[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by chicka

the first generation of children born to parents who came over on a boat, a plane, a raft or through a tunnel keep their handle (ie: Irish - American) and the next generation are Americans.

technically, yes, practically, it's trickier-- look for example at all the birthers who question obama's origins-- it's covert racism-- and it's everywhere.

it's easier to quickly be accepted as "american" if your parents are white christian english speakers than if they are brown, curly-headed and muslim. yes, you may be "american" but somehow you're not quite there yet in the eyes of a lot of people. and you feel unwelcome.

i was doing some movie research the other day & came across this interesting factoid-- annette funnicello, some disney teenybopper star from the 60s, asked her handlers to get a more "american sounding name" (i.e. WASP) for TV. as luck would have it the producers (or whatever) thought that her name was so "strange" that it would be unforgettable so they asked her to keep it.

a lot of stuff has changed and now you can have "ethnic" names & be successful, but the notion that the authentic "american" is some mayflower cunt is still around (i ran into one of those the other day, funny enough).

the thing is that it's hard to put a finger on what it is to be "american" -- is it the constitution? is it your ancestors?-- the pledge of allegiance was invented to handle the large influx of immigrants in the early XXth century-- "the flag"-- easy to identify.

me, i love the frikkin constitution and the bill of rights, and make fun of me all you want, but it's a great reason to come live here. baseball and hotdogs, on the other hand, i don't give 2 shits about.

Originally Posted by chicka

I generally call black people by their name you know George or Sally same
with all my friends. If I don't know their first name then it's Sir or Madam
Mr. Miss you get the drift......

ha ha ha-- good--

Originally Posted by verme (prevaricator)

huh?

you mean...
franco-german, irish-pakistani, hispano-jewish, afro-british ?

i'm sure every language has lots of prefixes relating to nationality, ethnicity, race, etc... you can mix them with other words as long as they make logical sense.

lulz

the most widely used are the ones relating to nationality - to describe double nationality or institutional relations.
no they are not as commonly used to describe ethnicity, etc.

right, but the criticism here is not aimed at those holding dual nationality but at N-th generation descendents of immigrants who still make a claim so some ethnic roots.

in part, these claims are an answer to the old notion i alluded to above that being "american" is, you know, blonde, blue eyed, apple pie, mayflower cunt.

on the other hand these claims often border in the ridiculous when people use them to have some kind of identity in the mass. but still, there are cultural traits carried by generations of non-WASPs, such as going to a school run by nuns, eating kliebasa, or celebrating strange holidays that mean little in its country of origin such as "cinco de mayo"

Originally Posted by gualbert

Hey, France is no racial paradise, clearly no paradise at all.
Do you know any racial paradise somewhere?

my bedroom-- but that's private.

 

hm, yes i know, i was hinting at the fact that those labels are the often-clumsy attempt of american society and government at dealing with a long history of racial discrimination, genocide, etc. i mean, being called 'native american" is an improvement over "fucking redskin", in my book. still, tons of shit to be sorted out beyond language and labels...