retrospection while cleaning * impulse purchases * on the American ethnic identity

[derien]

I continue the attempts to unearth my desktop.  Made a little more headway today.  I stuck the unsent Christmas cards in the stationary drawer, and many of the photos which eor had discovered while scanning my old papers have now been shoved into my photo album/scrapbook, in no particular order.  I really need to sort that book out someday...  I think I may have mentioned there was a photo of me and Tree - him looking all lanky and tough in jeans and a vest (shirtless), his hair brown and long, standing out all around in curls.  Now his hair is quite black and short, his build is solid, he dresses respectably.  (In that photo I look... pretty much as I look now, but with a slightly rounder face.  I tell people I had a good run at 24, because people guessed me as being 24 from the time I was 14 until I was 34.)

* * *

I found a copy of Stephen Fry's autobiography, "Moab is my Washpot," on Amazon for under $4 and I bought it, solely because of this comment by peak_in_darien.  *pauses to consider whether her perversion has gone beyond help*  Okay, that's enough of that introspection stuff...

* * *

tootsiemuppet asked me why Americans don't just feel American.  Which doesn't make much sense out of context.  She was trying to understand Americans impulse to always identify themselves with their descent - French, Irish, etc.  I couldn't come up with a good answer for her on short notice.  I suspect the answer is that we DO, but part of being an American is wrapped up with also preserving your cultural heritage.  It was odd that she should ask me that when it had just come up on another thread, which is on a locked post on someone else's journal, so unfortunately I can't point to it, because much to the point was said.  And it is locked with good reason - almost certainly someone would take offense if it were available for the public.  Even funnier, tootsiemuppet said she would ask eor his opinion, because I said he always has an opinion, and then I went and looked at that thread again after we talked and saw that he had weighed in with his opinion.  So, tootsiemuppet, don't forget to ask him. ;)

I must mull on this question a little more. I'll probably make more entries about it.

Comments

[bravecows.livejournal.com]

part of being an American is wrapped up with also preserving your cultural heritage

No, it isn't. Not by my definition of "preserving". Most of why I get vaguely irritated by Americans' identifying themselves with their descent vs. identifying as Americans is 'cos -- well, most Americans are really, really American. Most Irish-Americans don't speak Irish; they don't read Irish literature or even Irish newspapers; they know buggerall about modern Ireland (and not very much about old Ireland, come to that). They don't talk or think the way the Irish do; barring some things -- half-remembered songs, stories, a way of seeing the world -- they might have picked up from an Irish grandmother, they're American all the way through.

Unless you grow up in a community of people from Ze Old Country, you don't preserve your cultural heritage in the US. (Or in the UK, for that matter, though it's a bit better/worse here. More tossed salad, less melting pot -- it depends which you prefer.) You get assimilated.

And argh, I'm trying to find the words to explain what I mean and they are not coming. I'm sorry if I'm coming off as dogmatic here. But I went to America when I was 7 and went back to Malaysia in a year, and by then I was American. I had the whole nasal Northwestern accent; I didn't know a word of Malay; all my references were American. And I told all my (American) friends I was Malaysian and I was just, wrong. America eats you whole. You don't get to keep any of Ze Old Country.

[bravecows.livejournal.com]

And here's a thought: Americans don't feel American, maybe, because they are so very American that it blocks out the awareness of being American. -- Okay, that sounds insane. But it's a theory! Because I know I always feel most Malaysian when I'm surrounded by things that are acutely not Malaysian, and when I'm in Malaysia I don't feel Malaysian at all.

Sorry for spamming you like this, by the way. It's a subject that's close to my heart -- well, not the American bit, but the bit about being an immigrant, and coming from somewhere else (because I'm always from somewhere else, no matter where I am), and how you keep the somewhere else with you when you are Here.

[derien.livejournal.com]

Don't be sorry for spamming me on it! It's a very interesting subject, and I'm learning a lot from this thread. But then again I'm a Sociology person. :)

And here's a thought: Americans don't feel American, maybe, because they are so very American that it blocks out the awareness of being American.

Not crazy at all. It's like the fish noticing the water - not very easy, really. But we do notice the little things that set our family and community apart from the 'American norm.' I notice the many French words which are in my spoken vocabulary when I try to write and realize I can't spell them, because in the normal course of being taught to write English as American English is supposed to be, in school, those words are not a normal part of the curriculum. And when I hear someone use those words after not having heard them used for a while I feel all sorta nostalgic. And therefor I try to hold onto those words, because... well, I don't know. They're a silly, small thing, but they're mine. It makes me feel different and weird, sometimes, seperated from the norm, but also is a little special, and I feel a connection to other people who grew up hearing their parents curse in French, it's a shared something-or-other. It doesn't make me 'French' in the sense of having any understanding of what goes on in France, but it has to do with how I was raised.

Oh, dear, I have this feeling I'm not expressing myself well at all.

[bravecows.livejournal.com]

No, no, I get it. 'S like -- I mean, you do hang on to what sets you apart. Like speaking northern Hokkien, which I don't, but my family has done forever. So hearing it from my friends makes me feel happy, and also it is fun insulting southern Hokkien. *nods*