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Foreign ancestry


user23974865

How relevant is your foreign ancestry?  

72 members have voted

  1. 1. Who is/was your closest ancestor born abroad that you're aware of?

    • Great-grandparent or more distant / not aware of any
      32
    • Grandparent
      17
    • Parent
      18
    • Yourself, but raised mostly in the country you currently understand as "home"
      0
    • Yourself, born and raised outside of the country you currently understand as "home"
      0
    • Something more complicated
      5
  2. 2. Did you ever learn a foreign language because of foreign ancestry?

    • Yes, and mostly spoke/speak a foreign language at home
      0
    • Yes, and sometimes spoke/speak a foreign language at home / among relatives / within local ancestry-specific groups
      3
    • Yes, fluent, but rarely/never spoke/speak it at home / among relatives / within local ancestry-specific groups
      4
    • Yes, but not fluent
      14
    • No
      47
    • Something more complicated
      4
  3. 3. Do you see yourself as "different" because of your foreign ancestry?

    • Yes, a lot
      1
    • Yes, moderately
      9
    • A little bit
      10
    • No
      40
    • (No foreign ancestry / not aware of any foreign ancestry)
      9
    • Something more complicated
      3
  4. 4. Do you believe other people tend to see you as "different" because of your foreign ancestry?

    • Yes, a lot
      2
    • Yes, moderately
      4
    • A little bit
      9
    • No
      45
    • (No foreign ancestry / not aware of any foreign ancestry)
      9
    • Something more complicated
      3

This poll is closed to new votes


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user23974865

Just curious what are you guys' personal experiences with this topic.

 

This is something I often think about, and to this day I still can't tell how relevant my ancestry is to my understanding of "who I am". Part of the reason why my parents met or got to know each other (or so the story goes) was because they knew how to pronounce each other's last names. I have a grandfather who was born abroad. The whole ancestry thing was always fuzzy though, especially because there's no particular culture shock involved. There are cultural differences, but not really culture shock.

 

I think early exposure to certain idioms, sayings, emphasis on cuisine and other similar things that I knew weren't part of "the wider community" did have an impact, but it was probably minor compared to the awareness that my grandfather was born abroad. I grew up thinking that moving to another country was just a normal thing grown-ups did, and just took it for granted that I would too. I eventually realized that I could formalize my status as a dual citizen, which I eventually did. I might still move abroad permanently someday. It's something I'm fully prepared for.

 

On the other hand, I don't think other people ever saw me as "different" for my ancestry, especially because it's not rare around here (it's just usually more distant) and it doesn't stand out in any visible way -- other than maybe the fact that people sometimes notice that I "talk with my hands" more than other people do... :lol: But even that, I can't tell if it's just a personality thing or what. And I can't tell if "the outside world" feels so separate from "my family" because of specifically-cultural differences or if it's simply because my parents have a sort of insular mentality of their own (which... can actually be argued to be a cultural thing tied to my foreign ancestry...).

 

So... it's fuzzy. I guess I'll never really understand these things. But it's interesting to think about it.

 

 

 

(Yes, I keep my nationality(ies) unstated/implied on purpose. It can be a lot of fun to talk about local/national/cultural differences, but I find it tiring to discuss all the typical misconceptions that usually come up when I bring it up without a little more context.)

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My dad is American and my grandfather on my mums side is originally from the Netherlands. For a little while, I was a little more curious about the dutch side, since that's not something that you always see or hear about, and it's something that little bit more different.

Other than that, there's been a handful of people that thought I was American because they met my dad first, but no, I'm Australian. Haven't been overseas anywhere.

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My Dad's family is Canadian as far back as the 1700s-we came from Germany via Pennsylvania however my Dad himself was born in Switzerland and although he only has Canadian nationality didn't live in Canada until he was a teenager. 

My Mother was born in the UK but left for America and eventually Canada when she was 6 months old and actually has all 3 nationalities.

As for me, I was born in Canada and have both Canadian and British passports. When I was 9 my family moved to the UK. I lived there for about 17 years and had spent most of my life there before coming home to Canada almost 10 years ago. 

Growing up in Geneva my Dad speaks fluent French and also fluent English. I can speak some German and a little French. 

No one sees me as different because of my ancestry in Canada as honestly being of Germanic decent is quite common here however when I lived in the UK people saw me as different as the accent was kind of a give away. 

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Elftober Country

My grandmother was Austrian, her cooking was amazing and we were very close.

No one treated me differently but people were terrible to her when she moved to the UK with my grandfather. Even his family would refer to her as a Nazi. 

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My dad's a first generation American (My Oma was from Germany, my Opa was from Lithuania). I never met my Opa, as he died before I was born, but I do remember spending a lot of time at my Oma's house. I've got a few weird memories, like her insisting Kinder chocolate was good for me, since it had 'child' in the name, and a kid's book written entirely in German that I didn't understand, but liked looking at the weird pictures, and never saying 'god bless you' when someone sneezes, but rather 'gesundheit'. While I only learned bits and pieces of German through family, it did lead me towards taking German language classes all through high school.

 

I don't see myself as different, and I don't think anyone else does, because I just look and sound like a generic white American. All of my ancestry is super white (German, Lithuanian, Irish, French Canadian, etc.) so it's easy to just see myself as a melting pot mutt-person American.

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My dad was German and he was in my town for a civil engineering project and he and my mother had a torrid affair resulting in my birth.  He also had a family in Germany he wasn't willing to abandon so when he was finished here he went back home. I don't know his name but I have stumbled across pictures. I just hope I don't get his male pattern baldness! Interestingly enough I took German classes and studied and loved German philosophy well before I ever found out about this, my mother is like 5th or 6th generation German but my supposed dad is Scottish and Native American. 😂

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Something more distant.

 

2 sets of the 4 of my great grandparents, I regularly pass the graveyard they are buried in. (The other 2 sets are from a different part of the country)

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Galactic Turtle

I'm African American so obviously I do but I don't know anything about it. People might see me differently because of my race but not because I'm "foreign" if that makes sense.

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My ancestors on my dad's side are some of the many catholic frenchs who were kicked out of Canada when England took it over. They moved to Louisiana and have been there ever since. Even longer before that, my family was kicked out of France because of their beliefs. There's still a town in France that is called my family's name. It was once a knight training ground.

 

With cajun french, I know a few words both from my dad and other sources. He says that his grandparents only spoke in cajun french. My dad's parents stopped speaking it because they grew up being told that they should only speak English and were punished at school if they spoke cajun french.

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My great-grandmother was Ukrainian. My great-grandparents met during WW2 (it was a weird story about him lying to her and getting married even though he already had a wife). My mother was close to her and our cousins from Ukraine, but we lost contact. She's fluent in Russian. I was learning both Russian and Ukrainian, but I'm not very good at speaking. 

It doesn't make me any different, some people just think it's interesting. I don't really talk about that

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My mother is from Haiti, and her mother was half Dominican. My father is Native American. My maternal grandparents taught me a bit of Haitian Creole, but since they've passed no one speaks at as much anymore. Culturally, I consider myself American, but because of the way I look I'm usually mistaken for Pacific Islander. 

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I have a great grandfather who was born in Germany, and his parents were born in Bohemia(modern day Czech Republic). He died when my grandpa was only 5 so I never met him or new much about his side of the family, although his last name is my mom’s maiden name so there was still that connection.

 

Most of my other ancestors came during the 1600’s-1700’s from the British Isles plus a few from France, Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands, etc. during that time too.

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user23974865
3 hours ago, Galactic Turtle said:

I'm African American so obviously I do but I don't know anything about it. People might see me differently because of my race but not because I'm "foreign" if that makes sense.

Yes, that's one of the cases that I thought would warrant a "something more complicated" option instead of simply "other". Or Native or Jewish ancestry, or other types of ethnic/linguistic minorities. I guess some people may see it as "foreign ancestry", others may see it as "foreign ancestry, sort of" and others may see it as "minority and/or outsider, but not foreign".

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My four grandparents were all born in different countries, so I guess that makes me a prime example of a cross breed, mongrel, hybrid or whatever the best term is. 

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user23974865
On 3/13/2019 at 11:54 AM, Greywulf said:

My mother is from Haiti, and her mother was half Dominican. My father is Native American. My maternal grandparents taught me a bit of Haitian Creole, but since they've passed no one speaks at as much anymore. Culturally, I consider myself American, but because of the way I look I'm usually mistaken for Pacific Islander. 

Huh... Pacific Islander? That's interesting. That reminds me of how I've seen people in different places showing different perceptions of ethnicity or perceptions of what ethnicity means. People here sometimes tell me that I look pale (I tan easily, but I spend most of my time indoors, and you actually can easily see the veins in my arms through my skin), but when I was in Canada, someone asked me if I felt discriminated against in Europe for "looking like a Middle-Easterner". I was really surprised by the question, because, no, everybody there just assumed I was a local (even though I think they usually really are wary of foreigners). People were rude sometimes, but it always seemed to have more to do with my sub-optimal level of fluency. Some people take it personally (especially once they've already assumed that you're a local, I guess).

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user23974865
On 3/13/2019 at 1:57 PM, Ortac said:

My four grandparents were all born in different countries, so I guess that makes me a prime example of a cross breed, mongrel, hybrid or whatever the best term is. 

Four different countries? I guess that's actually rare. Do you see it as a positive thing, neutral or negative? Imagining it as if it were me, I can only picture it as a positive thing, especially assuming that I would have been raised bilingual, maybe with bits and pieces of a third/fourth language on top of it.

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58 minutes ago, burobu said:

Huh... Pacific Islander? That's interesting. That reminds me of how I've seen people in different places showing different perceptions of ethnicity or perceptions of what ethnicity means. People here in Brazil sometimes tell me that I look pale (I tan easily, but I spend most of my time indoors, and you actually can easily see the veins in my arms through my skin), but when I was in Canada, someone asked me if I felt discriminated against in Europe for "looking like a Middle-Easterner". I was really surprised by the question, because, no, everybody in Italy just assumed I was Italian (even though I think Italians in general really are wary of foreigners). People were rude sometimes, but it always seemed to have more to do with my sub-optimal level of fluency. Some people take it personally (especially once they've already assumed that you're Italian, I guess).

I have broad shoulders and a thick build, so I usually get asked if I'm Samoan or Hawaiian. I think because I live in California, I get Latino quite frequently too. When I worked in retail, a lot of customers would just start speaking to me in Spanish. I was once scolded by an elderly woman who seemed upset that I didn't. A coworker who was nearby, and spoke Spanish herself, later told me that the woman had said I should be ashamed for not being able to speak my native language.

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user23974865
3 minutes ago, Greywulf said:

I have broad shoulders and a thick build, so I usually get asked if I'm Samoan or Hawaiian. I think because I live in California, I get Latino quite frequently too. When I worked i retail, a lot of customers assumed I spoke Spanish. I was once scolded by an elderly woman who seemed upset that I didn't. A coworker who was nearby, and spoke Spanish herself, later told me that the woman had said I should be ashamed for not being able to speak my native language.

:lol:

 

People can be surprisingly quick to cling to their immediate assumptions.

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user23974865

Kind of a reverse situation: a Finnish old lady once started talking to me in Finnish out of nowhere. It was really funny. :D She seemed very nice (and sort of atypical, since Finns normally don't talk to strangers for no reason). I couldn't tell if she was just particularly "nice and friendly" or maybe a little senile instead.

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user23974865
6 hours ago, MollyDMA said:

If my parents were born in Canada, does that count?

You live in the US, right? So, yes, it counts. 🙂

 

Anglophone Canada versus Francophone Canada was actually another case that I was thinking of when I added the "something more complicated" option. It's officially one country, but it was only by a tiny margin that it didn't get split, not that long ago. So it's kinda like "countries within a country", like the UK and Belgium. I used to be close with a bilingual Canadian, and I think her ancestry did make her kinda "foreign", in a fuzzy way more or less like me.

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2 hours ago, burobu said:

Four different countries? I guess that's actually rare. Do you see it as a positive thing, neutral or negative?

Well, neutral I guess as concerns my grandparents, as that didn't really have much effect on my life. It was having parents from two different countries that was far more significant, as I had the be benefit of being brought up not only bilingual, but also biculteral. 

 

One of my grand mothers was from Germany, but I was never given any exposure to German language or culture, and I do feel kind of sad that I know very little about Germany or my German roots despite having one quarter German blood in me. My grandmother left Germany when she was a very young woman, and apparently she had to renounce her German citizenship and become French to marry my grandfather. That wouldn't be necessary today of course, but this was not long after the war.

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Grumpy Alien

My great-great grandparents on my mom’s side were immigrants. I have no idea about my paternal side. I’m basic white bread American. Though I will be an immigrant in the next couple months if all goes smoothly. My children will be able to say they have a parent from another country, if not an exciting one.

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user23974865
1 minute ago, disGraceful said:

My great-great grandparents on my mom’s side were immigrants. I have no idea about my paternal side. I’m basic white bread American. Though I will be an immigrant in the next couple months if all goes smoothly. My children will be able to say they have a parent from another country, if not an exciting one.

I hope it all goes well!

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No foreign ancestry, although my great-grandparents were married in Argentina, but returned to raise their family 

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Distant ancestry both Dutch (very visible in my family name, but I don't know what generation were the last Dutch citizens) and Polish (great-great-grandparents).

 

Aside from people always misspelling my name, I never felt it affected me much. As for languages, I picked up a fair bit of passive Dutch just by living close to the border and watching Dutch TV when it still came in through aerial in the 80s. I don't know any Polish, at all.

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Paternal grandparents were from Italy.

I think my maternal great-grandmother was from England, and, I'm assuming my paternal grandfather's lineage goes back to Germany.

I'm not sure how far back, though. That side of the family was Pennsylvania Dutch (German).

I'm hoping to learn more when I send in my DNA test.

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All of my ancestry is from the UK and Ireland.  My great grandparents all immigrated as Mormon converts in the mid to late 1800's.

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2 minutes ago, chandrakirti said:

My DNA was boringly Scots/Northern Europe/Norwegian bit a miniscule amount was ...indigenous American! How?

Indigenous Americans were popular in Europe. Quite exotic. *Or, at least, one of your randy relatives thought so*:P

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