US Politics

Copenhagen museum has us as all being Danish.

There's an episode of Somebody Feed Phil where he goes around Ireland with his American 'Irish' wife, and everyone gives them a polite smile and nod every time he exclaims "My wife is Irish too!!!!!". They do an ancestry test and it's something like four or five generations back.

America's history is very short. If you want more than that to boost your sense of identity, the "home country" adds some.

Also, there's the fact that it's such a varied range of origins the immigrants came from, making the American identity both broad and conformist, so having an ethnic/national identity that's more sharply defined is attractive to a lot of people.

More simply, the first generations of immigrants from place X stick together to help each other and their memory of the old home is still fresh. Even as successive generations integrate, they inherit something from the old group identity.

For all its flaws, the U.S. has more tolerance of immigrants who preserve a sense of ties to their old country than Britain does.

t's like me claiming I'm Norwegian

Ahhhh thats why you so sexy.

*oops on caps

Every white person in the USA is decended from immigrants, it's nothing special, I don't get why they're always so hung up on being Irish or Italian or whatever. It's like me claiming I'm Norwegian because it was them that settled in Normandy then later invaded and settled England.

Also, there's the fact that it's such a varied range of origins the immigrants came from, making the American identity both broad and conformist, so having an ethnic/national identity that's more sharply defined is attractive to a lot of people.

It's always interesting that in the US, when asked of a US citizen, the answer to 'what's your nationality?' is not '(US) American', but Irish, German, French, etc., or whatever mix has occurred in the meantime.

I don't get why they're always so hung up on being Irish or Italian or whatever.

Because the US is only 200 years old and people had immigrated to it, sometime people don’t even know where they came from and thrive for their identity.

Plus “Irish American” always sound better than “common garden American”.