Hm, obviously I don’t know why people downvoted, but one guess: “german” is historically someone who speaks the German language (as their mother to gue), and contemporarily someone who holds the German citizenship.
So if neither of those applies to you, but call yourself German, one might assume that you subscribe to the view that there is a German “race” which you consider yourself a part of, which is not a popular view.
That’s why I included the technically part and then clarified that my heritage is German but I am not from there.
This could be a uniquely American thing that I didn’t realize was American but generally (in the US at least) if most of your family tree is from a place, you’re also considered part of that place to some extent.
As an example, someone born in the US who has only lived in the US but both of their parents are from South Korea would still be called Korean in the US. A Korean-American mind you, but you wouldn’t say that that person isn’t Korean.
This applies to literally any location really, including Canada, I’ve just been watching a lot of K-Dramas and so it was the first place that came to mind.
Is this different in other parts of the world? I’d love to learn more.
Maven@lemmy.zip 5 weeks ago
Technically yes but I’ve never been to Germany nor do I speak the language. My family is German though.
nilclass@discuss.tchncs.de 5 weeks ago
Hm, obviously I don’t know why people downvoted, but one guess: “german” is historically someone who speaks the German language (as their mother to gue), and contemporarily someone who holds the German citizenship. So if neither of those applies to you, but call yourself German, one might assume that you subscribe to the view that there is a German “race” which you consider yourself a part of, which is not a popular view.
Maven@lemmy.zip 5 weeks ago
That’s why I included the technically part and then clarified that my heritage is German but I am not from there.
This could be a uniquely American thing that I didn’t realize was American but generally (in the US at least) if most of your family tree is from a place, you’re also considered part of that place to some extent.
As an example, someone born in the US who has only lived in the US but both of their parents are from South Korea would still be called Korean in the US. A Korean-American mind you, but you wouldn’t say that that person isn’t Korean.
This applies to literally any location really, including Canada, I’ve just been watching a lot of K-Dramas and so it was the first place that came to mind.
Is this different in other parts of the world? I’d love to learn more.