Are you a "White American?"

[Bicoastal]

In other words, someone who has no recollection what country or part of the world their ancestors came from, or more importantly, no sense of connection to any country other than this one? Not Irish, Scotch-Irish, English, Scandinavian, Russian, Albanian, Ashkenazic Jewish, etc. but just plain White?

Personally I've never met anyone who couldn't tell me what their heritage was, but then again, most of my life I've lived in big cities, and cities are usually full of the descendants of immigrants. But apparently they're out there--according to this chart, they mostly live in the Bible Belt.

So how about it? Culturally speaking, are you just plain Vanilla?

[Droopy]

1. White Ohio boy here

Pretty much a mutt. They say my last name is Welsh and that's the only connection that I have to my knowledge.

[elleng]

2. Ashkenaz;

don't know that I've ever met a plain Vanilla, but probably have.

[Drunken Irishman]

3. Na'.

My family has held onto its Irish roots ever since they came over two generations ago.

I'm guessing my great grandkids, however, will be what you describe.

[DemBones DemBones]

4. Outside the Bible Belt, most of the country's German?

That seems weird to me. It's also weird that the entire Bible Belt is either American or African-American since I know how many people here in my state are Hispanic or Asian, not to mention those of us who do know our ancestry beyond "American." Even if we're a minority, shouldn't we be showing up?

Maybe the problem is that it's Wikimedia???

[AllentownJake]

6. Its the most people Identify

I'm half german/half irish. The Germans set up very insular communities that didn't really break up till WW2 so it makes sense that most people would identify as German because the German side of their family is well known.

My Family came here in 1724 and 1760 on my paternal side. My Grandmother spoke german and my grandfather's parents spoke German.

Pretty amazing they retained their language in a mostly english nation for over 175 years

[Bertha Venation]

5. No, I'm a black Russian.

Bah.

I know that some of my anscestors left Walheim, South Russia (now Poland) in 1874. Other than that, yeah, I'm just white.

Fishbelly white, to be exact.

[jeff30997]

7. White American ?

Let me check my avatar...Lol,nope. :P

But seriously I have Scottish,Spanish,French and Native ancestors.

[DarkTirade]

8. Half of my ancestry is nondescript white people as far as I know.

The other half... is made up of people the white man tried to exterminate. 1/4 polish jew, 1/4 native american. Go fig.

[Schema Thing]

9. We don't know the roots of our name.

Past about 1780 or so in Ohio/West Virginia area.


It's "Waggy" if anyone into genealogy has a clue.

[AwakeAtLast]

10. Parts of my family have been here since the middle 1600's - from England

So I consider myself a White American.

The other parts are German, Irish, and Scotch (hic). ;)

[petronius]

11. I'm probably 3/4 German and 1/4 mystery meat - I retain ~1% of that German ethnicity,

which basically means I like German delis and cheer for Germany in the World Cup (as long as they're not playing the U.S.). Other than that, I define myself as Californian...

[Sultana]

12. This thread is racist

:sarcasm:



:evilgrin:

[fizzgig]

13. i'm a mutt

some of my family has been here since the 17th century (i think) and some of them came over two or three generations ago.

scot, english, german, polish, russian and more, i'm sure. i consider myself to be culturally jewish (there's plenty of eastern european jew in me), but i really don't have much cultural connection to my heritage.

[limit18]

14. People tell me I'm Caucasian but

I prefer Heinz57.

[mvd]

15. If you mean a mutt, then yes

I'm mostly English and Italian, but have French, German, Dutch, and even a little Irish.

[Heidi]

16. Pffffffffft. I don't identify by descriptors I inherited by birth. Don't believe in it.

I know what they are: female, red-haired, green-eyed, sexual orientation, nationality, racial profile, ethnic profile, socioeconomic status that gave me a strong start, etc. But they're not who I am. That stuff was _given_ to me. I earned _none of it_ so I don't take any sort pride in it; hence, I dont' feel any sense of "ownership" about it.

I take pride in how I treat other sentient beings, what I contribute and how I am in the world.

So the answer is: Pffffffffft. Don't really think about it.

[geardaddy]

23. That's a great reply.

:D

[sammythecat]

25. That IS a great way of thinking about it.

I think assholes and good people, as well as everything else in between, are to be found in the same ratio all over the world. National heritage really means squat and some of the preoccupation with it bugs me.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

17. I am, more or less

That said, I do know my ancestry; it's just kind of irrelevant at this point.

All four branches of my family were in America (or Canada) prior to the Civil War. Two of those four were pre-Revolution. (One line of my family even founded a town in New Jersey.)

Anyway, I've done genealogical research so I know that I'm basically 2 parts English, 1 part French and 1 part Irish -- but the link to those cultures had dissolved long before I came around. My great-grandparents were all born in America so I've never known anyone in my family who knows or remembers the "old country".

[leeroysphitz]

18. I've been called "white bread" although I don't think it was a fair assesment.

As for my heritage I have to compare it to A-1 Steak Sauce. There's a little bit of everything in there. I have no knowledge of any ancestors coming from the "old country"

[REP]

19. I'm Lithuanian/Welsh, which makes me whiter than white

Really. I'm so white I freakin' glow in the dark. But since I'm half Jew/half Celt, I'm a little too "yid-ish" for some of those good ol' boys to consider me white; I think I'm a mud-person to them.

[geardaddy]

24. S'mae hogyn!

Sut mae'r pethau?

:hi:

[REP]

26. Da! Sut hwyl sydd?

You really know how to test someone's really limited Welsh!! :hi:

[geardaddy]

29. lol

Just glad to have someone to "converse" with. :D

[Chan790]

30. I'd learn Welsh if I could find a decent free program to learn from.

I don't have any cultural connection to the language or the culture (I'm Scottish.) but it seems like a neat language. I enjoy linguistics as long as they're not Latin-derivative. (Romance languages give me fits...it's a verb conjugation thing.)

[geardaddy]

31. Here you go:

Free and excellent

http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/learnwelsh/

[Chan790]

32. Thanks! n/m

[kentauros]

20. Porbably

My heritage isn't very important to me. I like knowing about that of others, but it simply has no bearing on my life now. I'm more interested in where I'm going than where I've been.


There! You've met one

[mwooldri]

21. White Americans will become more commonplace as time goes by.

Give it a few hundred years plus some disappearance and scarcity of records.

Then you'll have true white Americans because they won't be able to trace their roots back elsewhere.

I can't trace my family roots beyond the British Isles. I'm sure there's got to be Viking, Roman, Angle, Saxon and other folks buried in there somewhere.

Mark.

[Bucky]

28. Are we not all, ultimately, African-American?

I mean, not that I'm applying for any of the scholarships, but I know I have ancestors from Africa, even if one of them isn't named Lucy.

[applegrove]

22. My ancestors all arrived between 1760 and 1850. Most of them were scottish. I took highland

dancing as a kid. And we went to family reunions where we talked about all things scottish. Part of my family immigrated in 1821. Somehow we got in contact with a distant cousin in Scotland who was the descendant of the brother of the guy who immigrated in 1821. He had no relatives in that side of his family but found 500 of us who were still all in contact with each other. He invited us over to scotland for a reunion there and 70 people went. They had a great time and climbed the ancestral mountains to the boar's rock (which is where the clan used to meet). So anyone can keep in touch with their roots. It just takes effort.

[Bucky]

27. I'm white, but why isn't "American" my ancestry? All my relatives come from here.

All my grandparents, all my great grandparents, all of theirs before them are native to and buried in American soil. You don't see French poeple arguing about whether their ancestors are Vandals or Visigoths; you don't see Native Americans arguing about which wave of migration over the Bering Land Bridge their ancestors came across with.

I have no problem stating that I'm ethnically American.

For most Americans regardless of race & color, any assertion of ethicity beyond "American" is going to so ridiculously oversimplified, they might as well not specify at all.

[tinkerbell41]

33. I declare myself Irish/American Indian

My SIL went off on a rant about 2 yrs. ago, basically saying that she was an American, and she didn't understand why people (at work I guess) were asking her what she was. She seemed pretty steamed to be considered anything but, and mad that people were defining themselves as anything else. I didn't get it until I received this e-mail from her something about why do we have Black Colleges, BET, and a host of other racial things with a declaration at the bottom to send it on if you were proud to be white. The shit hit the fan, I responded REPLY ALL. I consider myself White but I know I am a mix of Irish,Indian,Scottish. I still don't know what she is maybe white racist cowgirl.On Edit, the shit hit the fan because I abhor racism and anything that smells like it!

[City of Mills]

34. I'm multigrain

French Canadian and Native Canadian American (Huron-Wendat).

[Bake]

35. Dirty White Boy here ...

I can trace my genealogy back to my grandmother who lived in St. Louis before migrating south.

My GRANDMOTHER!! Is that pitiful or what?

I think our people were English, though. You know, like John the Baker or William the Smith ...

Bake

[Rabrrrrrr]

36. It's because the jackoffs in the Bible belt equate American = Christian = White

I'm sure they're responding that they are "American" for purely odd-assed hyper-fundamentalist nationalist triumphalist theological reasons.

I bet outside of the census answers, they can tell you to the tenth of a percentage their entire lineage.

[deoxyribonuclease]

37. 100% Han Chinese

I'm one of the ~1.3 billion people of my ethnic group which makes up almost 20% of the world's human population :wow:

[Mudoria]

38. Anglo-Saxon

probably with a bit of Norse, Dane and Norman depending on how successful some of my female ancestors were at running away.