Colonised Countries and Ancestral Heritage

[Nuadu]

Hi guys,

This is a question form Americans, Canadians, Australians, Kiwi's or the people of any colonised country whos family backgrounds come from many different cultures. Ive been wondering how people choose a specific background to make a part of their sense of identity.

For example how does an italian-american that has Norweigan, Irish and French people aswell choose to self identify as 'Italian' over the rest?

Its not a criticism just a question. Im curious because it doesnt work like that here, everyone is Irish regardless of skintone, background or place of birth once they embrace the Irish culture. Our places have different histories and different cultures so I dont understand how it works.

[Élistariel]

I'm American of English, Scottish, Irish, probably Welsh, French and German heritage. There's more European in there if you go further back. I forget what though.
I don't identify with any of them really. I only know what I am from research. I'm southern. As in the southeastern United States. My ancestors weren't very good at keeping with tradition or passing along information about their own families. My granny, my greatgrandmother doesn't even know what her grandparents' names were.
Sometime I wish my family kept up with such things, to have... I guess the best word for it is a cultural identity to help me identify with my ancestors more, but oh well. Southern will have to do. (No, not redneck or country, :lol: )

I guess if I had to choose one over the other I'd choose either: English, Scottish or German. Those are the most prominent. Well not the Scottish, I just happen to also have a Scottish last name. (Father's father was adopted. My Scottish blood is a bit further in the past).

[Nuadu]

Thanks for replying Élistariel :D


I'm southern. As in the southeastern United States.

Ah I can relate to that regional identity. Im not Irish as much as I am southerner or a Dubliner. People outside Ireland dont make that distinction often when they say they are Irish, but internally it makes a difference. A person from Carlow wont talk to me unless I tone down my Dublin accent enough for them to not notice. A person from another province is even more biased I suppose we seem more alien to each other and we have a natural inclination to be more comfortable around our own.


I guess if I had to choose one over the other I'd choose either: English, Scottish or German. Those are the most prominent.

How are they more prominant, do other people in your family express that English, Scottish or German heritage in their sense of Identity?

[MonSno_LeeDra]

I was born in Washington, District of Columbia (D.C.) but my families roots are Southern American back to predominately Ireland & Scotland & English. The Irish / Scotish is a little difficult to seperate as it appears they went back and forth.

Heritage wise my family is a mountain family from the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia, an area heavly settled by the Scotish / Irish immigrants. As such they carried forth mostly the heritage and mannerisms of the Scotish / Irish influences upon their heritage.

As such I descend from the Clann OSiochru and the Preston Family that came to Ireland from England. The Clann Morrison and Morris family of Scotland & Ireland. My surname is English but used the "ING" ending to make the "EN" sound which equated to the Scotish influence on the line.

Both the Maternal and Paternal lines originated from the same area's.

I liven in Scotland for 2 years while I was in the military and ran across a number of traditions that were found within my families heritage. Yet to most of them they are descendent from the Irish / Scotish / English families but claim a Southern American heritage.

[Élistariel]

Thanks for replying Élistariel :D



How are they more prominant, do other people in your family express that English, Scottish or German heritage in their sense of Identity?

They're the most recent, that's all. I have the most ancestors from those places. I think I am mostly English. German is up there too, but it's to intermingled, I can't be sure how German I am.
We don't really do anything to identify with it. My little hometown does have an Oktoberfest, but we're goobers and never participate in anything. (Except the rare venture out to a car show, :lol: ) Oh, there is a German restaurant near us, but it's so stinking expensive. As for English, heck I don't even like fish and chips (fries). Uh, I do drink hot tea though. Although the way I drink it would probably knock out a horse. :rollingla:

The Scottish... only in that my last name happens to be of Scottish origin. I have several books on celtic things. I did have a keychain with my surname's coat of arms on it, but it broke a few years back.

[Élistariel]

I was born in Washington, District of Columbia (D.C.) but my families roots are Southern American back to predominately Ireland & Scotland & English. The Irish / Scotish is a little difficult to seperate as it appears they went back and forth.

Heritage wise my family is a mountain family from the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia, an area heavly settled by the Scotish / Irish immigrants. As such they carried forth mostly the heritage and mannerisms of the Scotish / Irish influences upon their heritage.

As such I descend from the Clann OSiochru and the Preston Family that came to Ireland from England. The Clann Morrison and Morris family of Scotland & Ireland. My surname is English but used the "ING" ending to make the "EN" sound which equated to the Scotish influence on the line.

Both the Maternal and Paternal lines originated from the same area's.

I liven in Scotland for 2 years while I was in the military and ran across a number of traditions that were found within my families heritage. Yet to most of them they are descendent from the Irish / Scotish / English families but claim a Southern American heritage.

I was trying to think of traditions, etc that are distinctly Southern American and all I could think of was the New Year's dinner.

I don't know about you, but every New Year's for dinner we have cornbread, turnip greens and black eyed peas. We put a (cleaned) dime into the peas and whoever gets the dime is said to get the most money that year.
I've also heard of using ... oh what is it, some sort of pork product... fatback? My family doesn't like that stuff, so we don't use it.

For some odd reason I really want fried okra now.

[MonSno_LeeDra]

I was trying to think of traditions, etc that are distinctly Southern American and all I could think of was the New Year's dinner.

I recall something like that from my youth. Many now that I recall are tied to the seasons and feasts and such. Sort of like the great dinner when the younger group would gather to meet. Or the grandmother would call the family together, granted my memories is of my great-aunt in that role.

Of coure the idea of the shivery on a wedding night is still seen occasionally.

Saddly for my family many traditions were shattered during the WWII war years as the family scattered to the winds.

I don't know about you, but every New Year's for dinner we have cornbread, turnip greens and black eyed peas. We put a (cleaned) dime into the peas and whoever gets the dime is said to get the most money that year.

I recall sort of a vague memory of the kids digging through a meal looking for a coin, a penny if I recall correctly. I do not recall a specific new years gathering but we had others that seemed to aligned with different dates.

I've also heard of using ... oh what is it, some sort of pork product... fatback? My family doesn't like that stuff, so we don't use it.

OH man does that sound memories through my line. My great-uncle, now deceased, used to speak about his dad in the 1930's always telling him to shut his mouth and eat his fatback. My dad despised the stuff so we never had it but heard plenty of stories about it.

For us one of the bigest would have to be Scrapple. I can hardly remember any breakfast where we did not have that stuff. If we went to grandparents or great aunt / uncles then there was always grits.

For some odd reason I really want fried okra now.

Strange I sit here and recall splinters of things and pieces of meals I hated. I remember a dinner that I despised that I later came to find out was part of a "Robert Burns" dinner. Hagus and blood pudding never could eat either again once I found out what they were.

[Tiberias]

It's a crazily complicated phenomenon, actually. I know people who've spent their lives trying to figure out how people form, shift, and abandon cultural and ethnic identities.

In part, it's a matter of convenience or (often perceived) benefit. If you live in a self-identifying Irish neighborhood in St. Paul or Boston, identifying yourself as Irish-American (whether or not any of your ancestors were from Ireland, which is a whole other issue) can provide you with benefits ranging from a social safety net of organizations and charities with Irish-American affiliations to a better chance of being hired (unofficially, of course). As a result of all of that, people often self-identify with a cultural or ethnic background that has little or nothing to do with the backgrounds of their ancestors (I could count the number of 1/32 "Irish"-Americans I meet proclaiming themselves to be half or full Irish on St. Patrick's day, but it would require the fingers of everyone living in Dublin). On the other hand, fewer people would be eager to express, say, an English-American background in an Argentine immigrant neighborhood, or a Japanese-American background in a Korean-American neighborhood, because those identities would probably carry greater risk than benefit in such an environment.

In other cases, people simply identify with a background that is more recent or prominent in their family's history. For instance, my mother's side of the family is German and Polish if you go back 150 years. My dad's side is Spanish if you go back 30. So I identify as Spanish-American because it's had a much bigger impact on my actual experience (being around the language, food, and worldview of the Spanish rather than German or Polish side). Does that mean my maternal great-grandparents didn't speak German, because I don't really discuss it or identify with it? No, it seems they did. But I never met them, and I have met my paternal great-grandmother, who still speaks to me in Spanish. So I affiliate more strongly with one side than the other not as a matter of reflecting a historical reality but rather a recent state and set of events and experiences.

So, to drastically simplify the entire issue of creating identity, I'd say that for most "Colonies", in the Western world at least, choice of multi-national identities is a result of a combination of the degree to which a particular background directly influences your life and the degree to which the assumption of a particular background provides certain environmentally-dependent social benefits.