That's very interesting about ethnic identities in Nova Scotia/the Maritimes. Thank you for telling me about it :-)
I've been thinking a lot about ethnic identities in the U.S. after talking with you about it. There are many neighborhoods/towns/areas where people of a certain ethnic identity group together. People who live in a place like that are likely to marry someone of the same ethnicity and pass the identity down to their children.
And most Americans are descended from 1st, 2nd or 3rd generation Americans (or are 1st generation Americans themselves), and probably have a pretty good idea where their ancestors are from. However, many people have had family cultural traditions handed down, but not community cultural traditions - those have been replaced with general American cultural traditions, if you see what I mean.
If a family has an ethnically mixed heritage, especially if it's been ethnically mixed for generations, its members are likely to know the ethnicity of their ancestors, but not themselves id as anything but American and maybe a macro-ethnicity.
It's considered polite and normal to think of other people as American first, and a macro-ethnicity second, and not pry into their exact ethnicity. And treating others like this all the time probably will accustom you to think of yourself like this as well.
I don't know. It's hard to explain, because you can't explain all Americans as if they were the same, it wouldn't ever make sense. I just know that in America it makes perfect sense to operate with macro-ethnicities, and in Europe is doesn't (though more in some countries than others).
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Re: Here from metafandom - don't have openID
Date: 2009-12-21 03:31 pm (UTC)I've been thinking a lot about ethnic identities in the U.S. after talking with you about it. There are many neighborhoods/towns/areas where people of a certain ethnic identity group together. People who live in a place like that are likely to marry someone of the same ethnicity and pass the identity down to their children.
And most Americans are descended from 1st, 2nd or 3rd generation Americans (or are 1st generation Americans themselves), and probably have a pretty good idea where their ancestors are from. However, many people have had family cultural traditions handed down, but not community cultural traditions - those have been replaced with general American cultural traditions, if you see what I mean.
If a family has an ethnically mixed heritage, especially if it's been ethnically mixed for generations, its members are likely to know the ethnicity of their ancestors, but not themselves id as anything but American and maybe a macro-ethnicity.
It's considered polite and normal to think of other people as American first, and a macro-ethnicity second, and not pry into their exact ethnicity. And treating others like this all the time probably will accustom you to think of yourself like this as well.
I don't know. It's hard to explain, because you can't explain all Americans as if they were the same, it wouldn't ever make sense. I just know that in America it makes perfect sense to operate with macro-ethnicities, and in Europe is doesn't (though more in some countries than others).