the weird assumption that culture is somehow genetic
Do you think parents’ ancestry plays zero part in a child’s cultural experience in the US? Like as soon as you’re born on US soil you’re only allowed to eat KFC and burgers, and you can never hear folktales and history from a different country. Not to mention how cultural heritage plays into how you are perceived.
There’s a difference between people saying “my great granddad was irish so I’m basically from Ireland and st paddy’s day is the greatest holiday woooo!” and a Japanese American kid getting teased in elementary school for a foreign sounding name and eating pickled plums during lunch, or a Jewish kid in predominantly Christian areas never having their cultural holidays off school and feeling left out.
The one that gets me is the Brits who get irritated that “You’re not an X-American! You’re an American!” Then call anyone with any south Asian ancestry a Paki.
I’m mostly letting this one simmer, because you may be shocked to find out that this isn’t my first time hearing Americans try to justify their weird approach to caste like it’s actually a super wholesome thing. I know we’re not gonna agree on this one.
But you did quote me directly and you are commenting about something slightly different and I think this is a more interesting angle, if we keep it civil.
So, ok, does parental ancestry play zero part in someone’s cultural experience? No, of course not. I plays some part, depending on how long ago that ancestry happened, how focused on that ancestry the family is and how similar the cultures are in the first place.
Does it define one’s identity? Nah. It shouldn’t, anyway. I lived in a place with a different culture and dominant religion for a long time, and had I raised kids during that period I don’t see how having different days off becomes a personality-forming event, even assuming I insisted on doing my own take on those holidays at home.
I interact with kids of migrants every day, and yes, the fact that we sometimes speak a foreing language between us in front of other people is different, so yeah, at some point they’ll probably explain to people why that is in like the second date or whatever. But their own future kids sure won’t, and the impact of their grandparent being a migrant will be almost entirely negligible. My source would be my own migrant grandparent, I suppose. Although it’s weird that I pay so little attention to that connection that I barely remember that in US terms you’d describe me that way. That sounds so crazy to me, I’d never dare. It’d feel like an insult to the part of the family that actually is from the place in question and lived and died there and was a part of that culture, which I absolutely was not.
I just struggle to see a reason why cultural heritage would be a long term defining factor in one’s life, regardless of how much of a “melting pot” your country is, that isn’t built on appartheid. You REALLY need to keep people apart along ethnic lines pretty hard for any of this to be a major part of your life past a couple of generations. Well, with the exception of ethnic divisions that are visible at a glance like, say, skin color, where you just need garden variety racism. I concede those are more universal and life-defining, because we all deal with that one, unfortunately. But I’ve interacted with enough visually indistinguishable Americans who claim this or that personality trait of theirs is “because they are Polish/Italian/German/Irish” or whatever. That’s what I’m talking about here and what so many non-Americans find weird to deal with.
Do you think parents’ ancestry plays zero part in a child’s cultural experience in the US? Like as soon as you’re born on US soil you’re only allowed to eat KFC and burgers, and you can never hear folktales and history from a different country. Not to mention how cultural heritage plays into how you are perceived.
There’s a difference between people saying “my great granddad was irish so I’m basically from Ireland and st paddy’s day is the greatest holiday woooo!” and a Japanese American kid getting teased in elementary school for a foreign sounding name and eating pickled plums during lunch, or a Jewish kid in predominantly Christian areas never having their cultural holidays off school and feeling left out.
The one that gets me is the Brits who get irritated that “You’re not an X-American! You’re an American!” Then call anyone with any south Asian ancestry a Paki.
Alright, that one is weird, I’ll give you that.
But just to be clear, the weird one is the second part, not the first part.
I’m mostly letting this one simmer, because you may be shocked to find out that this isn’t my first time hearing Americans try to justify their weird approach to caste like it’s actually a super wholesome thing. I know we’re not gonna agree on this one.
But you did quote me directly and you are commenting about something slightly different and I think this is a more interesting angle, if we keep it civil.
So, ok, does parental ancestry play zero part in someone’s cultural experience? No, of course not. I plays some part, depending on how long ago that ancestry happened, how focused on that ancestry the family is and how similar the cultures are in the first place.
Does it define one’s identity? Nah. It shouldn’t, anyway. I lived in a place with a different culture and dominant religion for a long time, and had I raised kids during that period I don’t see how having different days off becomes a personality-forming event, even assuming I insisted on doing my own take on those holidays at home.
I interact with kids of migrants every day, and yes, the fact that we sometimes speak a foreing language between us in front of other people is different, so yeah, at some point they’ll probably explain to people why that is in like the second date or whatever. But their own future kids sure won’t, and the impact of their grandparent being a migrant will be almost entirely negligible. My source would be my own migrant grandparent, I suppose. Although it’s weird that I pay so little attention to that connection that I barely remember that in US terms you’d describe me that way. That sounds so crazy to me, I’d never dare. It’d feel like an insult to the part of the family that actually is from the place in question and lived and died there and was a part of that culture, which I absolutely was not.
I just struggle to see a reason why cultural heritage would be a long term defining factor in one’s life, regardless of how much of a “melting pot” your country is, that isn’t built on appartheid. You REALLY need to keep people apart along ethnic lines pretty hard for any of this to be a major part of your life past a couple of generations. Well, with the exception of ethnic divisions that are visible at a glance like, say, skin color, where you just need garden variety racism. I concede those are more universal and life-defining, because we all deal with that one, unfortunately. But I’ve interacted with enough visually indistinguishable Americans who claim this or that personality trait of theirs is “because they are Polish/Italian/German/Irish” or whatever. That’s what I’m talking about here and what so many non-Americans find weird to deal with.