Americans are prone to doing this because they see Irish/Polish/italian/Greek/whatever as an ethnicity and not just a nationality. It’s like a Jew is Jewish even if they’re atheists who have never gone to temple.
The reason is that “American” isn’t an ethnicity. It’s only a nationality. The US population simply has too much heterogeneity for most to consider themselves as belonging to an ethnic group called “American.” Leaving aside the native Americans, who obviously should have first claim to being called Americans but who also come from a diverse range of cultures, the closest thing to a purely American ethnicity would be the African American population, but that’s because of some very bad reasons.
And as far as there are people who do call themselves ethnic Americans, they’re often white nationalists who you probably wouldn’t want to see anyway.
They’re the people who, when filling out a form asking for their ethnicity, cross out all the options and write in “American.” It’s been many years, but I did read several papers on this issue when I was working with semiotics. It’s a bigger phenomenon in the South (“American by birth, Southern by the grace of god”) and the Midwest.
And I didn’t mean to imply that they were all racists, just that there’s a known correlation that has been studied by sociologists. I also didn’t mean to imply that they’re the only racists. Hell, I’ve been to Boston…
Americans are prone to doing this because they see Irish/Polish/italian/Greek/whatever as an ethnicity and not just a nationality. It’s like a Jew is Jewish even if they’re atheists who have never gone to temple.
The reason is that “American” isn’t an ethnicity. It’s only a nationality. The US population simply has too much heterogeneity for most to consider themselves as belonging to an ethnic group called “American.” Leaving aside the native Americans, who obviously should have first claim to being called Americans but who also come from a diverse range of cultures, the closest thing to a purely American ethnicity would be the African American population, but that’s because of some very bad reasons.
And as far as there are people who do call themselves ethnic Americans, they’re often white nationalists who you probably wouldn’t want to see anyway.
You’ve just put to words something I’ve struggled to express for years. Thank you, I agree with everything you said
Why are they always white nationalists? What is it always that the douche who is loud about his Irish heritage ends up being a racist asshole?
They’re the people who, when filling out a form asking for their ethnicity, cross out all the options and write in “American.” It’s been many years, but I did read several papers on this issue when I was working with semiotics. It’s a bigger phenomenon in the South (“American by birth, Southern by the grace of god”) and the Midwest.
And I didn’t mean to imply that they were all racists, just that there’s a known correlation that has been studied by sociologists. I also didn’t mean to imply that they’re the only racists. Hell, I’ve been to Boston…