Comment on "Sad thing to be, nonsensical thing to want to be" 💔🥀💔🥀

• MBech@feddit.dk ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Sure, but are they really ethnically irish because their great grandfather was from Ireland? At what point do we consider americans to be their own thing?

  It’s not like the irish, italians or the danish are ethnically pure. Some bloke on my fathers side came to Denmark from Germany in the 1800s, and before that, one of his ancestors came from france, and before that from Rome. Same shit on my mothers side.

  My point is, it’s not like european countries are monoethnic. So why don’t we view someone from Texas, as ethnically texan, when their ancestry probably dates back to 1700s Texas?

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  • infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I think you touched on why. Ethnic identity is somewhat arbitrary, and tied up with national / cultural identity. In the US, despite our xenophobic phases most of us culturally identify as a nation of immigrants. So in terms of ethnicity, we’re more concerned with where our lineage existed before arriving in the United States, rather than how long it’s existed in the United States. There’s a bit of a hierarchy of “who’s family has existed in the US the longest”, but all of those claims are still anchored by which nations their ancestors came from.

    There’s also the fact that American genetics haven’t been sedentary long enough - And probably never will be - For us to mix evenly enough to develop a unified physical appearance. Ethnicity is of course not just skin deep, but ethnic identity and identification often uses it as shorthand, and there is as far as I know no stereotypical American ethnic appearance.

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  • joel_feila@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Because qe generally aee ethnic groups as stretching back very far, like pre history far. At some in the future will people be talking about the American erhnic group? Maybe but it take a veey long time or a massive change in what we think of as ethnic groups for American ethnogenesis

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