No more hyphens.

[Payne]

I was going to mention the myth of "America not having a history", largely because I find it so fascinating that America seems to have a hang-up over it.

How much do you need?

If you have 10 times as much "history", you'd only have so much more to feel bad about if you're inclined to feel bad about your country's/culture's/whatever history.

Trying to patch it up by appropriating your identity from another Country/Culture is never going to work, and will likely result in fail at some point.

[Mangrove]

I did see were certain attitudes (cultural not genetic) that, while commonplace in their circles, were utterly offensive and baffling to typical American tastes.

Oooooooh - like what?

Well, there was more than a little too much of:

 Wife! Do this! Iron my shirt! Get dinner! Become pregnant!!

And there was a lot of that about. Mrs Mang's ex husband was brought up in that environment. It's also why Mrs Mang' divorced him. Mrs Mang's daughter married a guy from a Southern Italian family who are kind of like that. His brother's girlfriend (a boyish looking waif) is only 20 years old and everything about her screams: I WANT TO BE A DOMINATED UNFULFILLED HOUSEWIFE...PLEASE ORDER ME AROUND!!

I'm guessing she doesn't know that her predecessor got beat up by said brother.

During the trip, mang-daughter's husband flipped out and was an awkward, moody bastard for a whole day. Mrs Mang' practically died inside as she feared she was watching history repeat itself right in front of her eyes. Fortunately, he snapped out of it, apologized and is now acutely aware that it was Southern Italian attitudes that caused him to leave home & move north when he was 18.

The general vibe there (we were in Caserta, somewhat above Naples) was that as long as you were dressed up to the nines, then everything else didn't matter. Be thin, be well dressed and everything will work out ok. Never mind the piles of garbage in the streets, the mass corruption of organized crime, the African hookers lining the roads in and out of town.....just be fabulous.

The 'wedding traditions' were an exercise is bureaucracy & pointlessness...not to mention expensive. You can't wear this, you can't do that, people will expect this. A great deal of what is done is done for show. Be seen to be spending a lot of money. The atmosphere we experienced was one of superficiality and being judgemental.

I'm not saying that is all of Southern Italy or it's residents. But mang-daughter has been there for 8 years and explained that it was fairly 'representative'. The Northern part of the country seems more relax and less hidebound.

[Mangrove]

I was going to mention the myth of "America not having a history", largely because I find it so fascinating that America seems to have a hang-up over it.

How much do you need?

If you have 10 times as much "history", you'd only have so much more to feel bad about if you're inclined to feel bad about your country's/culture's/whatever history.

Trying to patch it up by appropriating your identity from another Country/Culture is never going to work, and will likely result in fail at some point.

Good point. How much is enough?

Plus, having a long history is one thing, learning from it and doing some productive is something else altogether.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I think there has to be enough history to tie everyone together into some common identity. As of right now, many Americans don't seem to have that for whatever bizarre psychological reason. I notice that there seems to be a correlation between the way a immigrant group was treated and their assimilation. I also note that the more self-conscious/ less self-confident a person tends to be, the more often they identify with the oppressed ethnic group. "I'm 1/8 Native American/Irish/Scottish/Welsh/etc" means that your 7/8 Something Else. I find it common that either they don't know what the something else is, or that the something else is perceived as bland (English, Welsh, German etc).

The truth is,  Americans mix about like clay and gravel. We loosely stick together, but its a nation of people that have at least two or three wildly different views about most of reality, wildly different ethnic backgrounds that they grew up with (Grandma's Accent and Grandpa's  Haggis) and wildly different ways that the rest of America got presented to them as kids (your poor great grandpa had to live in a Ghetto and there were signs everywhere that said "No Irish Need Apply").

I mean, the biggest common thread among many Americans might be that they're likely identified with or identify as part of a subculture that considers itself as 'not quite' the same as the rest of America. In short we're a Nation full of Us vs Them. What history we do share, we don't want.

(Note that this post is a generalized commentary on one view of American culture; don't be too picky or I go back to epriming everything )

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Yeah, I think that knowing one's family's heritage is a good thing, but if you were born in America you're American. People who are all "Yay I'm Irish!" because their grandparents are from Ireland are basically just deluded. Likewise people who are black celebrating being "African". Try going to Ireland and see if you feel like you're from there... it's not going to happen. You were born in America, like it or not, then that's your culture and those are your people. There are plenty of microcultures in this country, but the bottom line is that even though my dad was from Ohio, I'm not an Ohian any more than I'm an African or Welsh or even, really, a Cherokee or an Apache. I'm an Oregonian urban indian, basically.

[indigoblade]

I was going to mention the myth of "America not having a history", largely because I find it so fascinating that America seems to have a hang-up over it.

How much do you need?

If you have 10 times as much "history", you'd only have so much more to feel bad about if you're inclined to feel bad about your country's/culture's/whatever history.

Trying to patch it up by appropriating your identity from another Country/Culture is never going to work, and will likely result in fail at some point.

And it hasn't been fail for the past eight years?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I like the hyphens.  It encourages dissension.

TGRR,
Asshat-American

[wade]

me = shithead-canadian

[East Coast Hustle]

Yeah, I think that knowing one's family's heritage is a good thing, but if you were born in America you're American. People who are all "Yay I'm Irish!" because their grandparents are from Ireland are basically just deluded. Likewise people who are black celebrating being "African". Try going to Ireland and see if you feel like you're from there... it's not going to happen. You were born in America, like it or not, then that's your culture and those are your people. There are plenty of microcultures in this country, but the bottom line is that even though my dad was from Ohio, I'm not an Ohian any more than I'm an African or Welsh or even, really, a Cherokee or an Apache. I'm an Oregonian urban indian, basically.

yeah, but are you an urban shaman?

[Payne]

Or a misunderstood cooking genius?

[Rumckle]

The US is still a 'work in progress' and it has the distinct disadvantage of being in the glare of the rest of the world as it develops. Though we could say the same about Australia. So the question is for the Aussies, do people 'down-under' insist on identifying themselves as 'Greek-Australian', 'Irish-Australian' etc?

Not really. Part of that could be because of the Australian apathy, but by now most of the genetic lines are rather mixed up anyway.

Of course there are still those "patriotic" (read racist) groups who have a go at the newer immigrants, ie the Vietnamese from after the vietnam war, the Lebanese, etc.

But for the most part we don't worry too much about our heritage, and even when it does come up we don't use those hyphenated terms anyway.

It may also have to do with the fact we don't have that much of a state divide either, people move between states a fair bit here. Which also results in there being less of an accent difference between states as in the US.

That said I live in the middle of nowhere, so perhaps Lys add more of a city view.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Jesus fuck, you guys. 

[Cain]

I'm pretty much with Mang and Payne on this.  I moved around when I was young so much that while I can intellectually understand nationalism, its a concept pretty alien to me personally.  With or without hyphens.  I seem to recall lots of "Scottish" and "Irish" Americans when studying which knew, well, pretty much nothing about Ireland or Scotland not gleaned from Wikipedia and popular stereotyping (barring one exception, and she knows who she is). And although, thankfully I have never had to deal with them for more than a few seconds, there are Brits who take the whole Celt/Anglo-Saxon thing waaaaaay too seriously. 

I really don't care for the social cohesion or lack thereof, I just think people who do it look stupid.  Honestly, at some point, I feel nationalism of this type is more pathetic than LARPing.  At least in LARPing, people accept its all make believe bullshit as an excuse to dress up and attempt to fight with people.

[Reginald Ret]

I haet nationalism's zombie, it should have died when its roots were cut off after WW2.

[AFK]

I think it can get a little blurry for certain, granted small, pockets of Americans, as far as cultural identity.  One example is one I am familiar with which are the rural Maine communities in Northern Maine, just this side of the Quebec border.  Certainly they are American, but they probably have a lot more incommon with the French-Canadians in Quebec than they do some "regular" Mainer, Americans in this part of the state.  I think you'd find a similar situation in Florida with Americans with a Cuban background.  1st Generation specifically. 

I think there can be such a thing to be proud of where you come from AND proud of where you are.  So yeah, no more hyphens, but you can keep the honor of where your blood came from.