Job Discussion Forums

[thelmadatter]

I cant speak for all Americans but I can speak for my own family. When I was growing up in the 1970's in New Jersey, a common question to ask someone you were meeting was "What's your nationality?" That did NOT mean "What is your citizenship?" What it meant was "What is your ethnic heritage?", usually referring to European heritage. Most folks of my generation were 3rd-generation American, meaning that their great-grandparents "came over on the boat" in the late 1800's and early 1900's (as was the case with all of my great-grandparents).

We would refer to ourselves as "Polish," "Italian, " "Russian" etc and in my generation by percentages. So I am 1/2 Polish, 1/4 Norwegian and 1/4 German (well there is a story that I may have a little French blood in me as the paternity of one of my great-grandmothers was in doubt ). We also had the "-American" tag but I remember it being used mostly for names of things like the "Italian-American Club" - not referring to people.

I dont think it has to do with wanted to "return to the old country" (which one would I go to?) but rather to celebrate our family's immigrant experience and how, for many of us, our families have prospered with each new generation. Ethnic background DID, however, affect the food you ate, the holidays you celebrated (to an extent) and what place of worship you went to (we had the Polish church, the German church, the Greek church, etc.)

My son does NOT share this. He grew up an Army brat and in Arizona and his father grew up in Atlanta. No such immigration stories for him as my family and I are estranged. His sense of being American is very different from mine.

[Sekhmet]

Hod - I can see your point (in a way...), but still!!!! Why should someone with an interest in a particular country necessarily want to become a part of it?? I have an interest in Mongolian hill-tribes, but I aint rushing on over there to become one of them...
But for the sake of the thread - so be it...
Talking about obsessions over food, I can't stand Fuul or Felafel. I like most Egyptian food, but those two are just not nice... So just because you like a country, doesn't mean you have to like its food either!!!!
But, I like this thread, so I'm gonna stop picking on you now...

[denise]

I am a mutt-American who would like to go to Europe for no reason other than an interest in traveling to new places, on any continent. (OK, so there are some places that I'd rather see than others, but generally my desire to go to Europe has nothing to do with reconnecting with my roots and everything to do with simply traveling.)

And y'all have real cute accents over there.

I am also curious as to whether or not Roger can see the words "America" or "American" without trashing us! There is nothing clever or unique about America-bashing these days. OK, Usakhastan is moderately clever, but the sentiment behind it is getting really old!

d

[Seth]

a lot of white north americans (if that's the latest PC word to use) are interested in their 'heritage' so they sometimes have an idealised vision of whatever country their ancestors came from. my family is mostly swedish and i even went as far as to try to learn a bit of swedish and was obsessed with ingmar bergman films for a while. never been there but i'd like to visit someday. especially coming from chicago, an immigrant town like new york, a lot of people do this. any american with a polish last name is most likely from chicago. andersonville outside of chicago is a swedish town, some of the old folk still speak the old language. swedish restaurants and bakeries abound. when i was little i likened myself to a viking.

some more liberal minded americans also like europe for the more liberal attitudes they have.

i lived in britain for a while, a few months in london and a several months in scotland. couldn't stand london, scotland was lovely. i found life there wasn't all that different, just more thugs around on football days. all this 'culture' and 'civilisation' i heard about is left in a closet for the tourists to see. daily life was as boring as anywhere.

[Roger]

[desultude]

<<<======= My newly arrived German ancestors. Honestly.


Just the other night one of my students asked me about "American" names. I said that, for the most part, the only true "American" names were either native American (indian) or nicknames. The fact is that most of our names, especially surnames, reveal a European, Latino, Asian, Middle-Eastern, or other heritage.

You only have to see me, tall, broad shouldered, big-boned, to guess that I come from northern European stock. Add in my family name, and you can nail me as stemming from German stock. The German-ness includes a real fondness for sausages, potatoes, sauercraut and beer. This, of course, is not genetic, but it is what I ate in my German-American family as a child. My grandfather brewed his own beer and made killer hot potato salad.

Does "America" have a culture? Of course, but it is one of a thin veneer over a wide variety of other nationality sub-cultures. This, I think, is one of the truly beautiful things about the U.S. I am one of the first and most vociferous critics about the U.S., but there are good things about it, too. In NYC, you can go, within a handful of city blocks, to a wide variety of cultures. In Miami. where I live when I am in the States, this variety of cultures is almost all first generation. Live in Little Haiti, and you will hear Creole and French, and hear roosters crowing on the city streets. Live in Little Havana, and you will see little clusters of people hanging around the outside windows of cafes, drinking coladas and quarta ditos, and gossiping in Cuban tinged Spanish.

This is what I love about the U.S. Yes, there is multi-culturalism in a lot of countries, but in the U.S., it is not a part of the culture- it is the culture. You may say, yes, in the cities, but what about in "middle America"? Middle America is filled with Mexicans, Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Sudanese, amongst other nationalities, not to mention we 2nd and third generation Americans. Sometimes it is a contentious mix, but a surprising amount of accomodation exists, also.

So, on the rare occasion that I say that I am German-American, I am usually trying to identify my little part of the mosaic. And, by the way, it has never occurred to me to try to get German citizenship, or return to the mother-land. First and foremost, I am an individual, and while I don't really want to live in the U.S. these days (another topic) I will most likely end up in Mexico, Central America or Asia.

[BethMac]

I have European ancestry and yes, there are countries I'd like to live in...for a while. Not just any country in Europe, mind you. There are specific ones that interest me for various personal reasons. What's the big deal?

You're going to find a lot of people in this industry (field, whatever) who have nomadic tendencies. That's what drives most of us to get started in ELT in the first place. Relax...the world is a big place. We can share 'our' space with others without being threatened.

[Sadken]

I'm British and would really like to live in America.

Anyone fancy an identity swap?

[ls650]

[JosephP]

ls650,

You're Canadian, right? Man, I know you are not responsible, but I was in Vancouver last weekend and, sheesh, maybe you could bring it up with your government and get some public toilets. Half your downtown smells of urine.

[guest of Japan]

As NYC mayor Bloomberg said a few years ago in regards to NYC getting more public restrooms, "Why do we need more public restrooms when we've got a Starbucks on every corner."

*quote is from memory so it is probably not word for word.

[desultude]

[Ailian]

Coming from a Creole family in Louisiana (Creole: pure bloodline; typically French, Spanish, or African [as pure as that can be considered in the US.... those who aren't mulattes, at least]; usually those who once owned plantations) and being raised in our closed-off, tradition-loving society speaking our old-fashioned French and English, I've always found it funny when people in the US (whom, if they're not Cajun, mulatte, metis, or Indian/Native American, we refer to as Americans) identify themselves as X-American. I could never identify myself as a French-American because it's not what I am: A Creole. I was born and went to school in New Orleans proper, but I spent all of my non-school time upriver in the countryside with the rest of my family. The French I speak with family is quite far removed from that of France; when I do visit my cousins there, our customs and food may be similar, but our mannerisms certainly aren't.

I do have a terrible time identifying myself as an American though, in part because the rest of the non-Louisiana (or, really, the non-Creole-or-Cajun-parts-of-Louisiana) US seems so foreign to me. Whilst a student in Michigan and Massachusetts, I experienced culture shock worse than anything I've ever felt abroad; as Louisiana is a part of the US, I think that I (subconsciously) expected the rest of the US to be like Louisiana when it couldn't be any more different. (Of course, being spoon-fed the whole "Americans tried to kill our language and culture with their fifty-year ban of the French language" story since I was a baby didn't help much either. )

[Seth]

i have a french friend who toured the US and he went to creole territory around lafayette and narlins. he told me about a lot of interesting conversations that he had with the cajuns, mostly revolving around 'true cajuns' and 'anglos who speak creole.'

i find cajun culture to be the most interesting in the US, as well as the best food and music. jazz was created in new orleans, ya know.

[yodetta]

allow me to respond to this question:
i'm a second-generation Swiss/German-American who would like to go to Europe because a.) I've grown totally bored with generic K-Mart/strip-mall landscapes (esp in Kalifornia), b.) the American political system is going rapidly down the toilet (or worse, moving toward something proto-fascist), c.) lesser developed countries don't need more "American influence", and d.) I'd be "going back to my homeland" in cooperation with the indigenous peoples of North and South America who want to take their lands back. Some of this is rather tongue-in-cheek, but I want to travel and would feel more comfortable going to Europe for these reasons. Europe has a western history that Americans cannot fathom...and I want to learn something more of world history than the educational system here offers.

that's why this American wants to go to Europe.

Y