this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2024
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I fucking hate americans who make the fact that their great grandmother came from another country into their whole identity. You're not Irish just because you buy into stereotypes sold to you by American sitcoms from the 90's and you're not Irish just because your mom serves you a potato casserole her grandmom used to make.
Pub friend brought that up last week. Why do Americans (US) do this?
I figured people basically fell into it while constructing personal identity (Who am I? Where do I belong? What sets me apart?) because strong labels, such as stereotypes, are the easiest pre-made answers available.
Her idea was that it indicates a need for community that Americans often miss, perhaps subconsciously, and sometimes try to find by resurrecting ancestral identities and traditions, or adopting ones they have no connection to at all.
As to why it happens here, she mentioned individualism and the melting pot metaphor. Our make-your-own-way ethos inhibits transmission of identities and traditions across generations, and our cultural amalgam tends to blend whatever does get passed. So within a handful of generations most connections to the old country are lost and distinctive traditions and cultural identities are replaced by various chimeric versions that are generally considered “American.”
Basically it’s harder for them to pinpoint any traditions, places, or people uniquely “theirs” and it makes them feel isolated and alone. Sometimes their solution is to reclaim hereditary identities and traditions or, if they have no idea, to just adopt ones they like.
It doesn't help people across our nearest cultural neighbors have spent the entire time we've existed telling us we have no real culture and are just less savage than the other brutes outside Western Europe. My view is biased by the sheer number of arrogant Euros I've met though.