I know this is difficult for people in Europe to understand. And they hate it when a US tourist goes to visit x country and says “I’m x”.
We never really had a unifying cultural identity as pretty much everyone was immigrants. (Except of course for Native Americans, but their culture was basically eliminated.)
This is why we have terms like African American or Asian American or Irish American. When a black person moves from Africa to England, they don’t call themselves “African English”, they just call themselves English. A lot of this has to do with the power structure which separates us and the underlying racial hierarchy imposed by the ruling class for two centuries. Most European countries do not have this same level of diversity. And whatever diversity they have, the reasons for it are very different.
I’m Canadian and my parents immigrated here from England before I was born. I have a UK passport as well as a Canadian passport.
I’m not English-Canadian, I’m just Canadian. No one hyphenates in Canada, and you cannot say that Canada has any more unifying cultural heritage than the USA.
I understand the different cultural groups, though factually it’s incorrect. The main issue is Americans coming to their respective country of descent, and portraying themselves as, for example, Dutch. They’re not Dutch whatsoever, their language, customs, culture, and nationality are different. It’s incorrect and frankly pathetic.
I believe the USA would be better off if people would just drop the grouping and start being Americans.
I know this is difficult for people in Europe to understand. And they hate it when a US tourist goes to visit x country and says “I’m x”.
We never really had a unifying cultural identity as pretty much everyone was immigrants. (Except of course for Native Americans, but their culture was basically eliminated.)
This is why we have terms like African American or Asian American or Irish American. When a black person moves from Africa to England, they don’t call themselves “African English”, they just call themselves English. A lot of this has to do with the power structure which separates us and the underlying racial hierarchy imposed by the ruling class for two centuries. Most European countries do not have this same level of diversity. And whatever diversity they have, the reasons for it are very different.
I call BS.
I’m Canadian and my parents immigrated here from England before I was born. I have a UK passport as well as a Canadian passport.
I’m not English-Canadian, I’m just Canadian. No one hyphenates in Canada, and you cannot say that Canada has any more unifying cultural heritage than the USA.
I understand the different cultural groups, though factually it’s incorrect. The main issue is Americans coming to their respective country of descent, and portraying themselves as, for example, Dutch. They’re not Dutch whatsoever, their language, customs, culture, and nationality are different. It’s incorrect and frankly pathetic.
I believe the USA would be better off if people would just drop the grouping and start being Americans.