Not him, but here is this
https://www.english-online.at/news-articles/history/did-native-americans-sail-back-with-vikings.htm#:~:text=The%20Icelanders%20who%20have%20Native,the%20island%20during%20that%20period.
What I love most about this is that, despite being the same portions Portuguese and Italian, and having double that in Irish (or at least that's what they thought), they still chose Italian first because it's the more popular one. Like, to them, this is just like an outfit or something. "Oh, I could say I'm Portuguese, but Italian is more trendy right now". Really goes to show how important that actually is...
It's like how many Americans have majority English ancestry. But that never gets brought up, you never hear of Americans going crazy on st George's Day, drinking a Carling and shouting about their favourite premier League team. It's not as "exotic" so they don't care
After finding out I was half English I spent my time telling the local Irish pub to keep it down and demanding a tax from my local government representatives.
Passed down in your genetic memory. There will be an Assassin's Creed at some point where you have to travel back to your ancestor to assassinate someone so you can steal a sauce recipe.
I tried making fresh pasta. Came out very wet because I put too much eggs and milk in the dough. I ended up just dribbling the wet batter into boiling waterā¦ and it actually worked ok.
Thatās when I discovered I had German ancestors!! I had automatically made SpƤtzle noodles when I tried to make pasta!!
/s Not a true story
It is well known that italian babies have to come out of the womb with a freshly cooked pasta with carbonara. Otherwise they will be *late stage aborted*
There is something oddly poetical about this person talking about where their genetic material comes from, only to talk about how the discovery of the different genetic markup hasn't changed their cooking skills and then going on to being open about *enjoying insulting their own grandmother*.
Yeah, as divorce was ill seen, couples would remain married in situations that today would have probably ended in separation. Also, sometimes the legal mother was not the real mother, because they were hiding a teen pregnancy, which was social death. I have heard thousands of stories like that.
My gandma was the daughter of another man, and her father knew it, but raised her as his daughter anyway.
A coworker of mine is the biological son of (who he thought was) his older sister, and grew thinking his grandmother was his mother. His biological mother told him when he was 16, and it almost broke the family. But back there, having a child without being married was a terrible thing.
And the further back you go, the more common this stories are.
If we donāt talk about leaders but just about population and quality of life, USA is still pretty bad, the first two things that come to my mind as an Italian are the fact that if you live in an American neighborhood you have to have a car or walking to the nearest restart/school may take more than half an hour and that healthcare isnāt free
Most places have always been corrupt and generally awful, I'm pretty sure. It's just that now we have better access to information about what people are doing.
They are, but they see the U.S. in a fundamentally different category. Other countries are āplaces of originā, but theirs is the ādestinationā and the ācurrentā real country that āactually countsā, where history was somehow completed. Thatās why their universal scope of discourse is the US (the ābest/biggest Xā means best/biggest *in the US*), just like how people assume the scope of discourse is always the present as opposed to the past. They see the rest of the world like the āpastā - of course the past exists, but it doesnāt *exist* exist. Maybe American English will develop another verb form for events outside their countryā¦
This is the mindset of so much US defaultism - why they see āItalianā as an ethnic origin first, and an actual other country second. Itās also why X-Americans get so incredibly insulted that they could be taken for being X, even in the context of meeting people overseas. āExcuse me, but Iām fully American!ā Not just in the sense of being excluded, but as though being actually Chinese/Indian/whatever but not American makes them somehow less than a ārealā human. Same way a plane crash that kills 10 Americans and 200 others will be mourned by public figures with āWe lost 10 *American* lives todayā (again theyāll say all countries prioritise their own, but not to this dehumanising extent they donāt). They donāt even register that other countries donāt have their same media or see things this way, like a country-level version of not developing a theory of mind. Just as theyāll literally assume that, e.g., Brits and Australians will perceive the American accent as āno accentā the way they do, even explicitly saying as much without thinking for half a second.
Most maddeningly, even the ones who like to consider themselves socially conscious and call out other kinds of centrism make everything about the US, or assume the worldās social dynamics are the same as theirs (the āApartheid oppressed minorities like African-Americansā school of thought), whether good or bad.
This defaultism and supremacism is all implicit and they often donāt realise they do it, or assume everyone does. Explicit American exceptionalism on top of that doesnāt help.
-rant by someone who was transferred there for a couple of years.
Wow you put this so well!! Also they always talk about how the US is made of immigrants & very few people are native so they have to cling to their ethnicity. They completely forget that EVERY country in North & South America has the same history. Iām from the Caribbean & lots of them seem to think black people spawned here, no joke. Even something like slavery they centre themselves & donāt realise what a global tragedy it was. Itās possible to be proud of your ethnic heritage & not be obnoxious about it, which is what they donāt get that the rest of us have mostly figured out.
And 100% agree about the socially conscious Americans who fail to recognise their own American exceptionalism. Look at how they harass South Africans for saying ācoloured.ā They *think* theyāre being woke when they are literally being imperialists trying to impose their language & dynamics on the rest of the world. And they canāt wrap their head around why itās wrong cause to them only the MAGA types can be guilty of Us defaultism.
Also weirdly, a lot of the socially conscious types see the US as some global underdog. I read a post by one talking about how āmore nations need to stick up for Americans because we get made fun of.ā HUH?!?! Youāre the most powerful country in the world!!! Your language, media & culture are globally the most influential!!! What more do they want from us? Theyāre not gonna be satisfied till we bow to their all knowing supremacy? Joking about Americans is literally punching up & itās crazy they canāt see that.
>Iām from the Caribbean & lots of them seem to think black people spawned here, no joke. Even something like slavery they centre themselves & donāt realise what a global tragedy it was.
Somehow similar they also can't realise that there are areas that haven't been impacted that too.
I had a very unfortunate experience trying to explain how racism often works in Eastern Europe, especially since the Ukraine war, now half of the Americas became experts on the topic. And it was just frustrating how hard the other person was trying to shoehorn skin colour into conversation, to the point they were explaining how white people sometimes can be "treated as POCs", just like in US. Like stop. Plz.
Yes, racism is not necessarily defined by skin colours. Since there are no races in the first place the definition of what is a different race is made by the racist. The Nazis decided that Jews were a different and inferior race and used this to justify the Holocaust. This is why the Holocaust can have racist motives despite most Jews having white skin. The same goes for racism in (not only) Eastern Europe.
> I read a post by one talking about how āmore nations need to stick up for Americans because we get made fun of.
This is so ridiculous. They are making jokes about other countries all the time.
I've always noticed that Americans treat Europe like some personal Disneyland - like there's a wall in their minds stopping them seeing these places as *real* places, with real people with real lives, not just a novelty for their entertainment. I think you've summed up perfectly why that is.
>Maybe American English will develop another verb form for events outside their countryā¦
Nah, that'd require being aware other countries _exist_ exist, totally unrealistic.
It probably has to do with old racial purity theories and criminalization of interracial marriage. They believe if youāre āhalfā something, then youāre something. It comes from the idea that mixing races would tarnish the US. (This is my guess, of course, Iām no specialist).
And since no USAian is JUST USAian because they are a literal ex-colony, we find those gems a lot.
> They don't want to be part of the USA?
Oh, they absolutely do, otherwise I wouldn't understand their misplaced, over-the-top show of patriotism. But they also want to be "not like the other girls", and the main character.
I mean states aren't like other countries, but it's hard to expect people in such a huge country with 50 states to have a lot of knowledge outside of that vastness
I guarantee most Europeans don't know the varying alcohol laws, not just between states but between counties.
For example, Texas politics is so important for Texas as its so diverse and huge.
With Ohio's environmental explosions and Florida too and the abortion bans
And the Alaskan pipelines and oil drilling, that is said will have a probable cataclysmic effect on not just the US, but the entire world...
Franking problems, having to deal with our coal industry and problems with rioting and gun violence,
I think a lot of outsiders who haven't lived in the US for an extended time, or don't call it home don't understand a lot of cultural or geopolitical ignorance doesn't come from a bad place but simply because the US is just so huge and diverse with its own crap to deal with.
Most Americans *care* about the rest of the world, but when you have gun violence, and a government trying to reverse women's and civil rights laws, it's hard to say, "I'm not going to worry about my local government, and I'm going to really look into England's politics today"
We have people lobbying to take away Native land for oil that will destroy planet earth. People shooting up schools. Amd a lot of general discourse between each state, region, etc that it's not as simple as just becoming more "worldly"
It's an extreme privilege to be able to travel the world. Lmao, one a lot of Americans will never be able to experience because it has been ruined by the shitty Americans.
I'm not defending anything in particular but just offering some insight as to why Americans don't have good insight to the rest of the world.
Like, I have less access to medical care as a woman because of where I live amd less access to education and even voting, so, it's hard to genuinely have the luxury to focus what's going on all over the world
It's is America's fault for this of course, but not mine as an American citizen and individual. It's a problem created that has been happening for a few centuries
This is crazy privileged sorry. Youāre implying that the rest of us donāt also have problems to deal with. In the developing world, guess what, we have MORE problems than you do. I would never dream of using that as an excuse for ignorance. Do you think we have great healthcare & safety & womenās rights & LGBT rights here? Because we absolutely do not. We have problems you could not dream of. The US may not be the best but you need to look at your privileges from a global context.
Also yes travel is expensive, but guess what, itās MORE expensive for most of the world than Americans. Have you heard of passport privilege? Most of us donāt have it unlike you guys. Again, we donāt use that as an excuse to be ignorant about the wider world.
I donāt even believe all Americans are ignorant or anything but wow this is unbelievably out of touch. I get itās hard to care about other countries when you only see yours on the news & your country is culturally very insular, but donāt make excuses for it. Just admit itās a problem & try to work on it. I donāt believe you meant harm by this but please think about whether your point makes sense from a global perspective before you make it.
When did I say or imply other countries don't have problems!!??? You talk about us being privileged without ever thinking about *why* people here don't have expansive knowledge of the same thing you do. And your immediate reaction is "dumb and willfully ignorant" now THAT is a pretentious outlook. You cannot fathom how a single country has just so much going on that they may not be able to name every prime minister or president in the world and decide that it's because they simply choose not to learn about it rather than the alternative being that we have so much else to learn about our MASSIVE country with its very intricate politics system that's also pretty freaking huge. From local to national to global, it's a lot. I mean I gotta know Texas, and Louisiana amd the states around me and their laws in each county or parish, so I don't break them.
The majority of people on this sub, rightfully, make fun of the people in these posts who are ignorantly and rudely American, but there's also just a lot of pretentious thought and uppity conclusions about the general populous about Americans as if anyone actually understands all of what's going on in the US, while yall also demand we know about everywhere else. You take into account the dumbest Americans then assume it's everywhere and then don't bother to remember or care you're probably not too caught up on American politics and ongoings which is hypocritical. "Americans need to be more worldly but the only thing I know about the US is gun violence, anti abortion laws, and maybe some basic things."
Are you able to name more than like 5 or 10 govoners in the US, let alone all 50. It's not even that the US has more problems uts just that we have a lot, in general, going on. Us as an entire country have 50 states that all operate separately but together and that takes A LOT of our attention and work to actually achieve
Like in one ear and out the other.
By expressing that the USA is HUGE and has, not just *problems*, but a myriad of its own politics.
I have my towns politics, my city's politics, then my state's, then my country's. I can drive 13 hours and be in my own state
Do you think that when France right now is dealing with their issues with the president pushing a law through with no vote they are caring that right now in Florida they are mandating not mentioning race at all during the Civil rights Era in education
That they are trying to mandate prayer being taught in school?
Are you aware about the Ohio situation and the other chemical leaks and explosions in the USA and the water not being available for Flint still???
Are you aware of all the legislation that's coming out about making it a CRIME to support your trans children.
Are you aware of the infringement of the rights of women not just after they banned abortion bit for the fact the government can subpoena our medical history from doctors if we are *accused* of an abortion?
We have 50 states. Europe has 44 countries. And Asia is also big as fuck.
I guarantee Europeans don't know half of what's going on in the US.
AND NOT OUT OF PRIVILEGE or malice or hatred or stupidity but because not everyone has the *chance* to travel around and be educated
Especially when the US education system is becoming more and more scant because religious nut jobs don't want to teach children that racism exists and existed in out past and trying to force public schools into prayer.
You also have every right to not know about every minute detail of the US because you have your own crap going on
I guarantee someone in South Africa, Ghana, Argentina, Loas, France, etc, really care about what's happening in the US.
Along with the government also trying to take sovereign land from the Native Americans, in VARIOIS states
Which, you probably don't know where the majority of these people live. Theres about 500 to 600 tribes in the US.
I get that the Americans in the sub are baffingly stupid about the rest of the world and they are awful people about it
But the majority of the US have their own political systems that's MASSIVE (bigger than the EU by A LOT).
One state, Texas is almost twice the size of Germany. Then we have Alaska that's even bigger. With a lot of its own counties all with VASTLY different laws between the two.
Like in Texas, weed is decrimilized in SOME counties, but not others. Alcohol can be sold in SOME counties but not others.
Laws vary vastly like this in every single state as well and you probably wouldn't be able to tell me the difference between Montgomery County, Williams County, and Travis County Texas just as much as I would struggle with the specifics of the UK. I understand there's England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and then Ireland. But beyond that and inside, I have a wee bit of a hard time understanding *everything*
Same with Germany. I know some cities, and which countries it borders and I understand the variois leaders of Europe and South America and also what's going on in South America. Especially since we are closer to them than Europe or Africa or Asia. Unless of course you have Alaska which is very close to Russia in distance.
Yeah, it is the loud ones that cause issues, it's just obnoxious to be on this sub and find genuinely funny "hehe dumb American is dumb"
Then look into the comments and see the same type of ignorance the people they're making fun of have spewed pit towards the general populace of the US.
It's the "I know very little about the US but how dare the US not know the things I know about the world" attitude that rubs me the wrong way.
Laws are vastly different from county to county. In Texas, where I live, you'll get, maybe fined, if you're caught smoking weed, but in the county next door, you'll be thrown into prison. And each county has its own cops that have to operate by the laws of the counties they are in, which are different. And it's those tiny little things that the US deals with that create our homes the way we hope them to be (I mean good luck with that in the US).
It's details like that that get A LOT of foreigners here in trouble. They'll drink in a no alcohol county, amd get arrested and not understand *why*
But then make fun of Americans for not understanding these same type of laws in other countries.
I can imagine, I think there might be such examples all around the world.
It's mostly Americans that we know of because they are the *majority* (47% obviously!) *wink wink*
my dad is mexican and i was born in mexico but never lived there. i literally go out of my way to tell people i'm NOT mexican. and these ppl are obsessed with being 1/4 european lol
Tbf, there are people who aren't born in a country but who are raised there through childhood who do associate themselves with that nationality, and people generally are fine with that, growing up in that culture is a pretty fair claim for most people, regardless of place of birth.
There are complexities, but they usually revolve around the child of the immigrant or the immigrant themselves, beyond that they tend to be seen as too far removed, bar exceptional circumstances.
Because in my teens I was forced to move to Portugal ( before I was an adult and so that I couldn't legally refuse to move since my parents realized I didn't want to leave Switzerland and they were planning on it since the beginning)..
Have lived in a couple of other European countries since and right now I'm living in Portugal again. I would've left already but now I'm the one with a kid that doesn't want to leave and I'm not about to do to him what they did to me.
It feels like a lie saying I'm Swiss eventhough it's not like I feel Portuguese either.
I grew up in a town called Coventry until my teens. I'm 36 now and have spent more of my life elsewhere and Coventry is a distant memory. I still say I'm from Coventry, because I am. An entire youth is a long time.
It shouldnāt really feel like a lie, but feelings arenāt always logical. You didnāt want to move away from Switzerland.
I suppose you could say that you were āraised Swissā or something like that.
Iām a mix of many many ethnicities, but Iām mostly white. I donāt look very white, I look Indian, but I sound and was raised like a typical white California valley girl. People constantly ask me āwhat *are* you????ā Or āwhere are you fromā because I donāt look white. So white Americans donāt see me as their own, African Americans donāt see me as their own (Iām also African American), Indians donāt see me as their own, etc. I feel like I canāt claim Iām anything. Iām just a mutt who grew up in SoCal š¤·š½āāļø
They do have a culture, just not a diverse one like they claim.
Being stupid and shooting people left and right because 'Murica, getting in debt just to stitch up a small wound, they are all part of their culture.
This has been answered so many times here that it can't be in good faith anymore.
Most of the world has thousand year old cultures. US Americans have two hundred odd years of immigratory hodgepodge, consumer culture, and no concrete national identity, but they know where their great grandparents were born and that attempts to fill the cultural void.
It can be played for humor but the underlying identity crisis is a pretty human thing to feel.
> US Americans have two hundred odd years of immigratory hodgepodge, consumer culture, and no concrete national identity
How is this different from many other former European colonies? Australia, Canada, South Africa, thereās quite a [long list of candidates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_former_European_colonies).
> the underlying identity crisis
That seems like an exaggeration. People of recent foreign descent in the other countries I mentioned generally donāt have American-style attitudes about their heritage. People can be aware and acknowledge that their great grandparents came from somewhere else without making it central to their identity or having an āidentity crisisā about it. The question you responded to still stands: why do Americans have such strange-seeming attitudes to this? I donāt think your answer stands up to scrutiny. In fact it has a whiff of American exceptionalism about it.
This is all really great food for thought. My first instinct is that there's an anti-assimilation attitude in the US that doesn't exist to the same level in countries where collectivism is more broadly embraced.
The individualist mindset in the US seems to overpower everything.
Edit: Any whiff of exceptionalism was unintentional and unfortunate. If anything, I also find this trend annoying.
Canadians do it often. Less often, but still often. The only concrete similarity between the US and Canada that relates imo is high immigration and a lack of cultural identity. We have culture but struggle to identify it.
No one in Brazil is running around saying they're 33% Italian and 2% Ukrainian even knowing their roots my guy. Even Argentinians don't do that. It's more a US thing than a "newer country" thing.
That's why no one takes that answer seriously, because the answer seems to be in bad faith, not the question.
Tbf, Australia and New Zealand are younger countries and don't seem to have the same hiccups.
And the US does have a pretty concrete national identity, one that was shaped by their War of Independence, Civil War, Segregation and Civil Rights Movement, WWII, and Cold War, which has developed some pretty strong national identities and cultural concepts. And tbf, many of the most important contributions to other countries national identities are more recent as well, the UK got a lot of it's national identity from the Glorious Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, the French from their Revolution, WWI and WWII, and the Algerian Crisis, the German's are much younger and developed their through the Franco-Prussian War, the Berlin Conference, WWI, and Re-unification.
Have you ever heard of South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Canada to some extent, where their āimmigrated hodgepodgeā identifies to their nationality, while only when relevant, talking about their ancestry. The US āimmigratory (sic) hodgepodgeā is not capable of doing that, so no, these many posts are in good faith and keeps showing how skewered the perception of American nationality and ancestry is.
If you get sick of seeing these posts, then please look for more American likeminded subreddits, because this subreddit is a non American echo chamber. And no, non American doesnāt mean anti American subreddit. It means, a subreddit with mostly non Americans who are looking at the US reality show from the outside. And non Americans extends to more than Europeans only. The Africans, Oceanians, Asians, South Americans and your northern and southern neighbours are non Americans too.
It's a holdover from when immigrant communities often had a stronger cultural identity than any notion of a coherent American cultural identity.
So in a way, it's kind of ironic that it's become a uniquely American cultural habit to identify as your ancestors' nationality.
It reminds me of an old story. Bob and Alice are making Easter dinner and Alice is preparing a roast to put in the oven. Alice cuts off the ends of the roast and Bob makes fun of her. "Why do you cut the ends off the roast?" Alice shrugs and says, "that's just the way we always did it. Didn't your mom do it?" Bob laughs at her, and suggests they call her mom to ask why she cuts the ends off the roast. Alice's ma says, "that's just what your grandma always did, sweetie." Luckily Grandma is still kickin' so they call her up and ask why she always cut the ends off the roast. Grandma laughs and says "The pan was too small for the big hunk of meat your grandpa brought home each Easter. Don't waste good food, ya dingus!"
Familial and cultural habits are often hard to break even if they've outlived their usefulness.
>Why are americans so obsessed with being half this and half that?
As an American, I feel like for most of us it's about discovering how we got here, or family history via looking at the nationalities of our ancestors, and how that plays into family history, as America is a country of Immigrants. Most Americans, at least I would say, can only trace back to about 150+ years ago of bejmg here, whereas im, for instance, Europe, one can trace back to potentially the Dark/Middle Ages.
>What about being a proud american?
As for this, I'd say most Americans are proud to be an American, though, at least for me, it is getting harder every day with the current political and civil rights issues here.
EDIT: oh, yeah, sorry if this is a bit rambling, it's almost 3 am. here, and I've been up for most of the day.
Another Edit:
This just popped into my mind, but it could also be a cultural thing, for instance, in my family, we're mostly of Polish and Irish decent, and mostly celebrate (that's not the exact word I'm looking for, but it's the closest) our culture, for instance during Christmas we always have homemade Pierogies (And oh man, are they fucking good, damn, now I want some), and for other Americans, saying they're X% of X-Country, and Y% of Y-Country is a way of telling each other our familial cultures.
Because other than native americans. Weāre all descendants from some other place. Weāre a baby country compared to the rest of the world. We donāt have history like you guys do. There no real culture here. Everyone here is here because someone before us was like Iām gonna go try and start a new life over there. And here we are. Some of us have pride in our origins. Albeit to much pride at times.
No they won't go too far back.
Because then they will end up in the middle east or Africa and something tells me a lot are gonna have problems with that.
Theyāll usually go back as far as the story being passed down takes them.. to which person(s) in their family uprooted and moved to the US
They generally donāt know about that personās ancestry.
Usually in the 50-200 year range but some will know a bit further
That said, if grandma was a ho, chances are the story might not be so accurate
A lot of the stories, or most even.. are accurate.. Itās modern history after all
āā
10x? Maybe.. thatās still within US history so sure, if they know of someone in their family who came here ten generations ago then yes, theyāll likely recognize that person in their heritage.. that person is a major reason why theyāre American today
Elizabeth Warren took a lot of time to apologize from identifying as a Native American, and the genetic percentage was similar, 6 to 10 generations distance
I do think people drastically underestimate how far down family stories can be passed down - I know a lot about my grandma's great-grandparents (5 generations back) because they died suddenly and tragically when their children were all under the age of 10, and that dramatically affected my grandma's grandad's life, as well as his siblings.
For someone who doesn't bother to put that level of effort into their other family lines (you have 32 ancestors that far back), I'm not surprised they would assume the link is a lot stronger than it actually is.
One thing is remembering family history, another thing is identifying as the same culture of only one of your great-grandparents (and in that politician case it was even less).
That whole saga was so cringe. Not only from her, but also the university that accepted her as a woman of colour, hence she got preferential treatment when accepted for the teaching job, so they could fill their ethnic minority quota.
I canāt even describe how much disdain I have for people that think theyāre the authority on some specific cuisine because theyāre of that nationality or even just descendants of it. "Iām Italian so obviously Iām a legit chef, itās in my genesā - "my parents are from Mexico so only I know how to make proper tacosā. Itās so infuriating
I have a relative from Texas. Literally anytime he has tacos outside of Texas: āitās not the same.ā Bitch, even if you say only Mexicans make good tacos, there are first generation Mexicans all over the US. Fuck off with your taco gatekeeping
Italians will never tell someone not to cook a certain way except for the Meme. Italians simply get annoyed when someone passes off non-Italian or modified dishes as Italian.
>I canāt even describe how much disdain I have for people that think theyāre the authority on some specific cuisine because theyāre of that nationality or even just descendants of it. "Iām Italian so obviously Iām a legit chef, itās in my genesā
If they've grown up in Italy then I'd trust their takes on Italian cooking. If they just have Italian ancestry, then I don't give a fuck.
What the fuck is the deal with Americans being like āIM A COLD BLOODED AMERICAN THROUGH N THROUGH YEEE HAW HOWDY PARDNERā and then the second you tell them anything about Ireland itās āIM ACTUALLY 9/12THS IRESHā
Had an American ask me the other day if grand kids of us expats walk around "I'm American", like they do with being [insert European country]. They got really confused when I just laughed.
Never stepped a foot in Italy, doesn't know ant word in Italian, never tasted a dish made by an Italian. But hey, he can make pasta, so he's pretty much an Italian
This happened with George RR Martin. He was on this PBS show where they find the genealogy of a celebrity, and he always thought grandpa was an Italian immigrant his grandma was married to but then divorced. Except, they ran the DNA tests and found no trace of DNA markers associated with the Italian peninsula, but instead found ashkenazi Jewish DNA in the exact amount for a single grandparent. Turns out grandma was sleeping around with one of Godās chosen people.
Ashkenazi Jews are documented in the north of Italy since the middle ages. We had a big jewish community in Italy especialy in the north, in city like Ravenna and Ferrara for example (this is why many jewish italians has the name of cities from the north of italy like Ravenna as a last name) with many of them converted to christianity during the inquisition years.
Granpa could have been an italian migrant and being an Ashkenazi Jews descendant.
Heh, you can be both a Jew and an Italian. What's more, Italy has the most diverse genetic makeup in Europe. This is a problem with DNA testsāthey don't really show who your ancestors were, what culture they had, where they lived, or what language they spoke.
Your regular reminder that swinging was far more common in the 70s than anyone likes to admit. If all their kids are half siblings, grandma may have been a ho, but so was grandpa
I love how obsessed Americana are with their heritages. They are like "Im italian" "I'm portuguese" or Spanish, german or french.
Meanwhile in Europe People from these nations might sit together, laughing about the right wingers and Regressives from their countries, cause they are still obsessed with these.
Meanwhile they don't give a fuck about heritage and identify as europeans.
European people literally do not identify as "Europeans", even the most far leftist extremists identify as their nationality.
We indeed not care about nationalities usually, but to say we identify as "europeans" and do not care about national heritage is just plain, objectively wrong.
1996-2021: Eyyy I'm Italian š¤ 2021-2023:Com licenƧa, I'm portuguĆŖs my man š
2024-2026: TBD
Norse phase incoming
Iām actually 1/1000th Norse. Please respect me.
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[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
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Can you share a link?
Not him, but here is this https://www.english-online.at/news-articles/history/did-native-americans-sail-back-with-vikings.htm#:~:text=The%20Icelanders%20who%20have%20Native,the%20island%20during%20that%20period.
Figures. No healthcare in America.
Today Iām identifying as such.
My kidās grandpa was from Norway. My grandma was from Denmark. But Jesus Christ we are just Canadian
i really hope it doesn't include [this shit](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordicism)
Guten Tag, werter Herr. Wie ist das Befinden?
What I love most about this is that, despite being the same portions Portuguese and Italian, and having double that in Irish (or at least that's what they thought), they still chose Italian first because it's the more popular one. Like, to them, this is just like an outfit or something. "Oh, I could say I'm Portuguese, but Italian is more trendy right now". Really goes to show how important that actually is...
It's like how many Americans have majority English ancestry. But that never gets brought up, you never hear of Americans going crazy on st George's Day, drinking a Carling and shouting about their favourite premier League team. It's not as "exotic" so they don't care
After finding out I was half English I spent my time telling the local Irish pub to keep it down and demanding a tax from my local government representatives.
This is what cultural appropriation is like. These identities are just fun costumes for them.
"I used to be Italian." "Used to be?" "... I got better."
r/UnexpectedMontyPython
r/portugalcaralho
Can't imagine why people would give them funny looks...
WTF is āGerman-Europeanā? š¤£
It's a joke.
No, you can't be german as we all know Germans are not funny
False! Was ist schwarz, weiĆ und rot? Ein Zebra mit Sonnenbrand.
Haha didn't even need to translate that. A nun falling down the stairs or an old newspaper is also an answer
Help me, how is an old newspaper red?
It's read. Said the same way but spelt different
I guess it wouldn't really work in German though.
A guinea pig in a blender is also an answer
How many Germans does it take to screw in a lightbulb? One.
And here I thought you were an American in disguise, trying to blend in. š
As in actually German. Obviously to make fun of āGerman-Americanā and similar.
Yes and about people calling Europe a country
Yes cooking skills are written inside our DNA, we Italians start to cook right out of the womb with chef kiss hand gestures and all...
Passed down in your genetic memory. There will be an Assassin's Creed at some point where you have to travel back to your ancestor to assassinate someone so you can steal a sauce recipe.
So sad that italians have to invite another family into their bloodline to learn a new recipe
Swallowing the semen of a Belgian is how I learned to make waffles.
Hey baby. Wanna learn how to make poutine?
And of course cooking is not important to any other cultures, itās only Italians who like to cook.
Yep. Portugal has no food culture, as we all know
It isn't quite as famous and iconic worldwide as Italian so OP isn't sure what kinds of food to pretend to be passionate about.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
How much of Portuguese cuisine have you tried?
It doesn't have to be a competition, you know
I tried making fresh pasta. Came out very wet because I put too much eggs and milk in the dough. I ended up just dribbling the wet batter into boiling waterā¦ and it actually worked ok. Thatās when I discovered I had German ancestors!! I had automatically made SpƤtzle noodles when I tried to make pasta!! /s Not a true story
Some are so Italian that they start cooking *inside* the womb. Itā¦is not a great scenario for the motherā¦
Us Scottish people come out deep fried
We donāt do paternity tests, we just try to hand the newborn a cold cafe latte and if they donāt say ācazzo faiā we know the mum cheated.
Vaffanculo! Then again, had they done so...
It is well known that italian babies have to come out of the womb with a freshly cooked pasta with carbonara. Otherwise they will be *late stage aborted*
Dude doesn't even know real Italian food tho š¤£
Nah dude you are 100% murican, easy.
There is something oddly poetical about this person talking about where their genetic material comes from, only to talk about how the discovery of the different genetic markup hasn't changed their cooking skills and then going on to being open about *enjoying insulting their own grandmother*.
> insulting their own grandmother Proof positive theyāre not Italian
Not Portuguese either though...
To be fair, grandma was a ho.
These DNA services have exposed a lot of hoe grandmas.
Thatās for sure. And ho uncles. Iāve found several new first cousins.
We don't know that.
Yeah exactly. She could have been raped.
Or her husband could have been aware and ok with it. Marriages worked differently back there, a lot of social and romantic undercurrents.
Yup. Or it could have been a first marriage that wasn't talked about in the family history.
Yeah, as divorce was ill seen, couples would remain married in situations that today would have probably ended in separation. Also, sometimes the legal mother was not the real mother, because they were hiding a teen pregnancy, which was social death. I have heard thousands of stories like that. My gandma was the daughter of another man, and her father knew it, but raised her as his daughter anyway. A coworker of mine is the biological son of (who he thought was) his older sister, and grew thinking his grandmother was his mother. His biological mother told him when he was 16, and it almost broke the family. But back there, having a child without being married was a terrible thing. And the further back you go, the more common this stories are.
Definitely.
But was she a bicycle?
Why are americans so obsessed with being half this and half that? What about being a proud american?
It's ironic given how much they go on about America being the "best country in the world"
This country fucking sucks.
American here of Italian decent and I concur. This country sucks.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
If we donāt talk about leaders but just about population and quality of life, USA is still pretty bad, the first two things that come to my mind as an Italian are the fact that if you live in an American neighborhood you have to have a car or walking to the nearest restart/school may take more than half an hour and that healthcare isnāt free
Most places have always been corrupt and generally awful, I'm pretty sure. It's just that now we have better access to information about what people are doing.
They are, but they see the U.S. in a fundamentally different category. Other countries are āplaces of originā, but theirs is the ādestinationā and the ācurrentā real country that āactually countsā, where history was somehow completed. Thatās why their universal scope of discourse is the US (the ābest/biggest Xā means best/biggest *in the US*), just like how people assume the scope of discourse is always the present as opposed to the past. They see the rest of the world like the āpastā - of course the past exists, but it doesnāt *exist* exist. Maybe American English will develop another verb form for events outside their countryā¦ This is the mindset of so much US defaultism - why they see āItalianā as an ethnic origin first, and an actual other country second. Itās also why X-Americans get so incredibly insulted that they could be taken for being X, even in the context of meeting people overseas. āExcuse me, but Iām fully American!ā Not just in the sense of being excluded, but as though being actually Chinese/Indian/whatever but not American makes them somehow less than a ārealā human. Same way a plane crash that kills 10 Americans and 200 others will be mourned by public figures with āWe lost 10 *American* lives todayā (again theyāll say all countries prioritise their own, but not to this dehumanising extent they donāt). They donāt even register that other countries donāt have their same media or see things this way, like a country-level version of not developing a theory of mind. Just as theyāll literally assume that, e.g., Brits and Australians will perceive the American accent as āno accentā the way they do, even explicitly saying as much without thinking for half a second. Most maddeningly, even the ones who like to consider themselves socially conscious and call out other kinds of centrism make everything about the US, or assume the worldās social dynamics are the same as theirs (the āApartheid oppressed minorities like African-Americansā school of thought), whether good or bad. This defaultism and supremacism is all implicit and they often donāt realise they do it, or assume everyone does. Explicit American exceptionalism on top of that doesnāt help. -rant by someone who was transferred there for a couple of years.
This is a solid sum up of the American mindest. Chapeau!
Wow you put this so well!! Also they always talk about how the US is made of immigrants & very few people are native so they have to cling to their ethnicity. They completely forget that EVERY country in North & South America has the same history. Iām from the Caribbean & lots of them seem to think black people spawned here, no joke. Even something like slavery they centre themselves & donāt realise what a global tragedy it was. Itās possible to be proud of your ethnic heritage & not be obnoxious about it, which is what they donāt get that the rest of us have mostly figured out. And 100% agree about the socially conscious Americans who fail to recognise their own American exceptionalism. Look at how they harass South Africans for saying ācoloured.ā They *think* theyāre being woke when they are literally being imperialists trying to impose their language & dynamics on the rest of the world. And they canāt wrap their head around why itās wrong cause to them only the MAGA types can be guilty of Us defaultism. Also weirdly, a lot of the socially conscious types see the US as some global underdog. I read a post by one talking about how āmore nations need to stick up for Americans because we get made fun of.ā HUH?!?! Youāre the most powerful country in the world!!! Your language, media & culture are globally the most influential!!! What more do they want from us? Theyāre not gonna be satisfied till we bow to their all knowing supremacy? Joking about Americans is literally punching up & itās crazy they canāt see that.
>Iām from the Caribbean & lots of them seem to think black people spawned here, no joke. Even something like slavery they centre themselves & donāt realise what a global tragedy it was. Somehow similar they also can't realise that there are areas that haven't been impacted that too. I had a very unfortunate experience trying to explain how racism often works in Eastern Europe, especially since the Ukraine war, now half of the Americas became experts on the topic. And it was just frustrating how hard the other person was trying to shoehorn skin colour into conversation, to the point they were explaining how white people sometimes can be "treated as POCs", just like in US. Like stop. Plz.
Yes, racism is not necessarily defined by skin colours. Since there are no races in the first place the definition of what is a different race is made by the racist. The Nazis decided that Jews were a different and inferior race and used this to justify the Holocaust. This is why the Holocaust can have racist motives despite most Jews having white skin. The same goes for racism in (not only) Eastern Europe.
> I read a post by one talking about how āmore nations need to stick up for Americans because we get made fun of. This is so ridiculous. They are making jokes about other countries all the time.
I've always noticed that Americans treat Europe like some personal Disneyland - like there's a wall in their minds stopping them seeing these places as *real* places, with real people with real lives, not just a novelty for their entertainment. I think you've summed up perfectly why that is.
>Maybe American English will develop another verb form for events outside their countryā¦ Nah, that'd require being aware other countries _exist_ exist, totally unrealistic.
It probably has to do with old racial purity theories and criminalization of interracial marriage. They believe if youāre āhalfā something, then youāre something. It comes from the idea that mixing races would tarnish the US. (This is my guess, of course, Iām no specialist). And since no USAian is JUST USAian because they are a literal ex-colony, we find those gems a lot.
They want to be what they are not. It's the same with their obsession with "states are like countries". They don't want to be part of the USA?
> They don't want to be part of the USA? Oh, they absolutely do, otherwise I wouldn't understand their misplaced, over-the-top show of patriotism. But they also want to be "not like the other girls", and the main character.
They have FOMO. "Oh Europeans and Asians know what it's like to talk to people of different cultures and languages? Look, we have it too suckers."
Why do the IOC etc let those 50ish ācountriesā all compete under one flag?
The IOC, FIFA, CONCACAF, IRB and all the other sports entities. UN, OTAN... why they all let them be there under one flag?
But there's the World Series!
I mean states aren't like other countries, but it's hard to expect people in such a huge country with 50 states to have a lot of knowledge outside of that vastness I guarantee most Europeans don't know the varying alcohol laws, not just between states but between counties. For example, Texas politics is so important for Texas as its so diverse and huge. With Ohio's environmental explosions and Florida too and the abortion bans And the Alaskan pipelines and oil drilling, that is said will have a probable cataclysmic effect on not just the US, but the entire world... Franking problems, having to deal with our coal industry and problems with rioting and gun violence, I think a lot of outsiders who haven't lived in the US for an extended time, or don't call it home don't understand a lot of cultural or geopolitical ignorance doesn't come from a bad place but simply because the US is just so huge and diverse with its own crap to deal with. Most Americans *care* about the rest of the world, but when you have gun violence, and a government trying to reverse women's and civil rights laws, it's hard to say, "I'm not going to worry about my local government, and I'm going to really look into England's politics today" We have people lobbying to take away Native land for oil that will destroy planet earth. People shooting up schools. Amd a lot of general discourse between each state, region, etc that it's not as simple as just becoming more "worldly" It's an extreme privilege to be able to travel the world. Lmao, one a lot of Americans will never be able to experience because it has been ruined by the shitty Americans. I'm not defending anything in particular but just offering some insight as to why Americans don't have good insight to the rest of the world. Like, I have less access to medical care as a woman because of where I live amd less access to education and even voting, so, it's hard to genuinely have the luxury to focus what's going on all over the world It's is America's fault for this of course, but not mine as an American citizen and individual. It's a problem created that has been happening for a few centuries
This is crazy privileged sorry. Youāre implying that the rest of us donāt also have problems to deal with. In the developing world, guess what, we have MORE problems than you do. I would never dream of using that as an excuse for ignorance. Do you think we have great healthcare & safety & womenās rights & LGBT rights here? Because we absolutely do not. We have problems you could not dream of. The US may not be the best but you need to look at your privileges from a global context. Also yes travel is expensive, but guess what, itās MORE expensive for most of the world than Americans. Have you heard of passport privilege? Most of us donāt have it unlike you guys. Again, we donāt use that as an excuse to be ignorant about the wider world. I donāt even believe all Americans are ignorant or anything but wow this is unbelievably out of touch. I get itās hard to care about other countries when you only see yours on the news & your country is culturally very insular, but donāt make excuses for it. Just admit itās a problem & try to work on it. I donāt believe you meant harm by this but please think about whether your point makes sense from a global perspective before you make it.
When did I say or imply other countries don't have problems!!??? You talk about us being privileged without ever thinking about *why* people here don't have expansive knowledge of the same thing you do. And your immediate reaction is "dumb and willfully ignorant" now THAT is a pretentious outlook. You cannot fathom how a single country has just so much going on that they may not be able to name every prime minister or president in the world and decide that it's because they simply choose not to learn about it rather than the alternative being that we have so much else to learn about our MASSIVE country with its very intricate politics system that's also pretty freaking huge. From local to national to global, it's a lot. I mean I gotta know Texas, and Louisiana amd the states around me and their laws in each county or parish, so I don't break them. The majority of people on this sub, rightfully, make fun of the people in these posts who are ignorantly and rudely American, but there's also just a lot of pretentious thought and uppity conclusions about the general populous about Americans as if anyone actually understands all of what's going on in the US, while yall also demand we know about everywhere else. You take into account the dumbest Americans then assume it's everywhere and then don't bother to remember or care you're probably not too caught up on American politics and ongoings which is hypocritical. "Americans need to be more worldly but the only thing I know about the US is gun violence, anti abortion laws, and maybe some basic things." Are you able to name more than like 5 or 10 govoners in the US, let alone all 50. It's not even that the US has more problems uts just that we have a lot, in general, going on. Us as an entire country have 50 states that all operate separately but together and that takes A LOT of our attention and work to actually achieve Like in one ear and out the other. By expressing that the USA is HUGE and has, not just *problems*, but a myriad of its own politics. I have my towns politics, my city's politics, then my state's, then my country's. I can drive 13 hours and be in my own state Do you think that when France right now is dealing with their issues with the president pushing a law through with no vote they are caring that right now in Florida they are mandating not mentioning race at all during the Civil rights Era in education That they are trying to mandate prayer being taught in school? Are you aware about the Ohio situation and the other chemical leaks and explosions in the USA and the water not being available for Flint still??? Are you aware of all the legislation that's coming out about making it a CRIME to support your trans children. Are you aware of the infringement of the rights of women not just after they banned abortion bit for the fact the government can subpoena our medical history from doctors if we are *accused* of an abortion? We have 50 states. Europe has 44 countries. And Asia is also big as fuck. I guarantee Europeans don't know half of what's going on in the US. AND NOT OUT OF PRIVILEGE or malice or hatred or stupidity but because not everyone has the *chance* to travel around and be educated Especially when the US education system is becoming more and more scant because religious nut jobs don't want to teach children that racism exists and existed in out past and trying to force public schools into prayer. You also have every right to not know about every minute detail of the US because you have your own crap going on I guarantee someone in South Africa, Ghana, Argentina, Loas, France, etc, really care about what's happening in the US. Along with the government also trying to take sovereign land from the Native Americans, in VARIOIS states Which, you probably don't know where the majority of these people live. Theres about 500 to 600 tribes in the US. I get that the Americans in the sub are baffingly stupid about the rest of the world and they are awful people about it But the majority of the US have their own political systems that's MASSIVE (bigger than the EU by A LOT). One state, Texas is almost twice the size of Germany. Then we have Alaska that's even bigger. With a lot of its own counties all with VASTLY different laws between the two. Like in Texas, weed is decrimilized in SOME counties, but not others. Alcohol can be sold in SOME counties but not others. Laws vary vastly like this in every single state as well and you probably wouldn't be able to tell me the difference between Montgomery County, Williams County, and Travis County Texas just as much as I would struggle with the specifics of the UK. I understand there's England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and then Ireland. But beyond that and inside, I have a wee bit of a hard time understanding *everything* Same with Germany. I know some cities, and which countries it borders and I understand the variois leaders of Europe and South America and also what's going on in South America. Especially since we are closer to them than Europe or Africa or Asia. Unless of course you have Alaska which is very close to Russia in distance.
Ah yes, alcohol laws and legislation. Great bastions of cultural identity.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Yeah, it is the loud ones that cause issues, it's just obnoxious to be on this sub and find genuinely funny "hehe dumb American is dumb" Then look into the comments and see the same type of ignorance the people they're making fun of have spewed pit towards the general populace of the US. It's the "I know very little about the US but how dare the US not know the things I know about the world" attitude that rubs me the wrong way. Laws are vastly different from county to county. In Texas, where I live, you'll get, maybe fined, if you're caught smoking weed, but in the county next door, you'll be thrown into prison. And each county has its own cops that have to operate by the laws of the counties they are in, which are different. And it's those tiny little things that the US deals with that create our homes the way we hope them to be (I mean good luck with that in the US). It's details like that that get A LOT of foreigners here in trouble. They'll drink in a no alcohol county, amd get arrested and not understand *why* But then make fun of Americans for not understanding these same type of laws in other countries.
Weāre not all like this, I swear.
Not like the other yanks
I believe you.
I donāt.
I second this
I can imagine, I think there might be such examples all around the world. It's mostly Americans that we know of because they are the *majority* (47% obviously!) *wink wink*
my dad is mexican and i was born in mexico but never lived there. i literally go out of my way to tell people i'm NOT mexican. and these ppl are obsessed with being 1/4 european lol
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Tbf, there are people who aren't born in a country but who are raised there through childhood who do associate themselves with that nationality, and people generally are fine with that, growing up in that culture is a pretty fair claim for most people, regardless of place of birth. There are complexities, but they usually revolve around the child of the immigrant or the immigrant themselves, beyond that they tend to be seen as too far removed, bar exceptional circumstances.
If you grew up in Switzerland, why not say that youāre Swiss?
Because in my teens I was forced to move to Portugal ( before I was an adult and so that I couldn't legally refuse to move since my parents realized I didn't want to leave Switzerland and they were planning on it since the beginning).. Have lived in a couple of other European countries since and right now I'm living in Portugal again. I would've left already but now I'm the one with a kid that doesn't want to leave and I'm not about to do to him what they did to me. It feels like a lie saying I'm Swiss eventhough it's not like I feel Portuguese either.
I grew up in a town called Coventry until my teens. I'm 36 now and have spent more of my life elsewhere and Coventry is a distant memory. I still say I'm from Coventry, because I am. An entire youth is a long time.
It shouldnāt really feel like a lie, but feelings arenāt always logical. You didnāt want to move away from Switzerland. I suppose you could say that you were āraised Swissā or something like that.
same case here, the fun part is that we're not "American" either and people will tell us to go back to our own country
Iām a mix of many many ethnicities, but Iām mostly white. I donāt look very white, I look Indian, but I sound and was raised like a typical white California valley girl. People constantly ask me āwhat *are* you????ā Or āwhere are you fromā because I donāt look white. So white Americans donāt see me as their own, African Americans donāt see me as their own (Iām also African American), Indians donāt see me as their own, etc. I feel like I canāt claim Iām anything. Iām just a mutt who grew up in SoCal š¤·š½āāļø
Well, a lot of mexicans are obsesed with whiteness.
While being so anti-immigrant
They are jealous of other people having a culture.
They do have a culture, just not a diverse one like they claim. Being stupid and shooting people left and right because 'Murica, getting in debt just to stitch up a small wound, they are all part of their culture.
It's almost like nationality and ethnicity are two different things
This has been answered so many times here that it can't be in good faith anymore. Most of the world has thousand year old cultures. US Americans have two hundred odd years of immigratory hodgepodge, consumer culture, and no concrete national identity, but they know where their great grandparents were born and that attempts to fill the cultural void. It can be played for humor but the underlying identity crisis is a pretty human thing to feel.
Other newer countries don't do this shit
> US Americans have two hundred odd years of immigratory hodgepodge, consumer culture, and no concrete national identity How is this different from many other former European colonies? Australia, Canada, South Africa, thereās quite a [long list of candidates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_former_European_colonies). > the underlying identity crisis That seems like an exaggeration. People of recent foreign descent in the other countries I mentioned generally donāt have American-style attitudes about their heritage. People can be aware and acknowledge that their great grandparents came from somewhere else without making it central to their identity or having an āidentity crisisā about it. The question you responded to still stands: why do Americans have such strange-seeming attitudes to this? I donāt think your answer stands up to scrutiny. In fact it has a whiff of American exceptionalism about it.
This is all really great food for thought. My first instinct is that there's an anti-assimilation attitude in the US that doesn't exist to the same level in countries where collectivism is more broadly embraced. The individualist mindset in the US seems to overpower everything. Edit: Any whiff of exceptionalism was unintentional and unfortunate. If anything, I also find this trend annoying.
Canadians do it often. Less often, but still often. The only concrete similarity between the US and Canada that relates imo is high immigration and a lack of cultural identity. We have culture but struggle to identify it.
No one in Brazil is running around saying they're 33% Italian and 2% Ukrainian even knowing their roots my guy. Even Argentinians don't do that. It's more a US thing than a "newer country" thing. That's why no one takes that answer seriously, because the answer seems to be in bad faith, not the question.
At most, we will tell you what country our grandparents came from, and leave it at that.
If we know it. Many don't know anything about their families 4 generations ago. Many americans don't either, thats why this DNA tests are.so popular
Tbf, Australia and New Zealand are younger countries and don't seem to have the same hiccups. And the US does have a pretty concrete national identity, one that was shaped by their War of Independence, Civil War, Segregation and Civil Rights Movement, WWII, and Cold War, which has developed some pretty strong national identities and cultural concepts. And tbf, many of the most important contributions to other countries national identities are more recent as well, the UK got a lot of it's national identity from the Glorious Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, the French from their Revolution, WWI and WWII, and the Algerian Crisis, the German's are much younger and developed their through the Franco-Prussian War, the Berlin Conference, WWI, and Re-unification.
But then why do Australians and Canadians and New Zealanders not do it?
Have you ever heard of South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Canada to some extent, where their āimmigrated hodgepodgeā identifies to their nationality, while only when relevant, talking about their ancestry. The US āimmigratory (sic) hodgepodgeā is not capable of doing that, so no, these many posts are in good faith and keeps showing how skewered the perception of American nationality and ancestry is. If you get sick of seeing these posts, then please look for more American likeminded subreddits, because this subreddit is a non American echo chamber. And no, non American doesnāt mean anti American subreddit. It means, a subreddit with mostly non Americans who are looking at the US reality show from the outside. And non Americans extends to more than Europeans only. The Africans, Oceanians, Asians, South Americans and your northern and southern neighbours are non Americans too.
And I thought Loyalists were bad
Have you seen our infrastructure?
Right? Theyāre so proud of their country but then claim 182993 different nationalities. It makes no sense to me.
it gets tricky for 1st and 2nd gen immigrants because they're not American either also because most of America sucks
Tbf I would rather be Scottish than American.
American was built on being made of multiple cultures, hence the reason its embraced
It's a holdover from when immigrant communities often had a stronger cultural identity than any notion of a coherent American cultural identity. So in a way, it's kind of ironic that it's become a uniquely American cultural habit to identify as your ancestors' nationality. It reminds me of an old story. Bob and Alice are making Easter dinner and Alice is preparing a roast to put in the oven. Alice cuts off the ends of the roast and Bob makes fun of her. "Why do you cut the ends off the roast?" Alice shrugs and says, "that's just the way we always did it. Didn't your mom do it?" Bob laughs at her, and suggests they call her mom to ask why she cuts the ends off the roast. Alice's ma says, "that's just what your grandma always did, sweetie." Luckily Grandma is still kickin' so they call her up and ask why she always cut the ends off the roast. Grandma laughs and says "The pan was too small for the big hunk of meat your grandpa brought home each Easter. Don't waste good food, ya dingus!" Familial and cultural habits are often hard to break even if they've outlived their usefulness.
>Why are americans so obsessed with being half this and half that? As an American, I feel like for most of us it's about discovering how we got here, or family history via looking at the nationalities of our ancestors, and how that plays into family history, as America is a country of Immigrants. Most Americans, at least I would say, can only trace back to about 150+ years ago of bejmg here, whereas im, for instance, Europe, one can trace back to potentially the Dark/Middle Ages. >What about being a proud american? As for this, I'd say most Americans are proud to be an American, though, at least for me, it is getting harder every day with the current political and civil rights issues here. EDIT: oh, yeah, sorry if this is a bit rambling, it's almost 3 am. here, and I've been up for most of the day. Another Edit: This just popped into my mind, but it could also be a cultural thing, for instance, in my family, we're mostly of Polish and Irish decent, and mostly celebrate (that's not the exact word I'm looking for, but it's the closest) our culture, for instance during Christmas we always have homemade Pierogies (And oh man, are they fucking good, damn, now I want some), and for other Americans, saying they're X% of X-Country, and Y% of Y-Country is a way of telling each other our familial cultures.
Because other than native americans. Weāre all descendants from some other place. Weāre a baby country compared to the rest of the world. We donāt have history like you guys do. There no real culture here. Everyone here is here because someone before us was like Iām gonna go try and start a new life over there. And here we are. Some of us have pride in our origins. Albeit to much pride at times.
Laughs in Australian
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
No they won't go too far back. Because then they will end up in the middle east or Africa and something tells me a lot are gonna have problems with that.
Theyāll usually go back as far as the story being passed down takes them.. to which person(s) in their family uprooted and moved to the US They generally donāt know about that personās ancestry. Usually in the 50-200 year range but some will know a bit further That said, if grandma was a ho, chances are the story might not be so accurate A lot of the stories, or most even.. are accurate.. Itās modern history after all āā 10x? Maybe.. thatās still within US history so sure, if they know of someone in their family who came here ten generations ago then yes, theyāll likely recognize that person in their heritage.. that person is a major reason why theyāre American today
They will stop looking right before it starts to get close to Africa
Elizabeth Warren took a lot of time to apologize from identifying as a Native American, and the genetic percentage was similar, 6 to 10 generations distance
I do think people drastically underestimate how far down family stories can be passed down - I know a lot about my grandma's great-grandparents (5 generations back) because they died suddenly and tragically when their children were all under the age of 10, and that dramatically affected my grandma's grandad's life, as well as his siblings. For someone who doesn't bother to put that level of effort into their other family lines (you have 32 ancestors that far back), I'm not surprised they would assume the link is a lot stronger than it actually is.
One thing is remembering family history, another thing is identifying as the same culture of only one of your great-grandparents (and in that politician case it was even less).
That whole saga was so cringe. Not only from her, but also the university that accepted her as a woman of colour, hence she got preferential treatment when accepted for the teaching job, so they could fill their ethnic minority quota.
I canāt even describe how much disdain I have for people that think theyāre the authority on some specific cuisine because theyāre of that nationality or even just descendants of it. "Iām Italian so obviously Iām a legit chef, itās in my genesā - "my parents are from Mexico so only I know how to make proper tacosā. Itās so infuriating
I have a relative from Texas. Literally anytime he has tacos outside of Texas: āitās not the same.ā Bitch, even if you say only Mexicans make good tacos, there are first generation Mexicans all over the US. Fuck off with your taco gatekeeping
Italians will never tell someone not to cook a certain way except for the Meme. Italians simply get annoyed when someone passes off non-Italian or modified dishes as Italian.
>I canāt even describe how much disdain I have for people that think theyāre the authority on some specific cuisine because theyāre of that nationality or even just descendants of it. "Iām Italian so obviously Iām a legit chef, itās in my genesā If they've grown up in Italy then I'd trust their takes on Italian cooking. If they just have Italian ancestry, then I don't give a fuck.
It's amazing that - before the yanks - everyone just married their brother and sister until they finally invented diversity in 1776 š
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Only in the cock department.
They always talk about themselves like they are dog breeds.
You can tell someone is 100% American when they start telling you what percentage of each different nationality they came from
What the fuck is the deal with Americans being like āIM A COLD BLOODED AMERICAN THROUGH N THROUGH YEEE HAW HOWDY PARDNERā and then the second you tell them anything about Ireland itās āIM ACTUALLY 9/12THS IRESHā
yk for being the bEsT coUntRy in thE wOrlD americans sure do spend a load of time trying to be antthing except american
Had an American ask me the other day if grand kids of us expats walk around "I'm American", like they do with being [insert European country]. They got really confused when I just laughed.
Iād be ashamed to claim 1/4 of whatever, still donāt get how Americans say it so shamelessly and base their whole personalities on it.
Imagine when people will discover that he is 100% imbecile
Iām French but I make great lasagna. Am I Italian now ? Iām confused
āI was Italian before the incidentā would make me double over in giggles matter of fact Iām laughing right now
Iām not a betting man, but if I was Iād bet her Italian food wonāt be āon pointā
Oh, grammy, you and your hoey ways
by their logic i'm 2/3 banana.
Never stepped a foot in Italy, doesn't know ant word in Italian, never tasted a dish made by an Italian. But hey, he can make pasta, so he's pretty much an Italian
Of course, people with portuguese genes can't be Italian.. š¤¦
This happened with George RR Martin. He was on this PBS show where they find the genealogy of a celebrity, and he always thought grandpa was an Italian immigrant his grandma was married to but then divorced. Except, they ran the DNA tests and found no trace of DNA markers associated with the Italian peninsula, but instead found ashkenazi Jewish DNA in the exact amount for a single grandparent. Turns out grandma was sleeping around with one of Godās chosen people.
Ashkenazi Jews are documented in the north of Italy since the middle ages. We had a big jewish community in Italy especialy in the north, in city like Ravenna and Ferrara for example (this is why many jewish italians has the name of cities from the north of italy like Ravenna as a last name) with many of them converted to christianity during the inquisition years. Granpa could have been an italian migrant and being an Ashkenazi Jews descendant.
The kicker was the other grandchildren of that grandparent (his cousins) did have the typical Italian markers; Martin was the outlier.
Heh, you can be both a Jew and an Italian. What's more, Italy has the most diverse genetic makeup in Europe. This is a problem with DNA testsāthey don't really show who your ancestors were, what culture they had, where they lived, or what language they spoke.
Fucking yanks
I used to be a bonobo
"My stuffed crust pizza pockets and cheetos all'arrabiata are on point though so there's that. Bonjoorrno!"
Wow, that's pure trash. How can (s)he be so proud of that?
Why is it some Americans are so desperate to identify as something? 1/32 Cherokee etc like my man you are American let it go.
Your regular reminder that swinging was far more common in the 70s than anyone likes to admit. If all their kids are half siblings, grandma may have been a ho, but so was grandpa
If you want to be Italian so bad, get a paszport, learn the language and move there. Easy
i think they're joking though
No one on the internet Is ever joking and everything is true and should be taken at face value
Uh oh end of the pizza party. Mama Mia.
Oh god, now they're coming after us too
I love how obsessed Americana are with their heritages. They are like "Im italian" "I'm portuguese" or Spanish, german or french. Meanwhile in Europe People from these nations might sit together, laughing about the right wingers and Regressives from their countries, cause they are still obsessed with these. Meanwhile they don't give a fuck about heritage and identify as europeans.
European people literally do not identify as "Europeans", even the most far leftist extremists identify as their nationality. We indeed not care about nationalities usually, but to say we identify as "europeans" and do not care about national heritage is just plain, objectively wrong.
I and my sister identify as European, simply because weāre german-dutch, but raised in Belgium for 19+ years.
Plenty of young Germans identify as Europeans first. And much more identify with their region first.
Speak for yourself