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[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.