fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2532 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2532 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

__________________________________________________

02.

__________________________________________________

03.

__________________________________________________

04.

__________________________________________________

05.

__________________________________________________

06.

__________________________________________________

07.

__________________________________________________

08.

__________________________________________________

09.

__________________________________________________

10.

__________________________________________________

11.

__________________________________________________

12.

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 065 secrets from Secret Submission Post #362.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Hey guys, this is inspired by the Sami secret. I'd like to bring up a piece of discussion that I'm sure that at least a few Americans have experienced, but is otherwise kind of under-discussed in the broader ethnicity debate.

The major consensus in America is that "ethnic" is a syllogism for "person of color", mostly relies on skin tone, and that the majority of native Europe is considered white. Ergo, if you're British, Irish, Russian, French, Italian, whatever, you're white.

But I've experienced a different side to this. In my home community, which is very rural and most of the oldest families can trace their lineage back to the Mayflower. (There's a lot of class and ethnicity bound up in this; what I mean to say is that these families were basically landowning English.)

This group is considered "white", in the Anglo-Saxon Protestant version of white. My lineage is Irish, Greek, and Native-- basically in no way am I really considered white by this community, except for in the "new way", in which you're comparing skin color. My home community has a dual way of looking at whitness and ethnicity, and the old way is still entrenched in the community mindset as well.

And while you may be doubtful of this having any consequences in real life, you would actually be surprised. In my home community, people still discuss lineage and potential marriages. Some of the bigger, older families side-eye and grumble about marriage pursuits that aren't within the big, old English families. My paternal grandmother in fact forbade my father to marry my mother because she was one of "those people"-- that being Irish.

There are more examples, but I'll keep it to this for now.

Also, this isn't to say that I endorse the way that my home community views ethnicity or anything, I'm just trying to relate my experiences having listened to and heard this stuff.

Has anybody experienced this kind of ethnic pigeonholing before? Does anybody want to offer some broader historical context to this?

Basically the story of America and ethnicity is a constant and progressive broadening of what "white" means and what "ethnic" means as each successive wave of immigrants becomes integrated into society. When the Irish and the Italians were foreign, strange, different, they were 'ethnic' - brutish Celts and fiery Latins, not good Germanic white people.

In 20 or 40 years, Hispanic people will be considered more or less white - maybe not white, maybe the terminology will change, but I think the distinctions we currently make where Hispanics are 'ethnic' where Irish and Italians aren't, that's going to disappear for Hispanics, because the process of integration is going to be the same as it always has been. I mean, you already see people saying things about how "Asians basically count as white."

But as you point out, as much as the integration process does take hold, there are also always still traces of the old situation - people don't entirely forget, and history is always going to influence us. It just gets... submerged, and less important. The new system is overlaid on the traces of the old system. And I guess that's going to be especially true in more old-fashioned, rural places.

(African Americans are unfortunately the exception to these general considerations, for a variety of historical and political reasons)

+1

It should be noted that a lot of this applies to Canada too. But no one likes to talk about that because it's easier to stick your fingers in your ears and say "LA LA LA, I CAN'T HEAR YOU, CANADA IS A PERFECT UTOPIA WITH NO PROBLEMS AND I AM GOING TO MOVE THERE NEXT TIME MY COUNTRY'S GOVERNMENT DOES SOMETHING I DON'T LIKE."

I'm both American and Canadian, and people are ridiculous if they believe that those problems don't exist in Canada.

(African Americans are unfortunately the exception to these general considerations, for a variety of historical and political reasons)

Haha, don't I know it.

I'm having trouble finding your point. Do you mean that in general Americans tend to think of ethnicity as race but where you live they view ethnicity and race separately (as everyone should)?

Ethnic discrimination is common where I grew up in Ohio, but then so was classism. I haven't really experienced or witnessed either anywhere else I've lived in the US since I left my hometown 20 years ago.

I kind of get that. I'm of Polish Jewish origin, so there's a similar difference between "race" in the skin tone sense, and "ethnicity" in the lineage sense

We're Reform Jews, so my immediate family doesn't really care overmuch, but my aunt spent about a decade refusing to acknowledge my cousins' boyfriends if they weren't Jewish. Insisting on having non-Jews convert or raising the kids jewish as a marriage condition is also pretty common.

Also, I'm pretty sure that any white supremacist groups would not consider me white if they knew my family history, even if they'd never question my "whiteness" if they saw me in the street.

In terms of different white ethnicities in America, I think it kind of depends on the place and the age of the person you're talking to. Coming from a military family that bounced all over the place, I'd say ethnic differences were least pronounced on the military bases themselves and probably most pronounced in the Midwest?

Overseas I was just "American", in Hawaii I was "white", Florida and Washington didn't seem to care... But the Midwest? Just my personal experience and its definitely not as segregated as my grandpa used to describe with Italians getting their own neighborhood, Polish getting another, Slovenians getting yet another; but it's still probably the place where I can ask "what's your ethnicity?" and get more "1/2 german and 1/2 italian" or "1/4 english, 1/4 irish, and a 1/2 polish" answers than "white" or "american" or "i don't know" answers.

Although Italian and Polish and German and Irish food is still considered "ethnic" food, so there's still that weird American vs non-American in that.

I'm assuming your on the east cost? I hear it's pretty common mindset in certain places that if your family didn't come over on the Mayflower, then you're nothing.

My mother is as white as you can be - half German and half English - and she still got looked down upon because she was only a 4th generation American. All WASPs are white, but not all whites are WASPs. WASPs have powerful connections, money, and established roots.

I haven't specifically, but it doesn't surprise me. I will say though that I've very much felt the fact that my family doesn't really go back that far in the US, and certainly not in my state, but nobody's ever said anything about that to me.

[ SECRET POST #2532 ]

Ethnicity in America

Re: Ethnicity in America

Re: Ethnicity in America

Re: Ethnicity in America

Re: Ethnicity in America

Re: Ethnicity in America

Re: Ethnicity in America

Re: Ethnicity in America

Re: Ethnicity in America

Re: Ethnicity in America