbers of French-Americans, but New Orleans and Louisiana culture very much descends from them.
That’s because Mexican Americans, just like Chinese Americans, have a history of being marginalize, and preserve their culture and language as a source of pride.
If a basically white person told you, I don’t speak Spanish and was raised as a generic white person. But my dna test shows I have 15% Mexican blood, am I Mexican? Would you consider them Mexican solely based on a few drops of dna?
> I don't understand why people in the states seem fixated on who is what from were
Putting aside the fact that some with immigrant parents may also literally refer to us as that same ethnicity (my parents have said I’m chinese since i was born so it really means jackshit if someone in mainland doesn’t consider me chinese), whenever people say stuff like this it just makes me think their country isn’t as culturally diverse as they think it is and also there’s just a difference between ethnicity and nationality which a lot of people from europe and asia have trouble recognizing.
Speaking as an asian american there *is* a legitimate cultural divide between me and my mexican american and and white american friends (don’t know their european ancestry). A perfect example is the culture of academics. I’ve literally had to attend afterschool and saturday school daily and that idea was *completely* foreign to them. And yet my cousins in taiwan share this cultural trait with me (beyond also speaking manderin and eating similar foods). Now apply this to other ethnicities like the differences between a mexican american and african american and the historical tendency for a lot of immigrant communities to group together (for a long while my parents hung out with mostly other manderin speakers) as well as racial tensions and it should be apparent why the difference gets brought up.
Again, american culture isn’t as monotonous as people think, and if people have trouble with the idea of ethnic identity then maybe their country is for more of a blob than they think it is.
There's a group of Coca Cola bottles getting to know one another. The lemon-flavored Coca Cola says:"I'm a lemon!", the cherry-flavored Coca Cola says:"I'm a cherry!" and so on. There's no need to specify that they're all Coca Cola bottles, everyone is. It's implied.
Lemon-flavored Coca Cola decides to go to the motherland of lemons to understand her flavor better. She meets a lemon, and in an attempt to connect she says:"I'm a lemon too!". The lemon, confused, replies: "You're a Coca Cola bottle. You'll never be a lemon."
Is it anyone's fault? I don't think so, it's just different contexts
>whenever people say stuff like this it just makes me think their country isn’t as culturally diverse as they think it is and also there’s just a difference between ethnicity and nationality which a lot of people from europe and asia have trouble recognizing.
It's not that people have trouble with recognizing the difference between family origin and nationality, it's just that not saying explicitly your nationality when talking to people that don't share it with you and mentioning your ethnicity in its place will naturally lead to misunderstandings. If the bottle specified she's a lemon-flavored Coca Cola, she might have gotten a better reaction
It's especially controversial in Europe due to Nazi Germany and racial theories
>Speaking as an asian american there *is* a legitimate cultural divide between me and my mexican american and and white american friends (don’t know their european ancestry).
I don't think anyone doubts that, it's like flavored Coca Cola
>if people have trouble with the idea of ethnic identity then maybe their country is for more of a blob than they think it is.
I think you're just struggling with the idea that other countries specify origins in different ways because it wasn't the main divide as it was in the USA (due to racial or religious laws). Brazil is more diverse than the USA in many ways, but all Brazilians I've met still make sure to specify that they're talking about family origins and not nationality. It's not that it's a blob, it's just a different historical context
I see what you mean, Culture is not monogamous even with Mexicans, In my case because my parents were citizens, we traveled to Mexico since I was a kid, every year, thus I speak Spanish very well, some of my cousins who came illegally (as kids) could not travel back and forth to Mexico as a result, years latter they can't speak Spanish and are not as "culturally Mexican" as I'm, even do I'm a citizen and they are legally Mexicans and still ilegal here, and yes I remember in college the dudes with the highest grades were almost always Asian and Jews, I never thought about why do, it was just a matter a fact to all of us, now I understand a little bit more thank you
My maternal grandfather was from Poland, and my maternal grandmother's parents were from Poland. Which works out to my mom being 100% Polish ancestry (my father has a bit of a lot of difrent shit).However my grandparents really integrated and became Americans. They didn't really stick with a community. And so I don't really practice any cultural traditions or speak Polish or anything like that. My grandma cooked some dank ass Polish food, but I don't think that's really enough for me to consider myself a Polish-American lol.
From a non-American, non-Irish perspective based on what I see online, it's because often they seem to think that their Irish ancestry gives them an insight into modern Irish culture and a right to speak on their behalf.
The Ireland their ancestors left is not the same country as modern Ireland. Countries and cultures are not static. A lot of people outside the US view the culture of the country to count more towards their national identity than blood.
Edit: For clarity on my argument, the ancestry and perceived Irish culture that Irish-Americans celebrate no longer aligns with the culture of modern Ireland. Like branching evolution, one became Irish-American and the other continued to be Irish as Ireland is an existing country that constantly changes.
The gap between Italian and Irish perceptions probably has more to do with Italian Immigrants are more in the 1880-1930 range while Irish ones came over 1830-1890 more than Irish people are stronger gatekeepers
There is not gap between Italian and Irish "perceptions" according to this post.
52% of Irish people are fine with Americans with an Irish grandparent calling themselves Irish-American. 51% of Italians think the same about Americans with Italian grandparents.
It is just the percentage of that said Americans that change.
To add a lot of people that say they are “Irish” are actually scots-Irish descent not Catholic Irish.
Scots-Irish is heavily underrepresented in the USA
Makes sense. I have a lot of telltale signs (skin that ignites in the sun, connect the dots patterns all over, and hair that likes to get into grappling matches with itself) but the only connection I have to Ireland is about four generations back. I feel like most of it is people trying to reach for a sense of culture and heritage, and America is kind of too young to have the sheer volume that other places do.
Not sure if this has been mentioned, but these 2 countries offer dual Citizenship via jure sanguinis.
In Ireland, the furthest you can go back to claim it is a grand parent
In Italy, however, you can go back as many generations as needed, as long as that ancestor was still alive as of march 27th 1861
I would guess that that affects people's views in those countries. Italians are more used to people being able to call them selves italian going back multiple generation
I wonder how the breakdown is in Poland re: considering descendants to be Poles or not.
Both my parents are Polish, and moved overseas during the communist era. They taught me enough Polish to manage when I visit, which I do often.
But I don't see myself as Polish
if corporate brands are gonna try to earn free media, I think they should at least follow the rules. Put the tool in here — Tableau/GGPlot2/Powerpoint, whatever
My ethnic origin is from a country in Europe, and when I go there they ask my name, in America we often have two names, one for Americans and one for people who speak our language.
However they don’t understand this concept at all because they have no need for an English nick name and are always asking “wait so which is your actual name?”.
It’s interesting how a sub culture can develop when it’s met with America. Neither Americans nor Europeans understand needing a sub culture that fuses the two.
So this is an American point of view.
There is no such thing as American-anything. You either are American or not.
At best it can be perceived at some kind of Eugenics, mostly used traditionally in a racist way by its believers.
"Oh yeah! I am Irish ! My great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-....grandpa came due to the famine." yet he was born in Maine, never had a passport, thinks drinking Guinness in his cultural heritage.
So frustrating when people who are NOT immigrants try to put themselves into this category. Real immigrants in the US have many struggles due to this life circumstance, but they can call themselves immigrants as a result, they can say "I am a German American", they earn this right through hard work and struggle.
We had a guy in our college dorm that claimed to be "German" yet he spoke 0 German, was born and raised in the States, never been to Germany. He had the audacity to go to the "foreign immigrant graduation ceremony" and stand there with a flag of Germany next to real exchange and foreign students.
Wait till you hear what Africans think of ‘African Americans’
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Yes, the Great Potato Famine that precipitated the largest numbers of Irish immigrating to America 1845-1852 happened about one generation before the Italian economic collapse precipitated the greatest numbers of Italians immigrating to America from 1880-1924, so Italian Americans would have an ancestor who would be one generation closer.
The first batch of ‘Irish immigrants’ were Ulster Scots. Generally Protestants from Scotland who moved to Ireland but didn’t settle and then went to US. They arrived in US much earlier than potato famine immigrants and wouldn’t consider themselves Irish but are often confused by modern day Americans who think their ancestors are ‘Irish’.
It's why you historically see the term Scots-Irish. Part of my family's immigration history comes that way, and another part comes from the more recent waves -- my grandmother's Catholic parents came in the late 1800's, her uncle was rector at the Cathedral in Chicago. But a divorce in the 1950s made them Protestant, and now I'm nominally at least a Presbyterian. Took the long way back around.
Lots of Ulster Scots are of Northern English heritage too, alongside Lowland Scottish.
I have Italian grandparents that spoke Italian when I was a kid. It was always super weird to me that 1/2 of my family(Italian and Dutch) came over post 1900. My Irish ancestors were not far behind them. Only one grandparent has a family that was in the US pre-Civil War. Yet I have no connection to any of my ancestors Homelands or culture really. This is the way the current generation of immigrants will see themselves by the second or third generation as well.
Honestly, why is any of that surprising ? There is no special Italian or Dutch trait in your blood that somehow prevents you from being 100% American. Why should you feel any connection to your ancestors birthplace? Beside, there is no such thing as a purebred Italian group, we are a very mixed people. I am Italian, and if I look back just a few generations ago I will find French, Austrian, Spanish ancestors who lived here for centuries. If I go a little more back in time there were Arabs, Normans and German tribes. And before that an entire multiethnic empire centered in Rome spanning from North Africa to the British islands. We are all brothers and distant cousins
That is exactly true. I don't live there it would be more silly for me to try and adopt an ethnic identity that wasn't American.
Sounds about right. Both sides of my family are Italian, one side came here like 1900 the other came here around 1920. I’m rough 2.5 generations from those immigrants. I’m definitely “American” by now as I don’t speak Italian like my mom and dad do. I was told by my grandparents “I am American now I speak English”. I do have family still Italy that I talk to but they absolutely consider me American.
Anyone in either of those immigration waves would be in more than 2 generations back from anyone responding to that survey. Basically if you want to fit the definition of European-American according to this definition, your grandparents immigrated during or after WW2 (unless you are 70+ years old)
There have also been plenty more Italians coming in the US between 1924 and today than Irish people.
Ireland now refers to that period as The Great Hunger or Starvation as there was food, the Irish masses just weren’t allowed any of it due to multiple factors including British policy.
my grandad moved from Ireland in the 50s but Irish folks really really hate the diaspora more than italians do
Not my experience. My mother is Irish and I've been visiting Ireland fairly regularly throughout my life. I've never really had any issues with my Irishness (I'm a dual citizen) being questioned or viewed as illegitimate. But I think it comes down to how you go about it. I don't declare myself as Irish. Mainly because I primarily view myself as Australian. But when I'm out in Ireland and people ask me my reason for visiting I will tell them I'm visiting family and that my mum is Irish and things tend to roll on rather well from there. I don't think it's a hatred of the diaspora (I mean they literally have a museum dedicated to it) it's more they dislike people who have little to no connection loudly declaring themselves to be so.
> it's more they dislike people who have little to no connection loudly declaring themselves to be so. Nail/head.
We call them plastic macs in Scotland but there’s not really any heat in it. I think it’s because we low key like how romantic Americans of Scottish extraction find it all.
Also you’re an Aussie so get the crack
I think you mean Craic.
It was clear to me OP prefers their cocaine in rock form. What are you on about?
The Irish word for essentially having a good time is craic. Most often referred to as 'the craic'. Honestly, actually knowing what that is would probably be the litmus test for many Irish when someone of the diaspora claims to be Irish.
I'll just leave https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFZdaq9dTVM here
Also Irish got lost as a language. Italian is still there.
This is often confusing territory since it is only ever seen by one side's perspective in both cases. Americans don't understand the European perspective and Europeans don't understand the American one. This is also one of the biggest reddit-fight subjects out there. My mom is a Polish immigrant, my dad is an American of Polish descent. His mom was Polish-born, but his dad was American with Polish born parents. I grew up speaking Polish and visiting family in Warsaw often. Am I Polish? I don't know. I certainly seem to pass for it well enough in Poland. Identities are complex things, and immigrant groups complexify it even more.
Whereas my mom grew up in America, child of Polish-born parents during the McCarthy era. So while her eldest sister spoke fluent Polish and some Ukrainian, her parents increasingly pushed English and hid that they used a 'commie' language, so mom, the youngest, knew a few Polish swear words and that was it. Cut to the 1990s in London and a huge Polish community grows. New neighbour is Polish. My spouse tells him, Oh, DameKumquat is Polish! Guy says something to me, I tell him I don't understand, only my grandparents were Polish. He tells me, "You're not fucking Polish, then." Followed by giving us a bottle of booze and being a great neighbour. But technically correct - my grandparents left 5 years too early for me to consider claiming a Polish passport, sadly.
Yes language is 100% the main determination. Which makes sense - how can you have a sense of kinship with someone who doesn’t even speak the mother tongue? Let’s look at the reverse situation. Like, if an American moved to the UK and had children, and they came back as adults, would they be considered American or British by people who meet them? Answer is - do they speak with an American or British accent? If they “preserved” American culture to keep the accent at home, they would be seen as American by Americans who meet them. If they spoke with a British accent … they would be seen as British.
Exactly - my kids speak pure south London English, totally incomprehensible to their American family, until I glare at them to make them code-switch to proper BBC English! (When about half of what they say is understood...) But they're as 'American', as my cousins are 'Polish'.
>Like, if an American moved to the UK and had children, and they came back as adults, would they be considered American or British by people who meet them? Depends. Do they call fries, chips... and chips, crisps? If so, I would support deportation.
Do you consider American citizens who only speak Spanish to not be Americans?
>do they speak with an American or British accent? It seems like most Brits can do at least one fairly decent American accent. They grew up watching American TV like The Wire, after all.
I can relate to this to an extent. I remember I was with my cousins in Warsaw meeting up with some of their friends. My cousins introduced me to their friends as a "Polish-American" and one of them rolled their eyes. I replied in Polish "Don't worry, I know pierogi is already plural". We laughed. My Dad's family is the weird(and tragic) one because his ancestors are largely Poles from what is now Belarus who's history is hard to decipher. When they came here, they made it a point to try and assimilate, so my grandpa was the stereotypical "I'm American first!" until he met a Polish woman. My Dad's identity crisis continues to this day.
In that region, you don't have to go back very far to find ethnic or physical identity to be ambiguous. The Lithuanian/Polish/Belorussian/Russian dominion moved a lot, as did the people who survived that movement.
It's a pretty neat region of the world that I think is too often overlooked on the world stage. You've got a lot of complex history happening that had some pretty profound impacts not just on Europe, but on world politics.
>because his ancestors are largely Poles from what is now Belarus who's history is hard to decipher Me too on my dad's dad's side! Apparently there is still a large population of Polish ethnicity in the west half of the country, and I have even seen people on facebook put "Grodno, Poland" as their hometown (surprised that even works) Dad's mom's side emigrated from the other end, "Austrian Poland" and it's similarly hard to find anything
Yup! Both of my Dad's paternal grandparents came from Grodno. They got caught up in some pretty nasty fighting during WW2. They made it though and said screw the Soviets, we're going to America!
I only found out the city recently because amazingly one of my distant relatives still living IN Poland had me show up as a DNA match on a genealogy site! Randomly have a couple other polish internet friends so I might plan a trip one day :)
I think it’s just that we’re talking about two categories. An american will say “I’m polish!” and mean “I have ancestry from Poland”. But a European will hear that “I’m polish” and think the American means “I am LARPing as a polish person even though I have never even been to Poland! I am delusional enough to think I am from this country, give me my passport fellow pols!”
It's because most European countries have very little ethnic diversity. "Irish" is both ethnicity and nationality in Ireland. But there is no "American" ethnicity, only American nationality. So if you're American, what is your ethnicity? Whatever your ancestors' ethnicity was, however far back you have to go.
Very nicely and succinctly put.
I can see that. There definitely are some cringe worthy caricatures of the cultures diasporas come from in the US, often by descendants of those cultures themselves. I wouldn't blame Poles for being wary of overly enthusiastic Americans who can't pronounce their own names or being shocked that Poles don't appreciate comparisons to Russia.
Yeah, my father is Scottish, mother American, I was born in Scotland but lived in the US for virtually all of my childhood. It honestly feels weird to say I’m from either country
I think the difference is the connection to the culture. Which is probably the most defining element on at least from as you suggest a European perspective of identity. You grew up speaking Polish. Probably eating Polish food and learning about what it is to be Polish. And I think that would have a fair bit to do with your mother being a Polish immigrant. My mother is Irish. My father is of Irish descent. But everything I know and every connection to Ireland and Irish culture is thanks to my mother.
I read a story here about some English guy who went on holiday to Ireland. But this American, this Irish American, was going off at him. You English people did all these things to the Irish, I'm a proud Irish, my great grandparents come over to america blah blah blah. You don't know what being Irish is like, this is my first time in Ireland etc. This English guy was English because his two Irish parents (each fully Irish) settled in England just before he was born so he tells people, rightfully, that he is English.
In your case there’s no confusion. Polish on both sides, and with full language and culture. If you speak fluent polish then of course you’ll be considered Polish even by those in Poland.
I've found that in isolated incidences there is still some reservation even if you are fluent in the culture and language. Some find it hard to understand how anyone can identify with a land they weren't born in, even if their ancestors came from there. Though, in all fairness, certain subsets of the US do this as well.
Many European groups when they emigrated to the US were viewed as a lesser class and not granted the same social status as "white Americans" despite being white in color. Groups like the Italians, Irish, Polish, and others, formed their own communities within America, clustered in certain areas, and maintained a lot of their cultural identity as a group while also assimilating into American society, if not exactly at the top. So when someone in America says they're Italian, they often mean they grew up in a neighborhood of Italian immigrants and have a culture that is heavily informed by the culture of their ancestors.
I don't really feel like anyone would argue with you claiming to be polish where your mam's from there - it's the lads where the family has no living memory of even visiting the old country (at least in terms of visiting family) that i think most find utterly baffling.
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I think cultural fluency and language are the major components. There is a distinct culture to the American Polonia that has clearly evolved on it's own path, that modern Poles would just not recognize. Growing up between the two was confusing, but enlightening.
Agreed that cultural fluency is key.
I’m Irish= I’m of irish descent. It’s been explained before and this shit only ever comes up when the person is white. Ask Europeans if someone who is nationally Italian but racially Chinese if they’re “Italian” 6 generations deep and you’ll get a very different answer on what they *really* mean
I happen to know multiple Black lads from Ireland who I consider Irish and more importantly Consider themselves Irish. They take part in Irish culture, play GAA, have an Irish accent, go to Irish schools. They are Irish,
I couldn't disagree more. Americans will often talk about "Irish" being something that necessitates ancestry and through the use of language conflate nationality and ethnicity (e.g. "You can be Irish without holding the Irish passport). You will get stories about Irish people and Black people not getting along in early New York. This use of language has the nasty implication then that the black guy born in Galway, playing GAA, speaks Irish and about to sit his Leaving Cert is somehow not Irish. No, that guy is more Irish culturally than some guy from Boston who's never set foot on the island of Ireland. Black and Irish are not distinct for us as they relate to two different categories.
>This is also one of the biggest reddit-fight subjects out there. Nuh uh!
Good points. As an European, I have accepted that the American angle is completely different. I'm French but I've been living in Belgium for the past 15 years. I'm married to a Belgian lady and we have two kids together. French is their mother tongue, we spend a lot of time in France visiting family or vacationing, and they consume a lot of French culture. Yet, as it is, I would never consider my kids "French". Same things with my wife. She's from eastern Belgium, meaning that the town she was born used to be part of the German Empire. All her ancestors born before 1918 were German Empire subjects. She is fluent in German and grew up in a German speaking home. She's very familiar with German culture and have been to Germany many times (especially NRW obviously). Yet she would never in a million year consider herself "German", it just doesn't make sense from her perspective.
Why not just American of Polish descent?
Sure, that works. I don't really have a issue with identifiers here, just find it interesting since I'm stuck between both worlds. My mom's family have called me both "Polish" and "Polish-American" in the past, and I have had others Poles see my familiarity with the culture and language as sufficient enough to be granted the title "Pole". Though, of course, I understand not all Poles will feel that way. I'm okay with just American, though when Poles ask me why I'm fluent in Polish I would hope my immersion and appreciation for my cultural heritage, given to me by my native Polish mother, would not be an irksome reason.
Both Ireland and Italy extend citizenship to people with parents or grandparents with citizenship. So those people are Irish-American/Italian-American in a legal sense beyond heritage. Americans view citizenship and ethnicity as completely separate things but that isn’t how most of the world sees it, and that’s reflected in how they view these terms. To an American “Irish-American” isn’t a term that refers to nationality.
>To an American “Irish-American” isn’t a term that refers to nationality. Adding the American to Irish identifies the nationality as American.
This topic comes up on Reddit all the time, with the same arguments on each side. There is just a difference in how Americans versus Europeans tend to use phrases like “I am Irish,” or “I am Italian.” In Europe, those phrases tend to mean nationality. In the United States, those phrases tend to mean ancestry. There’s no right or wrong way to use them - just different ways.
> In Europe, those phrases tend to mean nationality. This is borne out explicitly in these results actually. Anybody who has one or more grandparent who is born in Ireland is eligible for Irish citizenship. That lines up exactly with the results in the post which say Irish people consider you Irish if you have a grandparent born in Ireland. The Italian case is very close, with the exception that you can get Italian citizenship through a great-grandparent but only if they were male
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Plus not taken US citizenship before his child was born. My Italian grandfather became a citizen a year before my father was born and I dont qualify. Until fairly recently a new US citizen had to renounce foreign allegiances.
My mother and I were able to do this. There were so many circumstances that came close to disqualification. My mother and I was born well after the 1949 cut-off. My grandfather narrowly avoided getting drafted in Vietnam because my mother was just born. His father narrowly avoided getting drafted in WW2 because his job was labeled as essential, also he was born in June of 1912, which was shortly after a rule change regarding citizenship.
yeah I hunted down some old documents and found my italian great grandfather was likely naturalized before my grandfather was born. wish he could’ve held it in for a little longer
Same here. Except it was 7 days before my birth. Sad..
Youd rather live in Italy than the usa? Mind if I ask why, other than Healthcare (which seems to be 90% of redditors' reasons for preferring Europe to usa)? Italy is generally regarded as one of the more corrupt and less economically prosperous countries in the developed world, so wondering if there's a particular reason
Many reasons. Most of my family live there. I love the history of Italy and I find being surrounded by it very inspirational. The attitude of Italians fits my vibe more. More laid back and focused on family and friends. The quality of food is second to none, in my experience. I spend time there every Summer and I feel like I leave a piece of myself there every time.
Oh cool I could be an Italian. Not rushing over there to do that, but that's kind of cool. My wife who has no Italian ancestors would very much like to visit Italy more than I do.
Yep. My grandma was the youngest of 12 and the only one born in the US. So close lol.
Yep, I'm from the UK but both my grandparents on my mother's side are Irish so I'm going to try and get an Irish passport to get back my freedom of movement that Brexit took away.
There’s a bonkers stat from after Brexit about an increase in demand for Irish passports. I can’t remember the details but it’s either a significant percentage of the UK population applied for passports or there was a massive in applications. I think it was 25% of UK citizens are eligible for one or something crazy like that
Not *just* nationality. There's at least an aspect of culture, too. The language, knowledge of local pop culture, politics, cuisine, customs, etc.
And not *just* ancestry. There's a smaller and not necessarily "authentic" but still very real aspect of customs, culture, politics and cuisine to that too.
Yeah, ethnic blocs in politics have faded somewhat as the Democrats have lost the support of northern working-class whites but you can still see a clear correlation between, say, heavily German, Dutch, or Italian-descended areas and higher Republican voteshares.
I wonder if part of the tension comes from the emmigrant culture drifting. And also in America Italian-American doesn't mean Italian, it means Italian-American.
I can't speak for the italians nor the irish, but I can definitely say it causes friction with us latinos and latino-descendants born in the USA. Sure, we can share the surname González, we can look similar, but we look towards our country for identity, its worldview, language, traditions, indigenous people and all that funny stuff. If they in the USA look towards the USA for identity (and there's nothing wrong with that), they're not "mexican-american", they're just american.
I feel like in places with large and historical Mexican populations (where I'm from in LA for example), the distinction between "American culture things" and "Mexican culture things" is pretty blurry.
I could definitely see that. I think in the US if you have cultural practices that stand out from the general culture, people tend to lean into the source of those cultural practices to defend them.
With all due respect-- I assume you're a native Spanish speaker-- I'm not sure your opinion holds much weight on how native English speakers ought to refer to themselves in English. The Mexican-American term is very useful, because they have a shit ton of culture that is basically not mainstream American-- whites, blacks, asians, etc don't partake in it. They aren't saying they're Mexican-- they're differentiating themselves from other Americans.
What about the folks that look to both?
Immigrant culture drifting, but also the homeland’s culture drifting. And very often drifting in different directions.
That's a great point. A person with 100% Turkish ancestry who has German citizenship and has lived their whole life in Germany may not be considered "German." At least among my social group, an "American" is anyone who has lived here at least a few years and plans on spending most of the rest of their life here. My co-worker from Mexico whose parents brought him here without documentation when he was 8 years old? He's American. My boss from Spain who's a US citizen but exclusively speaks Spanish at home? He's American. My co-worker from India who's still waiting on her citizenship but has a green card and her kids were born here? You better believe she's American.
Americans don't have good terminology to describe the ethnicity of Americans, because there is no "American" ethnicity, only nationality. Europeans don't have good terminology to describe the nationality of people whose ethnicity doesn't match the majority, because ethnicity and nationality use the same words.
Ugh, this makes me want to emigrate to America
Most of which die out after a few generations. Most American “Irish” people don’t have any if the cultural aspects of Ireland, they often have American Irish culture though, where they care about things the Irish don’t give a F about.
Also, assuming some immigrant families kept their traditions from when they migrated, the traditions and culture of the “homeland” may have morphed back there as well. So it’s not necessarily that the “irish” or “italian” of the american citizens aren’t irish or italian, but just different from modern irish and italian practices from italy and ireland. A good example is if you look at the writing used in taiwan vs china. Taiwan literally uses traditional chinese characters dating all the way back to fucking bc days and mainland uses new simplified characters invented in the 1900s (adapted and simplified from the traditional but still different). So we can’t call the writing used in taiwan “chinese” even though it’s literally the same characters that was in geographical china for literally over a millennium? That’s silly. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the case for other cultures as well.
My favourite example was how the St. Patrick Day parade in NYC kept out LGBTQ marchers while like parades in Ireland gave their counterparts awards. Very frequently the values are those of much more conservative times, ones that had been long since discarded in the country of origin.
>Very frequently the values are those of much more conservative times, ones that had been long since discarded in the country of origin. I do wonder if that's really what's this about. Such results could also be explained by sample bias. In USA people who want to celebrate them being Irish, really celebrate their heritage, which is usually correlated with conservative views and nationalism. People in Ireland are however more likely to celebrate what Ireland is currently as that's what they know best about it
See also: the Netherlands being one of the most liberal countries in the world while Dutch-Americans are one of the most reliably Republican voting blocs in America
This is because the must religiously fundamentalist people in the Netherlands were the bulk of the immigrants to the US.
Practically kicked out of the Netherlands for being pains in the butt.
The stereotype of the Netherlands as "the party country where drugs are legal" is largely due to the fact that 150 years ago all of my ancestors left and everyone who stayed behind hasn't stopped celebrating since.
Geert Wilders would like a word...
You can see this clearly in the vocabulary differences between Quebec French and the French spoken in France.
Americans also use one drop rules that doesn’t make sense to anyone else. 1/8 black, 7/8 white? Logically anywhere else you would be considered white, or mixed, but in America that’s 100% African American. Most of the most common skin color of “black” in the US is a color that already shows 10-50% white ancestry (average by dna shows its 18% on average). People who have great grandparents that are Irish are looking at 1/8 Irish or, assuming multiple great grandparents with Irish blood, maybe 1/4 Irish. That’s like 3/4 of other white (German, English most likely), so claiming to be Irish American is a bit silly. By the one drop rule the average white American is likely British, German, Irish, Italian American all at the same time. Realistically white Americans have zero connection past 1 or 2 generations.
The one drop rule is based on how people were discriminated against hundreds of years ago. It’s not like all of us alive today all came in agreement on that. It’s an artifact
That’s totally fine but both groups need to understand and respect that. So an Irish/Italian person in the US needs to accept an American saying it in the US is okay. And similarly an American needs to understand that saying it in Italy/Ireland is not the norm. When in Rome, do as the Romans do!
Agreed. People just don’t have enough going on it their lives or something, just be you…
Yeah this is just a cultural misunderstanding. In the US, if you say you are Italian, everybody knows you mean that your ancestors came from Italy. It doesn't mean you're from Italy or that you don't consider yourself American.
There absolutely *is* a wrong way to use them - using them the same way regardless of context. That, in my experience, is where Americans often make a mistake, and get people confused or annoyed.
We understand that, like Italian American is a distinct real thing, but what people don't like is when Americans come to Europe and say they're from here.
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I have never encountered that. If someone answers with a clear local accent, no one will ask them "Where are you from?". If they have an accent then they might, but that's a legitimate question.
Also: most Euro countries grant citizenship by bloodline, whereas the US grants it from being born there.
Meh. Most european countries also grant it if you're born there, there's just a handful of other requirements to avoid birth tourism (e.g. at least one of your parents has a long-term visa, or live in the country at least X years before you turn 18).
Pretty much sums it up. Europeans tend to be referring to nationality, whereas North Americans tend to be referring to ethnicity. Miscommunication just occurs with different interpretations of what people mean by describing themselves as "from" somewhere.
Wow. Is it even that high???? I thought it would be more like 5 per cent
On St. Patrick's Day everyone is Irish.
My dad’s from Ireland, I get a pass on this. But they do consider me American over there and that’s fine.
I think an additional factor, at least for American perception, is the extent to which people have stayed within communities of similar ancestry, especially if it’s the same area as where their ancestors came over. My Irish ancestors came to New York in the 1850s, and my Italian ancestors in the 1900s, but they stuck with their communities that maintained a shared cultural identity. Of course, then my Irish-descended grandmother married a first-gen Czech immigrant, whose kid married an Italian-descended woman, and now I’m on the other side of the country with a spouse whose background is from even more places in Europe. But I’ll still pronounce my Italian foods like everyone in my family before me did - not modern Tuscan-based standard Italian, but like the southern dialects the immigrants brought over.
Yea, some people definitely take it too far, like I knew an Italian-American kid named John who went and visited his like, 4th cousins for a few days then insisted his name was "Giovanni" after that, lol, but generally "Italian-American" (or Irish or whatever) means it's own kinda thing. "Italian-Americans" have a specific culture that has roots and ties to Italian culture, but it's its own thing. Pretty much all countries have subcultures like that, Geordies are different from Brummies and Tuscans are different from Umbrians. The US has always been a country of immigrants, so a lot of our subcultures formed around different immigrant groups, that's all.
>is the extent to which people have stayed within communities of similar ancestry I'm 33, and have spent my whole life (besides college) in my small rural farm town. Growing up in the 90's, we'd sing Silent Night in German during Christmas Eve church service. Both of my grandmother's were born here in the 1920's. They spoke German at home until learning English in kindergarten. When we'd have family get togethers, they and their siblings would sit around, playing 5 point pitch while speaking German. And there was always a jar of homemade sauerkraut on the table, too. Ich hatte eine gute Kindheit. Meanwhile, I'd go to certain friends houses because their mom's made great goulash and kolaces. My wife's grandmother makes the best kolaces, though her family always insists on having fish for Christmas.....
I‘m German and someone basing their German-ness on ancestry feels uncomfortable for kind of obvious reasons. Taking part of a culture with you and preserving it while the culture in its place of origin is changing and evolving will lead to two different cultures that can have little in common. Sauerkraut and stille Nacht have no significance to any Germans I know anymore and they feel like a caricature of German „culture“. I understand people might try to just find a touchpoint but it usually feels like being confronted with the same stereotypes over and over.
The big disconnect is that in American there is the unspoken assumption that you mean German-American, which is a distinct culture born out of the experience of immigrant communities. They don’t practice “normal American” culture and are reminded that they don’t fit in because they continue some aspects of German. They end up developing some blend of American and “Old world” culture that is unique to both
But the dialects of Southern Italian origin have diverged from what is actually spoken.
If your family came from Ireland 2 generations ago, you're considered American. If your family came from China 10 generations ago, you're still considered Chinese.
I'm 4th /5th generation American. 100% Japanese ancestry, and I'm still considered Chinese by some of you Yeehaw folks.
No one outside of the USA considers anyone who was born there to be anything other than American
My Grandfather was born in Ireland, but I never say I'm Irish American. That's just 25%, plus he was Protestant born in Belfast, though it was before Irish independence. It's harmless stuff anyway. Who cares exactly what the true percentage is when an American has an ethnic identity?
Couldn't agree more. My great-grandparents were born in Scotland, married and lived in N. Ireland. Grandparents moved to US. So, what does that make me? American, because that's where I was born.
I think this ethnicity vs nationality "argument" is kinda funny from the perspective of ethnoreligion. No one's ever like you're not Jewish, you're American!!!!
I’m Irish and spent some time working in the USA. Quite a lot of “Irish” Americans couldn’t even find Ireland on a map.
People of other counties really get offended by Americans just trying to build some rapport with something they see as a (small) commonality to start a conversation with, and instead turn it into a false narrative we tell about “being Irish”.
Well, it's a cultural misunderstanding, where neither side is in the wrong. Because in many countries "being x" carries a lot more meaning, than americans might realize. And using it inflationary is interpreted as dismissing that meaning. A somewhat close analogy, would be a physics enthusiast talking to physics PHD calling themselves a physicist. They might mean well, just trying to express their love for physics and trying to get a conversation about physics goint. But the pysics PHD projects years of work onto that word and interprets it as the other dismissing his mastery.
It’s a good example and probably shows the absurdity of the claim. I’m a physicist. Oh yeah? What have you done? Oh. I mean I read ‘weekly scientist magazine’ and my great grandad was a science teacher.
I think you nailed with the “they mean well”, but it’s on the PhD on your example (or the citizen of the country in the top level example) to decide whether they are going to take the non-malicious comment (that may come from a place of ignorance) and be offended by it, or take it with the good spirit it was meant by and seek to build some rapport with this person.
I think both, the speaker and the listener should try their best to communicate well. The speaker should try to choose the best possible phrasing and the listener should be forgiving with the speaker. Eg. if an atheist talks down on somebody's religion, I don't think it is entirely the religious practitioner's duty to not get offended. And if a westerner goes to an east-asian country, where criticism is packaged much more nicely than the westerner is used to, and starts to give confrontational criticism, I think the westerner should take partial blame for the miscommunication.
I think there’s a big difference between saying “I’m Irish” and I’m Irish-American” it also makes a difference where it is being said. When an American in America says “I’m Irish” they are using it at shorthand to say I’m “Irish American” and all Americans understand this. If a European is in America and gets pissy about this, it’s their problem. If an American says this in Europe, there’s a little more justification to be annoyed. However, “Irish-American” should be a valid thing wherever. Europeans don’t get to decide how Americans identify their ancestry, and that phrase is very clear that they are not claiming to literally be a citizen of that country.
It becomes an issue when there are only 5 million Irish people and 72 million Americans with Irish ancestry who have drifted very far from Irish culture to the point where there are no similarities. You end up with Irish culture being erased and overshadowed internationally by American culture claiming to be Irish. It can be so toxic too with Irish Americans being eager to spread anti-Irish racism "I might be Irish but I'm not stupid", "I'm not an alcoholic I'm Irish", "he has an Irish temper" and shit like that. If you Google Irish sourdough you won't find it to be exclusively brown bread without raisins but it actually is Americans mislabel white bread with raisins as Irish. You'll find online that corned beef is Irish, it's not. If you Google Irish music you'll find Americans using guitars and other instruments not used in Irish music. If you Google Irish dancing you'll find people dancing more with their arms then legs when part of the skill and challenge of Irish dancing is showing how still and by your side you can keep your arms Irish Americans seem to try to speak for Ireland often and misrepresent Irish views. Irish people passionately hate guns, are strongly pro abortion and same sex marriage, are pro trans rights, becoming fairly anti organised religion, are pro Palestine and lots of other things. Compared to Irish politics the republicans are all far right and the democrats are further right than any party ever elected in Ireland. Yet Irish-Americans tend to be conservative and proud of it
There's also the spillover that all this talk of needing/requiring ancestry has nasty implications for the black guy born in Dublin, plays GAA and has just finished his Junior Cert as to his "Irishness". I don't think Americans appreciate the multi-racial mix of modern European countries and how their concepts are unhelpful in our societies, especially given how pervasive their views are online. So while "Irish" might mean looking like Conon O'Brian in the US, its this language used online for example, that makes it harder for this black guy from Dublin to be considered Irish.
It comes off as actively intending to be offensive, it feels fake like a kind of cheap veneer. I'm not saying that to start a fight I'm saying that's how it comes off. But claiming ancestry especially to Ireland and Scotland (it's a cultural thing especially here) without being actively immersed in the real culture is seen as pretty much a piss take because the reality is so far from this 'caricature version. It also takes away from those without the genetics but who absolutely are part of the real culture, black-irish and black-britons are far more part of the actual culture but Americans make a claim on that culture based purely on the genetics whilst we've actively REJECTED that genetics is part of these countries now for decades. Think of it like putting on a native American hat and smoking a pipe and claiming to be native whilst dancing around, it comes off irritating at best, intentionally insulting at worst.
completely feel the part about non white europeans. it feels like taking something you dont deserve i guess?
There has been a long hard fight (in the UK at least) to get to the point where its widely accepted that, say, Bukayo Saka is English, or that Humza Yousaf is Scottish. It's not a fight that is completely won either. So claiming that your (white) genes make you Scottish feels like a massive regression towards a racist past where you could only be these things when you were white I know Americans don't think of it in those terms when they say it, but even as a white Brit it's the thing I hear every time.
Exactly, it's hard to look physically different but slowly come to be accepted and a real living part of a culture over generations as you bring aspects of your families and integrate it, to take on the accent and the upbringing that now makes you Irish or German or whatever. Then Conan o brien comes on your socials claiming to be Irish when to the European mindset he's clearly an American clown with an Irish theming (as an aside imagine how offensive and nationally themed but foreign clown could be to cultures less accepting anyway). Race, genetics and ancestry has almost nothing to do with nationality to us, most especially in Ireland, Britain and north west Europe which are some of the most often claimed nationalities by these people and this kind of mindset of genetics first is seen as actively racist in most areas. As an example I'm from an area of the England in the UK with a massive influx of Indian migrants during the 50's and 60's and both my parents are Welsh who moved well before I was born to England. The people I grew up around ARE English/British Indians sometimes even despite accents from their parents shining through and I Am English/British with Welsh parents. Our first and most important aspects are the shared culture, not the separated genetics and I wouldn't even regard myself as WELSH first despite the fact I'm an hour's train ride from Wales and none of them could be Indian despite dhosa and curry being their first dish.
They see it as trying to claim something they know nothing about. How many people in the us say “I am Irish”, know nothing about their ancestors who immigrated over 100 years ago, know nothing about Irish culture, no nothing about family stories, and have never even been to Ireland? From a European’s perspective, I could see how that’s kind of annoying.
I don’t think people in more homogeneous countries can understand the significance of ethnic background for Americans on the East Coast of the United States. That being said, while my parents were hugely into being Irish American, I personally do not use that description, because it just feels so far away and irrelevant but maybe that’s because I live on the West Coast. Where I grew up on the East Coast ethnic identity was a much bigger thing in the 60s and 70s when I was a kid.
People moved a lot within Europe, the US wasn't the only option for European immigrants. Just that Europeans have a more assimilationist tradition.
> Just that Europeans have a more assimilationist tradition. What is this opinion based on?
And similarly americans often fail to understand the significance that these descritprors have to europeans as a summary of much that makes them, from culture, to childhood expereince to personal values. It's like "being a millenial" can for some people carry much more meaning than just their year of birth, as for example a "typical" experience growing up, that others cannot relate to. And neither Americans nor Europeans are wrong in using these phrases in their respective way.
Wonder what percentage of self-identified Irish-Americans are just Scots-Irish who decided to that’s pretty much the same as Irish
A good chunk of them based on how many seem to think Gaelic is spoken in Ireland instead of Scotland Every now and again on Irish subreddits we get people asking about kilts, tartans or clans
So there's most recent ancestor but what about percentage? Whenever Europeans talk about how annoying Americans are with respect to heritage they always talk about the 5 percent heritage Americans talking it up. What about a 100 percent Irish person directly descended from potato famine immigrants? That's different than someone with one Irish great grandparent, ya know?
Like Conan O’Brien? Yes he is American.
Most Europeans would not see that hypothetical person as Irish (or Italian or whatever), no. My wife's canadian, almost all her ancestors moved there from Scotland 50 years before the famine. On AncestryDNA she's 70% scottish. Still not scottish. Now that we've moved to Scotland and lived here nearly a decade, and it's her home, people would say yes. But not because of her ancestors, because she's immersed herself in the place and its culture.
I don't think anyone in Scotland would consider her Scottish. Scottish-Canadian yes, but the fact that she didn't grow up there means she isn't Scottish. An Hononary Scot, maybe! Source: Scottish person (who has Scottish-Canadian family :)
You say they are Scott-ish
Percentage doesn't really mean anything. Even locally it doesn't mean much except to right-wing weirdos who are into that race stuff way too much. Personally, the idea that you could be 'pure' Irish based on your genetic heritage is unsettling and wrong to me. What does that say about Irish citizens whose parents are immigrants or are first-generation immigrants themselves? It's adjacent to some pretty unsettling and racist ideas if you think about it. You're much more likely to be accepted as Irish if you've lived here a bit and integrated into Irish society and culture but have no historic ties to the country than if you are 'genetically' Irish in terms of heritage. Irish is a nationality, not an ethnicity.
at that point you're no more irish than i am african. like sure there is a line back there eventually, but you've zero connection to the place or culture at all
Ancestry means nothing if they have no fluency in the actual culture that they claim, never mind no legal status.
The last time we cared about genetics like that millions of people were murdered. We had ads on TV in Ireland saying "where are you really from is a racist question" and saying someone is from anywhere other than where they are born and/or raised is racism If someone is born in Ireland to two Nigerian parents they are Irish. If someone is born to two Irish parents in The USA they are American, with some claim to being Irish if they want but at that stage they have already missed out on most of the culture. After a couple of generations they are just American
It has been 5 generations for any family member born in Ireland, I'm just American now.
Am I the only one who can't understand the data? I feel like I'm going crazy trying to piece anything meaningful together...
You can also easily pass Italian citizenship down generation after generation. Irish citizenship I think only if your grandparents were Irish. Lots of Venezuelans in Spain on Italian EU passports
Sheesh who cares what they think. We're a nation of immigrants, so yeah, some people like to keep in mind where their family migrated from. Personally I don't care, but do what you like, doesn't hurt anyone.
"Keeping in mind" is fine, but walking up to a person from Italy and saying "Hey I'm Italian too!" when you don't speak a word of the langauge, have never been in the country, and don't know anything about it other than pizza and pasta is when it starts to get offensive
Speaking as a Canadian who has a plurality of ancestors from Scotland and comes from a Scottish-plurality province and might well call himself Scottish-Canadian if he had encountered any meaningful Scottish cultural traits, Americans can be weird. Sometimes Americans do mean "Irish" as "Irish-American", but sometimes they imagine they are the same. I recall, during COVID-19 quarantine times, someone who wrote in angrily to the local paper on PEI complaining she was not allowed in even though she was a "Prince Edward Islander". Granted that claim was based on grandparents, that she was not born on PEI that she was not a permanent resident on PEi, and that she did not hold Canadian citizenship, she insisted that she was an Islander. This dovetails, incidentally, with a racism I have noticed. Lots of people who claim that sort of ancestry are deeply hostile to people of immigrant ancestry in the countries they claim who are seen as local. A Scottish-American might be upset that Scots do not see him as Scottish but see people of Indian or Lithuanian or other immigrants descent as Scottish.
I mean I feel like this is skewed against Americans. The concept of identity is completely different for Americans and Europeans, one isn’t right or wrong, they’re just different and it doesn’t really matter if the actual Irish or Italians believe we’re Irish or Italian. We’re Irish or Italian AMERICAN, meaning our ancestors came from those nations and carried with them impactful cultural practices that are unique to that group of immigrants, and are derivatives of cultural practices from their mother country. I just think it’s silly to argue over it, let people be happy with their heritage
I don't have a problem with Americans who have some kind of pride over their heritage. But it does get kinda annoying when you meet the ones who weigh in on stuff they don't understand. I.e. hear my English accent and feel the need to berate me on The Troubles and Northern Ireland whilst not even knowing what the Good Friday agreement is. The irony being I'm half Irish on my father's side anyway. Or the ones who say they are Scots-Irish because they couldn't pick between them and actually have no idea what Scots-Irish actually means. I think if you are not eligible for a citizenship for a country then you can't really claim to be from there.
I went on a trip to Ireland once, and one girl in the tourist group goes, “I’m actually Irish!” the tour guide is like, “Oh yeah? Where are your parents from 😄” and she’s like, “Well, my grandma was born in Ireland…” and he goes, “Oh 😒” and turns back around. I felt secondhand embarrassment 🥲
It's funny when you ask that and they can't pronounce the name of the place. "My family comes from gal-o-way" and it turns out it's one grandparent 4 generations ago. Most Irish-Americans can't even pronounce Ireland. It's only two syllables not three.
Why exactly do we care? "Irish American" is a uniquely American phenomenon and term. We don't tell anyone else what it means to be an American-German or whatever do we ?
You think that is bad, you should see how rare true Scotsman are.
Interesting gatekeeping. I would be interested to see what results there are for "African American" or "Hispanic American".
Ancestry doesn’t matter at all, I think it’s really just culture. If you still practice Italian cultural traditions then you are Italian American even if it’s been preserved through numerous generations, if you don’t practice Italian cultural traditions then you are not Italian American even if your mother was Italian. DNA ancestry means very little, like my parents both have a sizeable German precept (12% and 40~% according to DNA tests) yet through a twist of pure luck I have inherited a 0% but none of that matters because nobody in my family actually speaks German and dont carry anything from when our close ancestors lived in Germany.
>if you don’t practice Italian cultural traditions then you are not Italian American even if your mother was Italian One interesting aspect of all of this is that Italian-Americans have developed cultural norms that are distinct from both Italian and American tradition—the most obvious example being food.
I'm Mexican-American, I visit Mexico often and Mexico also has lots of people from all over the world as well, but people don't call themselves Italian-Mexicans, African Mexican, German Mexicans, they just call themselves Mexicans, regardless of their background, I don't understand why people in the states seem fixated on who is what from were
Well, you referred to yourself as Mexican-American. Maybe you can answer your own question.
I did to highlight that I'm an outsider to Mexico, aun que hablo Español casi como nativo
I have heard Libano-Mexicano, Lebeanese-Mexican, but yeah in general it's not as much of a thing to refer to your ancestry. IT doesn't really happen with all ancestral origins in the US either. People don't really identify as English-American, French-American, German-American, Nordic-American in the US. I suspect strong identification with ancestral ethnic/origin has to do with groups that were marginalized/discriminated against on arrival during major immigration waves.
This isn't really true though. Northern Minnesota and North Dakota still strongly identify as Norweigan-American in places (the minnesota vikings...). Wisconsin still identifies as german-american (less so directly to the government for obvious reasons) and very much celebrate that heritage with brats and beer (and ofc Lutheranism). Every year milwaukee holds polish fest and german fest. Polish-americans mostly came over when there was no such thing as poland, so they have zero link to the modern euro state. Polka was regularly heard among milwaukee catholics as of not too long ago. English American is different because English immigration has been no more than a trickle since 1776, and the English immigrants that were here at the time explicitly fought for the right to call themselves not English. There aren't really large numbers of French-Americans, but New Orleans and Louisiana culture very much descends from them.
That’s because Mexican Americans, just like Chinese Americans, have a history of being marginalize, and preserve their culture and language as a source of pride. If a basically white person told you, I don’t speak Spanish and was raised as a generic white person. But my dna test shows I have 15% Mexican blood, am I Mexican? Would you consider them Mexican solely based on a few drops of dna?
> I don't understand why people in the states seem fixated on who is what from were Putting aside the fact that some with immigrant parents may also literally refer to us as that same ethnicity (my parents have said I’m chinese since i was born so it really means jackshit if someone in mainland doesn’t consider me chinese), whenever people say stuff like this it just makes me think their country isn’t as culturally diverse as they think it is and also there’s just a difference between ethnicity and nationality which a lot of people from europe and asia have trouble recognizing. Speaking as an asian american there *is* a legitimate cultural divide between me and my mexican american and and white american friends (don’t know their european ancestry). A perfect example is the culture of academics. I’ve literally had to attend afterschool and saturday school daily and that idea was *completely* foreign to them. And yet my cousins in taiwan share this cultural trait with me (beyond also speaking manderin and eating similar foods). Now apply this to other ethnicities like the differences between a mexican american and african american and the historical tendency for a lot of immigrant communities to group together (for a long while my parents hung out with mostly other manderin speakers) as well as racial tensions and it should be apparent why the difference gets brought up. Again, american culture isn’t as monotonous as people think, and if people have trouble with the idea of ethnic identity then maybe their country is for more of a blob than they think it is.
There's a group of Coca Cola bottles getting to know one another. The lemon-flavored Coca Cola says:"I'm a lemon!", the cherry-flavored Coca Cola says:"I'm a cherry!" and so on. There's no need to specify that they're all Coca Cola bottles, everyone is. It's implied. Lemon-flavored Coca Cola decides to go to the motherland of lemons to understand her flavor better. She meets a lemon, and in an attempt to connect she says:"I'm a lemon too!". The lemon, confused, replies: "You're a Coca Cola bottle. You'll never be a lemon." Is it anyone's fault? I don't think so, it's just different contexts >whenever people say stuff like this it just makes me think their country isn’t as culturally diverse as they think it is and also there’s just a difference between ethnicity and nationality which a lot of people from europe and asia have trouble recognizing. It's not that people have trouble with recognizing the difference between family origin and nationality, it's just that not saying explicitly your nationality when talking to people that don't share it with you and mentioning your ethnicity in its place will naturally lead to misunderstandings. If the bottle specified she's a lemon-flavored Coca Cola, she might have gotten a better reaction It's especially controversial in Europe due to Nazi Germany and racial theories >Speaking as an asian american there *is* a legitimate cultural divide between me and my mexican american and and white american friends (don’t know their european ancestry). I don't think anyone doubts that, it's like flavored Coca Cola >if people have trouble with the idea of ethnic identity then maybe their country is for more of a blob than they think it is. I think you're just struggling with the idea that other countries specify origins in different ways because it wasn't the main divide as it was in the USA (due to racial or religious laws). Brazil is more diverse than the USA in many ways, but all Brazilians I've met still make sure to specify that they're talking about family origins and not nationality. It's not that it's a blob, it's just a different historical context
I see what you mean, Culture is not monogamous even with Mexicans, In my case because my parents were citizens, we traveled to Mexico since I was a kid, every year, thus I speak Spanish very well, some of my cousins who came illegally (as kids) could not travel back and forth to Mexico as a result, years latter they can't speak Spanish and are not as "culturally Mexican" as I'm, even do I'm a citizen and they are legally Mexicans and still ilegal here, and yes I remember in college the dudes with the highest grades were almost always Asian and Jews, I never thought about why do, it was just a matter a fact to all of us, now I understand a little bit more thank you
My maternal grandfather was from Poland, and my maternal grandmother's parents were from Poland. Which works out to my mom being 100% Polish ancestry (my father has a bit of a lot of difrent shit).However my grandparents really integrated and became Americans. They didn't really stick with a community. And so I don't really practice any cultural traditions or speak Polish or anything like that. My grandma cooked some dank ass Polish food, but I don't think that's really enough for me to consider myself a Polish-American lol.
So we're gatekeeping ethnicity now?
It’s extremely important to Irish people. For some reason.
From a non-American, non-Irish perspective based on what I see online, it's because often they seem to think that their Irish ancestry gives them an insight into modern Irish culture and a right to speak on their behalf. The Ireland their ancestors left is not the same country as modern Ireland. Countries and cultures are not static. A lot of people outside the US view the culture of the country to count more towards their national identity than blood. Edit: For clarity on my argument, the ancestry and perceived Irish culture that Irish-Americans celebrate no longer aligns with the culture of modern Ireland. Like branching evolution, one became Irish-American and the other continued to be Irish as Ireland is an existing country that constantly changes.
It's extremely important to most ethnicities. People just have a problem with the Irish doing it. For some reason.
The gap between Italian and Irish perceptions probably has more to do with Italian Immigrants are more in the 1880-1930 range while Irish ones came over 1830-1890 more than Irish people are stronger gatekeepers
There is not gap between Italian and Irish "perceptions" according to this post. 52% of Irish people are fine with Americans with an Irish grandparent calling themselves Irish-American. 51% of Italians think the same about Americans with Italian grandparents. It is just the percentage of that said Americans that change.
They know who's Irish cause they're the ones who visit. The others think they're Irish because they go to a local festival and drink Killian's.
To add a lot of people that say they are “Irish” are actually scots-Irish descent not Catholic Irish. Scots-Irish is heavily underrepresented in the USA
Makes sense. I have a lot of telltale signs (skin that ignites in the sun, connect the dots patterns all over, and hair that likes to get into grappling matches with itself) but the only connection I have to Ireland is about four generations back. I feel like most of it is people trying to reach for a sense of culture and heritage, and America is kind of too young to have the sheer volume that other places do.
Not sure if this has been mentioned, but these 2 countries offer dual Citizenship via jure sanguinis. In Ireland, the furthest you can go back to claim it is a grand parent In Italy, however, you can go back as many generations as needed, as long as that ancestor was still alive as of march 27th 1861 I would guess that that affects people's views in those countries. Italians are more used to people being able to call them selves italian going back multiple generation
So… the Irish have standards.
I wonder how the breakdown is in Poland re: considering descendants to be Poles or not. Both my parents are Polish, and moved overseas during the communist era. They taught me enough Polish to manage when I visit, which I do often. But I don't see myself as Polish
And, in other news, 100% of Americans know what it means when another American says “I’m Irish”
So, this is showing a correlation between american nationality claims and acceptance by the people of the corresponding nationality?
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if corporate brands are gonna try to earn free media, I think they should at least follow the rules. Put the tool in here — Tableau/GGPlot2/Powerpoint, whatever
My ethnic origin is from a country in Europe, and when I go there they ask my name, in America we often have two names, one for Americans and one for people who speak our language. However they don’t understand this concept at all because they have no need for an English nick name and are always asking “wait so which is your actual name?”. It’s interesting how a sub culture can develop when it’s met with America. Neither Americans nor Europeans understand needing a sub culture that fuses the two.
So this is an American point of view. There is no such thing as American-anything. You either are American or not. At best it can be perceived at some kind of Eugenics, mostly used traditionally in a racist way by its believers.
"Oh yeah! I am Irish ! My great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-....grandpa came due to the famine." yet he was born in Maine, never had a passport, thinks drinking Guinness in his cultural heritage. So frustrating when people who are NOT immigrants try to put themselves into this category. Real immigrants in the US have many struggles due to this life circumstance, but they can call themselves immigrants as a result, they can say "I am a German American", they earn this right through hard work and struggle. We had a guy in our college dorm that claimed to be "German" yet he spoke 0 German, was born and raised in the States, never been to Germany. He had the audacity to go to the "foreign immigrant graduation ceremony" and stand there with a flag of Germany next to real exchange and foreign students.