this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2024
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[–] TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 178 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (28 children)

Americans seem get really weird with the whole ancestry thing. There appears to be a desire to look into your family history and find something "exotic", which basically seems to mean non-English - I imagine because that's perceived as the 'default' ancestry, so-to-speak.

Honestly, who the fuck cares? What difference does it make? Nationalities aren't Skyrim races. You don't get special abilities. It makes no difference whether your ancestors were British/Irish/Spanish/French/whatever.

E: This is obviously not intended as a hateful statement, people. You have to understand that the rest of the world doesn't care about this, so we're confused when we look to the US and see them take it so seriously. We're especially puzzled when Americans say "I'm Irish" because their great great great uncle bought a pint of Guiness in the 1870s. It's an alien concept to the rest of the planet.

[–] makyo@lemmy.world 53 points 1 day ago (1 children)

What's with the negativity from you and the other comments?

I can tell you why Americans care. Because identity matters to people. The story of the melting pot is central to the American story as a nation of immigrants (even today) and central to individual identities. Thus, there is a lot of interest in backgrounds and geneology. If you ask the average American about their heritage you're likely to get a surprising answer - so people talk about it more.

I get why it seems weird to many other cultures - if you ask the average French person (for example) their heritage they'll say 'French as far back as we can tell'.

The French person celebrates their identity through the lens of the French story, and the American does too, it's just that the American story is the immigrant story.

I hope you do actually care. I hope in this era of rising nationalism and online hate enough of us value diversity of backgrounds and ancestries.

[–] TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

I'm not being hateful about it. I'm just puzzled as to why people think it makes any difference to their lives, or why they'd be disappointed in having the "wrong" ancestry.

I see a lot of Americans obsessed with it so much that it borders on being fetish-like, particularly when it comes to people claiming to be Irish or Italian, and it's bizarre to me.

[–] makyo@lemmy.world 5 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (1 children)

No not hateful, you're just giving off a weird vibe about it. But you're half way there actually, transform that energy into curiosity.

The two you picked especially have a real fascinating history and I'd encourage you to check it out because both of those groups had a tough time in their early immigration days. They aren't fetishising at all - those communities had to stick together because they weren't exactly welcome, and that mentality became ingrained. Over time, it was less necessary for survival so it transitioned into more of a cultural tradition.

[–] TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world -1 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

I'm aware of the history. It's still weird. You need to understand that nowhere else does this. It's strange.

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[–] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 28 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

claiming to be Irish

I can speak to this phenomenon a bit. It’s part of what was drilled into us from our families. My father’s maternal grandparents were from Donegal, Ireland. Any time a single person from a Donegal family passed away in the entire city of Philadelphia, whether they were known to my family or not, my father, his brothers, and my grandmother were going to that wake to pay their respects. Once he became an adult, he became a member of the AoH, which is an Irish-American fraternal order. They’d keep some Irish customs alive (and being separated by the ocean, no doubt hallucinate some new ones). For people that are heavily invested in their families, it’s a way of feeling connected to your ancestors. I think leaving was rather traumatic for many people, so I think there is an element of mourning in the connection for some too.

I myself wouldn’t call myself Irish, but I know a great deal about Ireland and I share a deep appreciation for it despite being a Yankee. I get that it’s no doubt annoying when someone who knows nothing of the place they are claiming ownership of says they’re Irish or Italian to someone actually from Ireland or Italy, but at the end of the day I think it comes from a well intentioned place. If my family came to find we weren’t at all Irish by ancestry, I would definitely feel shocked as much of my upbringing was framed by that identity.

[–] GBU_28@lemm.ee 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Calling people out as "fetish like" for identifying with...anything... is a bad look.

A person's perception of themselves, their identity or self image isn't for you to qualify as being good enough

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[–] iknowitwheniseeit@lemmynsfw.com 72 points 1 day ago (6 children)

I worked with a French guy in Amsterdam. His parents were Portuguese, but he was born and raised in France. As far as he was concerned, he was French.

Contrariwise, I worked with an American woman in Virginia. Her grandparents were Irish, and she considered herself Irish, in spite of having been born and raised in America, and both of her parents having been born and raised in America.

It is a kind of fetish in America to hyphenate yourself. Irish-American. Cuban-American. And so on.

My own theory is that this is because America has no culture going back many generations, so people try to find one.

[–] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 45 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It's even more strange when I see 3rd or 4th generation children from immigrants call themselves "Greek" or "Italian" and many times they've never even stepped inside those countries nor speak the language

[–] Scrollone@feddit.it 24 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Or even worse, they think that they do some typical Italian food when in fact, if you gave that food to Italians, they would be disgusted.

[–] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You’ve got me thinking of the episode of the Sopranos when they go to Italy to seal a deal with an old mob family and none of Tony’s guys want to eat the real Italian food

[–] Scrollone@feddit.it 7 points 1 day ago

Exactly. Damn, The Sopranos were a good series.

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[–] grue@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I worked with a French guy in Amsterdam. His parents were Portuguese, but he was born and raised in France. As far as he was concerned, he was French.

As I understand it, that's a French thing specifically, not just a non-USian thing. Like, if you're a citizen of France, you're expected to be French and assimilate into that culture, no matter whether you're a native Parisian, you moved there from Algeria in the '60s, or you're from some random other place and got citizenship via the French Foreign Legion. It's a specific sort of national ideology that's different from the American "melting pot" one.

[–] ryathal@sh.itjust.works 3 points 19 hours ago

I've generally heard the opposite. You can immigrate to France, get citizenship, and be as French as possible, but you will never be French.

[–] makyo@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago (5 children)

I mean you've basically hit the nail on the head except you're misunderstanding one important thing. They aren't 'trying to find one' they have one. Their culture IS that Irish or Cuban heritage and it wasn't retconned from 23andme or ancestry.com - it comes from the story they were told about their identity by their parents from an early age.

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[–] ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I think having English heritage is not trendy for several reasons.

  • It's seen as the default (as you pointed out), and thus boring.
  • It's not seen as exotic/fashionable because of stereotypes about the English.
  • The English have traditionally been considered America's enemies because of what happened two hundred and fifty years ago.
  • Stories being passed down (and possible exaggerated) from earlier generations about how the English oppressed their ancestors.

ETA: Man, you really riled up some people!

[–] Enoril@jlai.lu 28 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

We are in 2024 and they still use the word "race" to segregate the American population in several groups. So no surprise a DNA service could be so popular in the USA.

If they were American citizen and just that - without subdivision and the legal right to ask or use their gene, color skin or whatever_they_think_is_important_to_distinguish_themself - well a lot of issues and strange "behaviour" (aka racisme) would have disapeared.

Or at least decreased as nobody would have the legal tools and data to enforce it: gerrymanding, blaming a vote on a "community", having your town split in "community" sectors and no shame at all to call it like that officially! Which others country put "chinatown" on their map?

As a teenager, I was shocked by this fact when visiting the USA 25 years ago. That and the fact i have found in a normal marketplace unprotected ammunition sold near the baby milk. "baby stuff, baby stuff, 9mm ammo... what!?!"

This DNA service is just the result of this global problem: the american society and its laws are still allowing passive racism.

So americans want to prove (to themself, to others?) via DNA results that they can’t be racist because they have a ~~black friend~~ sorry : black DNA ancestors.

Some will tell you: "ho it’s just for fun". But is fun really the only motivation here?

And congrat to them as they don’t only expose themself (genetic data are priceless and should be protected at all costs) but also they expose all their children, children's children, etc. These chidren probably wouldn’t have agreed to that if they were born.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I applaud your idealism, but the tricky thing is that if you stop measuring race, then you also stop being able to measure institutional racism. That'd be great for the closet racists who want to pretend that it doesn't exist, but it does still exist and we really need to be able to quantify how well measures to stop it are actually working.

[–] Enoril@jlai.lu 6 points 1 day ago

I totally agree with you here. These rules don’t make racism disappear but make it far more difficult to use it as a tool (passively or on-purpose).

At least if someone (anybody, including politician, company) use these terms, they will be immediatly stopped with more ease than your current system.

You still have a need for watcher (justice system, neutral party like associations) to keep track BUT nothing official can track your race in any documents at all level. That include the resume of an employe or even a customers service listing. You will have immediate sanction and bad PR for the company/individual if you do that.

Same for your religion or your political party by the way. They are too much officialy tracked and categorized!

Racism will always exists unfortunately but all these laws can reduce the global impact on the population. And put on shame the one using it as discriminative element.

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

If you want to fix institutional racism in the US you need to fix social mobility because that's the primary mechanism by which it gets perpetuated. For that you need educational status of the parents and their tax declarations, not skin colour. You need to stop financing schools from local taxes so primary and secondary education is as good or better in poorer areas instead of having quotas lowering standards for people who got a worse education because they live in the wrong neighbourhood. You need free tertiary education.

Focussing on race is a convenient way to ignore actually addressing the issue and instead continue to deepen societal rifts and to breed resentment among non-racialised disenfranchised people.

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[–] Nima@leminal.space 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

One guy writes an article. literally just one dude.

the comments: "AMERICANS ARE WEIRD AF. ALL AMERICANS DO THIS AND FEEL THIS WAY."

[–] TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago (2 children)

It's not just him. The "I'm Irish/Italian" crowd is a widely known-about American thing.

I didn't mean to offend you. Relax. I never said all Americans do it, you don't need to come up with some reactionary strawman just because you took my comment to heart.

[–] Nima@leminal.space 10 points 1 day ago

America is a lot of people from different places settling in one continent. lots of people care about what their family history is. I'm not sure what's weird about that.

there's a lot of people with bloodlines from different parts of the world in every country. it means something to some people. not everyone, but quite a few.

that particular phenomenon is everywhere.

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Kinda weird obsession when a big part of the population hates strangers so much.

And even British/Irish/Spanish/.... doesn't mean much as there was mixing for centuries

[–] JudahBenHur@lemm.ee 17 points 1 day ago (6 children)

...English is not the "default" ancestry for Americans. I think I know one dude from Michigan who has English heritage. Most folks I'd know have blood from Poland, Ireland, Italy and Germany. It varies regionally.

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[–] GhiLA@sh.itjust.works 40 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Maybe if I swab my mouth and send it off to a company, I'll finally be interesting and people will like me.

puts letter down

...maybe not.

[–] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago

Told you so.

[–] Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee 44 points 1 day ago (3 children)

There's something hilarious about the author's disappointment to find out they're British, and nothing else.

Can't say I blame them though.

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[–] Stopthatgirl7@lemmy.world 28 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I’ve got to admit, I’ve wanted to do one of those tests just because my family is such a mix of “lol we don’t know.” Like, no really, what IS my maternal grandma? She does not look like the rest of her family and had a different family name from her siblings. And ok really, where DID my paternal great-grandmother who lied about her race so she could marry my great-grandfather back when “miscegenation” was illegal, come from? And WAS that great-grandpa biracial himself?

There’s a reason I call myself an ethnic Rorschach test, and I’d love to know why it is I am. But the rest of my family is against the idea of finding out because “it doesn’t matter” plus who knows how just data might be used one day.

[–] Fedizen@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

the test isnt particularly meaningful. As I understand it they just test a handful of genes that they suspect were less varied in the past. As a result if you get tested through all the services that offer gene testing you will get different numbers for each one.

[–] Stopthatgirl7@lemmy.world 3 points 23 hours ago

That’s the other big reason I’m hesitant - different tests can give totally different results, so who knows what’s “right”?

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[–] RobotToaster@mander.xyz 30 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I did it over 15 years ago, but for health information before the FDA nuked that. (Although you can still run the raw data through a third party program)

I'm pretty sure I already uploaded myself to at least one open source database, so I don't see any reason to worry that much.

[–] FiskFisk33@startrek.website 31 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Like honestly, I'd rather be open sourced than sold as proprietary data haha

In either case the actors to worry about (whatever they might be) gets access, in the latter case it might additionally do some good.

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[–] Th4tGuyII@fedia.io 19 points 1 day ago

Honestly I've never gotten the desire to do one of these things. You give away arguably the most uniquely valuable and private part of yourself to this company (or companies like it) to do god knows what with in exchange for these results that are (IMO) ultimately just unnecessary trivia about yourself.

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