Sheilanagig
27-05-2004, 13:29
I guess I'm just voicing a personal pet peeve here when I say that I'm not Irish. I have an irish last name, but that's about as far as it goes, and a great great great grandfather who grew up there and was Irish. I'm not. In fact, I'd say that I'm about as American as you get. Not that I have anything against the Irish, but I was born and raised here, and I can't say I speak gaelic, even a few words of it, and I don't know the culture, except for the bits I get from TV and pop culture. You know, stuff like, "The Irish are funny, poets, lucky, little, green..."
What I'm asking here is a little straw poll. I'd like to know how many of you really believe that people should call themselves by a nationality that they know nothing or next to nothing about. If you've never even been there, and your parents and grandparents haven't been there, can you say you're German? How much of your family can you trace back? How do you know that your great-great-great-great-great grandmother didn't hail from Czechoslovakia before she moved to Italy, and her mother came from Greece?
I don't usually argue the point when someone tells me they're Italian, even when they have an american accent and they were born in Wisconsin, but I'd like to know what you guys think. Is it a legitimate celebration of heritage, or a self-delusion that the actual natives of said country would laugh at?
What I'm asking here is a little straw poll. I'd like to know how many of you really believe that people should call themselves by a nationality that they know nothing or next to nothing about. If you've never even been there, and your parents and grandparents haven't been there, can you say you're German? How much of your family can you trace back? How do you know that your great-great-great-great-great grandmother didn't hail from Czechoslovakia before she moved to Italy, and her mother came from Greece?
I don't usually argue the point when someone tells me they're Italian, even when they have an american accent and they were born in Wisconsin, but I'd like to know what you guys think. Is it a legitimate celebration of heritage, or a self-delusion that the actual natives of said country would laugh at?