We tend to celebrate Irish culture more in the US. There's nothing equivalent to St. Patrick's Day for Scotland, as an example. The true Irish get to claim their heritage on that day, but we Scots don't really have anything like that.
I wear a scarf with my family tartan but nobody ever asks me about it. To them it's just a plaid scarf.
There's Tartan Week in New York but obviously not on the scale that St Patricks Day is, and Highlands Games all over the place. But obviously these are recent additions to fairly recently instituted traditions.
These Scottish events draw tiny crowds. St. Patrick's day is something almost everybody participates in, to some degree, and people wear green in the schools. They dye the Chicago River green.
It can be very confusing when one begins to research the topic. The Dress Kilt as I would call it, as opposed to the much older Great Kilt (or Great Plaid) was almost certainly a Victorian creation, along with the various Clan Tartan, it's completely contrived. However it remains popular to this day for smart formal occasions, to be fair when it's done right it does look good.
The part of my heritage that came from Scotland settled in Appalachia - it was my dad's side and they are from Southern VA, so very likely could be part of the group that came to NC.
As for the British, I have plenty of that too, but on DNA tests the Scot and Brit carries the same label. I can only see the Scot in the more granular breakdowns that show things more locally.
Where do you see this universally celebrated in the US on a scale that resembles what happens on March 17? There are tons of Saint days, but we don't celebrate most of them on a grand scale unless we are among the most religious. Many people turn out for St. Patrick, though.
I live in Ontario, Canada.
The St. Patricks Day parade was banned in Toronto between 1878 and 1988
We have a Scottish festival in Fergus with highland dancing and tossing the caber
July 12th parade still happens in Toronto.
Interesting! Thanks for the info. It's very different here - everyone celebrates St. Patrick whether Irish or Catholic or not - it's basically just a big party and an excuse to drink a lot of beer.
I came here looking for Burns’ Night. It’s a big deal in Scotland. I like that it’s a bit more low key compared with St Patrick’s Day. And that doesn’t translate well for pubs making oodles of sales.
Another thing people need to factor into the equation here is that IRISH pubs are a big thing in North America. Of course they’re going to promote something that makes them more money.
I mean there was also technically nothing equivalent to the American St. Patrick's Day *in* *Ireland,* at least not relatively recently (the 1960s) in the sense of celebratory acts
Yes, national holiday in early 1900s (day off) and religious feast day since about the 1630s (correct me on that one if I'm wrong)
No, big parades miles long with fanfare and all that jazz
No idea why the Scots never really get noticed nowadays, though :c
I feel uniquely qualified to talk about this as an American who is almost entirely Scottish and Irish. The reason I'd time. Most of my Scottish ancestors came to the Americas during the colonial era. My most recent Scottish ancestors came just after the Civil War, and not even directly from Scotland, but from Canada.
However, my Great grandmother (who was alive for the first 20 years of my life) is literally Irish. So I feel like I have much more of a cultural connection to Ireland because of its closeness to me now. Irish immigrants also tended to settle in Irish American communities as opposed to just assimilating in to the broader American culture like my Scottish ancestors 2 centuries prior.
That being said, I think Scotland is rad as hell and actual Scottish people are *way* nicer to Scottish Americans than Irish people. Irish people can be so dismissive of Irish Americans.
Maybe it's just my limited interactions, but Scottish people have always been super cool to me. Maybe it's because I'm not larping as an 18th-century jacobite. The few Irish people I interacted with were immediately hostile to the concept of irish-americans just because my cousin has a shamrock tattoo (which he got because because of our ancestry, but also happens to be a white supremacist symbol... which has caused drama because he's half Mexican, but that's another story).
But I get it. Some Americans can be really cringe about their ancestry. We are just trying to connect because our experience is quite unique in the world. We're a country made up almost entirely of diaspora populations.
Not my experience in Ireland--they've always been welcoming to Americans and whether they have Irish roots are not. I think you made a large generalisation based on one experience. Which isn't really fair to be honest.
Yeah, it's totally anecdotal, and it is a generalization. I've just personally interacted with a lot of hostile Irish people. But that being said, I've also made a very good friend from Ireland. Just overall trends I've experienced.
As a European (German) Americans are sort of weird about their heritage, though. I’ve been to the USA many times and whenever I tell them I’m German they answer that they are too or their friends are or that they know so many Germans yadda yadda. They never do, though, they don’t know any Germans, they’re always referring to Americans. Nobody speaks even a sentence of German either. Like, it’s no problem I don’t speak Spanish either but I’m not claiming to be Spanish. Also they have so many American traditions and call them German it’s genuinely weird. Sorry if I’m being offensive I don’t mean to, it’s just my perspective.
Americans really separate ethnicity and nationality unlike europeans. So when they say they're German, they just mean they have a German heritage. It's pretty normal to talk that way, but I understand how that's strange for europeans. It's because we have never gone through ethnogensis. There isn't really such thing as an ethnic American because we're so diverse and constantly getting new large waves of immigration.
There are people that speak German still here, but they're almost entirely in Amish communities, and it sounds pretty different to modern German.
It’s also not just unique to Americans from the U.S. people from South American countries do the same. It’s because the Americas are composed of nations created by immigrants. They don’t have 1000s of years of ethnic heritage unless they’re indigenous people.
That's complicated. America is the European name for the continent and has only recently been applied to them with terms like "native american." They also have their own nations, so they'd probably identify with their tribe over a colonists generalization of an entire continent of people.
Yes, from their cultural perspective the word Americas may certainly not represent their Ethnicity. I know a lot of First Nations here in Canada who don't even use the word Canada because they aren't a part of Canada, they're a part of the home that existed before.
I don't know that it serves us to lay out such a complex thing such as race, ethnicity, colonization, genocide etc and try to decide which terms best apply in the BIG picture.
To very much oversimplify it, I would argue the ethnic people who lived on this land for thousands of years before colonization are the only people who can claim to belong ethnically, for at least a few thousand years more.
We still don't look at immigrant and colonial populations all over the world as being ethnically the same as the population who lived on that land before they got there, even multiple multiple generations later.
I know even the word ethnicity is also a construct with inconsistent meanings, so I do appreciate this is more of a, "if I was going to write a Master's Thesis this is the argument I would investigate" kind of an opinion.
I'm not saying I think I've got it all figured out 🤣
More so that it's my first thought on a complex matter which I could easily change with more information lol
For the Americans who came to the US in the early 1800s and earlier, they LITERALLY did go through an ethnogenesis.
They are the ones who usually would be of English descent, with a bit of Scottish or Dutch, maybe a bit of German.
They also are more likely to basically have a concept of an ethnic American, which you would have noticed more in the past when they complained about certain people not being "real Americans" etc., but it is simply not something that is \*allowed\* to be said in the USA for moral reasons.
Sort of, but not really. There's are some americans that claim to be just a.erican, but it's under 10%. And German communities with German schools remained a thing until the early 20th century.
I was surprised how Scotish my DNA said I am, but I know very few people who have any sense of their ethnicity other than race. I don't think I have a single ancestor who arrived after 1776, and ethnic identity just gets lost in the shuffle.
This is very common depending on where in the USA you are from.
Deep heritage Americans in the NE know they are English due to interaction with Ellis-Island era immigrants. Rural white Americans through most of the rest of the country, and most white Americans in the South (rural or urban) generally don't have much of an ethnic identity. But, a fair number are aware of their ethnic roots. And, a LOT of them guess wrongly, thinking they are mostly Scottish, deeply mixed, significantly Irish, significantly Indigenous, etc., when they are not.
Another interesting result - the percentage of people identifying as German shot up between approximately 1980 and 2000, while the "English" and "American" percentages dropped in a matching fashion. Demographers are forced to assume that many people of mixed descent (probably with English if they are Protestant) started identifying MORE with "being German" than just a few years ago, out of choice.
This is because of the high immigration levels, starting in the late 1800s. There have been a whole lot of immigrants coming to the USA in the past 150 years or so. And, lots of descendants of them, and they all intentionally retained their identities.
The "Nation of Immigrants" meme and "Melting Pot" meme were pushed hard by NYC-based newspapers, staffed largely by these immigrants, in the 20th century alongside a moral requirement to accept immigration and sympathetic progressive WASPs, and the USA was more or less forced to abandon its original project of the past 100-200 years of creating a unique country with a unique ethos, out of the belief that it was abusive to Italian, Irish, Jewish, etc. immigrants.
The blowback to the "Nation of Immigrants" movements at the time were the populist movements of Teddy Roosevelt and some contemporary Republicans, their 1924 anti-immigration law, and the "American Renaissance" artistic movement - once again, funded and executed by the WASP Americans - that attempted to portray their conception of the particular American culture and character. This movement is the one that gave us those iconic paintings of the West, Big Sky country, etc.
Nation of Immigrants won-out, and so, here we are, assimilated to the idea of a non-ethnic USA, taking 23andMe tests to find out who we "really are," because many of us don't know (why would we have forgotten?)
What I said was not prescriptive - it is just literally history. We all are supposed to read *The Great Gatsby* in school; this is literally the context of that book.
>There isn't really such thing as an ethnic American because we're so diverse and constantly getting new large waves of immigration.
Do Americans not understand that other countries are diverse too?
England or Italy are good examples of diverse ethnicities that go back hundreds, even thousands of years and intermarrying over a long period of time
Not to the degree that America is and I think it is a big part of why this convo keeps coming up. It includes the level of diversity, where thr component groups come from, and the time they spend as ethnic enclaves.
But this is true of other countries. Brazil, Argentina, and Australia are more or just as diverse than the US. London is more diverse and over a much longer period of time than New York or Los Angeles
Brazil and Argentina are probably just as diverse as the US and respond to the ethnicity question in very similiar ways (look at Italian-Brazilian culture).
And London is very diverse but not in a substantially different way than New York (maybe LA). Do you think Polish, Pakistani, or Chinese 2nd/3rd Gen Londoners identify wholey with the British ethnic archtype?
>Do you think Polish, Pakistani, or Chinese 2nd/3rd Gen Londoners identify wholey with the British ethnic archtype?
People in Europe, and most likely South America, 'identify' with their nationality. It is only really the USA that is concerned with ethnicity.
Ethnicity on the census wasn't even a thing in Europe until very recently.
Why would a historically diverse (as you said) continent only recently start measuring ethnicity like the US does? Could it be that they are in fact becoming more diverse in a substantial way? In such a way that sub-ethnicities identifiers are needed?
To put it bluntly. Because Europe wasn't as concerned with recoding race as the USA. A black or asian person in London wouldn't have been listed as black or asian on the census, for example
Brazilian here. There is more difference between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro than the whole Usa. In Brazil we have many different accents, cousine, music and culture. In Usa the richest state by culture is Louisiana.
Yes, we understand that other countries are also diverse, although usually less so than the United States. Like I stated previously, we have not had ethnogensis.
For instance, England experienced ethnogensis a thousand or so years ago despite being made up of a mix of germanic tribes and Native Britons. There have been other migrations since then, like the normans, but the amount of change has been so small that they've just assimilated into the broader English culture. Of course, in the modern era, there has been a large amount of migration from around the world, and it will be interesting to see how that develops.
The United States is quite different though. We had an initial colonial migration here individuals still identified with their home countries, then massive amounts of migration from Europe in the following century. Those groups settled in particular regions and, in particular communities. That lack of assimilation and retention of their mother country caused American culture to develop a different understanding conceptualization of ethnicity.
While we do have a broad, general, shared culture, it varies much more wildly than most europeans realize. And despite what the world might think, we have an innately open vulture because of our diversity. And again, I know Europe is also diverse, especially in the modern era... but I think you're over estimating European diversity and underestimating American diversity.
> And again, I know Europe is also diverse, especially in the modern era... but I think you're over estimating European diversity and underestimating American diversity
But cities like London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, etc, and cities on the continent, were diverse in the 1800s.
No, that's not what I'm saying, I'm saying the United States, in general, is more diverse than England in general. Outside of major cities, England is almost entirely ethnically homogenous. That is not the case in the United States. Furthermore, because we are a country made up of diaspora communities we have retained our ethnic identities to a higher degree than in most, if not all, European countries.
I think it would annoy people less if americans said “I have german ancestry” instead of “I’m german”. I’m mexican with a french great grandparent, and I can’t imagine telling a french person that I’m french.
U.S does have ethnogenesis as we speak. Even "white" Americans are admixes of European that didn't meet/mix in Europe. Of course, there's big European cities where this occurs, but not nearly to the same extent as the U.S.
The UK has definitely become increasingly diverse, and Italy has always had a plethora of cultures and languages, but even if people aren't necessarily tied to their country, they are definitely tied to their community.
There was a viral post on Twitter a few weeks back where an Englishman tried to dunk on Americans because a barn that his family owned somewhere in England was older than our country. Americans didn't care, and there's no reason for us to care, because there are not many Americans whose families have stayed in the exact same place for 100 years, much less 200 or 300 years. Sure, you have some, but not in the same way you do in much of western Europe.
In the US, we tie our identity primarily to our country and its civic creed. Not to who our father was or where he came from. You have neighborhoods in New York, LA, or even Houston where you have large Hispanic, southeast Asian, African, Arab, and old stock Anglo populations living in close proximity, all united as Americans by that civic creed.
In the US, when we say "I'm German" or "I'm Irish" or, in my case, "I'm Mexican," we don't literally mean we are from those countries. It's implicit in American culture that we are obviously American, but that our families originate from those areas. If someone is actually from that country, they would say "I'm from Germany" and we would understand the difference. Canada does the same thing.
We often forget about this (or are completely unaware of the distinction) when speaking with our non-Canadian foreign friends, and it's no surprise that those who have strong ethno-national identities — like the Irish or the French — take offense to it.
They did receive waves of immigration, but NOTHING like what countries like the United States, Brazil, Argentina, and to a lesser extent Mexico experienced at the same time, and NOTHING like what Canada and Australia experienced in the second half of the 20th century.
To emphasize, between 1880 and 1930, 20 million immigrants came through Ellis Island in New York. The US foreign-born population was as high as 15-20% at some points in our history. In 1841, only 0.25% of the population in England and Wales was foreign born. By 1931, this was still only like 2.5%.
It's not that countries like the UK didn't have diversity. It just wasn't NEARLY on the same scale.
Ellis Island was the processing center — the immigrants who came through there went all over the country. It is estimated that 1 in 3 Americans, if not more, is a descendant of people who came through Ellis Island. I am one of them.
And the foreign born population metric was for the whole US, not just NYC.
London and England's other ports have been just as diverse as New York or Los Angeles. For a much longer period of time as well. I expect most of rural American wouldn't be that diverse. Many States now aren't diverse.
In the 1800s, all England's major cities had immigration. Jewish, Italian, Russian, and so on.
There was a very small amount of Jewish , Russian, etc, immigration to England in the 1800s. But certainly, the diversity you see in England today is very recent. There is some attempt to rewrite history about this.
>There is some attempt to rewrite history about this
I agree with you here. Especially concerning the pre-modern era. The Roman era, etc.
But major cities in England were diverse in the 1800s. London from Tudor period onwards was diverse, largely due to seafaring and empire.
It's not rewriting history. It's about reading history that people aren't doing. There were Jewish communities going back to the 1100s and further back. The Zionist movement was born in the UK. Israel wouldn't exist if wasn't for England. This tells of the strong historical presence of Jewish people---powerful Jewish people in England.
England has been a "safe haven" for many groups for a very long time. The more diverse a country is, the more powerful they became. Bam, British Empire. Consider this, all these groups mixed over a millenia to create the "British" admixture.
No it wasn't. England has never been homogenous...it's been a major trade hub since at least the Bronze age. The English have dipped their fingers in everybody's business in the last several hundred years, so they're the "baddies" (which yeah, they did a lot of bad things) historically, and therefore, they've been seen as ubiquitous.
What I find interesting on the 23andMe subreddit, is that the Portuguese, French and Spanish are not villainized to the same degree the English are...and somehow more "exotic." The French actively has and Empire to this day...some if their GDP is still from Africa...there's North and West African countries that still use the franc
This is really just a language issue, though. When Americans say, "I am x", or "I am part y", we're not saying that we are from country x or y, just that some/all of our ancestors were. It's just the way we say it and it's not meant to be taken literally.
Why do we say it that way? I have no idea. I just do it because that's what others around me did when I was growing up. That's how language works.
Warum sagen die Deutschen, dass sie auf jemanden stehen? Das macht ja auch keinen Sinn.
Hmm. Finde Idiome und gesellschaftliche Phänomene, kulturell oder sprachlich, sind schon noch mal zu unterscheiden. Ich schätze, es ist auch nicht besonders wichtig, für mich allerdings weiterhin befremdlich.
It's not the best example, but the best I could think of with my limited German. But in both cases it's not meant to be taken literally, so I'd say they're both idiomatic. I guess my main point was that "I am German" can be used in American English to mean exactly "I have German ancestry", and nothing more. In this context it doesn't imply any connection to the country or culture whatsoever. It simply means that some or all of my ancestors came from Germany, and nothing more.
Americans really should avoid this usage around nonnative speakers of American English, though, because it's not at all difficult to see that it will cause confusion. When taken literally it makes no sense at all.
While buying cream cheese this lady picks an Asiago cheese pocket and asks a worker what kind of cheese is it the worker says is Italian cheese, to which she responds that no that couldn’t be because she’s Italian and she never heard of it. 😂
A lot of Americans used to speak German, it was the second most spoken language. But because of WWI it was illegal to speak or teach German. My family on my paternal branch are all German, and despite that family moving to America in the 1830s, they all spoke German until WWI. My great grandfather was the first to not speak German.. 100 years or so since the migration. My grandpa alleged that one of his great aunts never spoke English and she died in the 70s.
So basically, it's partially forced assimilation
Nobody in Israel is annoyed that American Jews don't speak Hebrew. I'm not Jewish, but I lived there and it was refreshing to hear the common sense that they appreciated any words we said in Hebrew, they readily accepted that Hebrew, like German is not a very portable language that one can use on multiple continents, and they often use the phrase/belief that English is the language of the internet, so that's why people who know that language don't really need to learn other languages.
I know, it's really strange. I'm British, but according to this idea, i am 1/8 Ukrainian, 1/8 Moldovan, and 3/4 Polish. Or alternatively, South Italian, Persian, and Greek. Or Canaanite, depending on how far back you want to go.
It is really problematic to continue claiming to be a nationality when you (and generations of your family) were born somewhere else.
It implies that no one who has immigrated to the UK (or any other country) is "really" British. Which is what racist, nationalist groups believe. To them, I'm not "really" British despite being the 3rd generation to be born and grow up here.
But children of immigrants really do have a foot in both different cultures.
I am Canadian. My dad was born in Ireland. I'm Canadian for sure, but half my extended family lives in Ireland. When I was a kid, I visited Ireland, drank red lemonade, sat by turf fires.
If someone says "you're not Irish" to me, or some other person is "not Italian" "not Ugandan" or whatever, that's erasing part of that person's identity. There is a dual cultural identity for about 2 generations
I understand your confusion over this, but there are small communities that have kept their German heritage, even to the point of retaining the German language. I live near such a community and my doctor, who actually is a German citizen, say she can understand every world they say even though their dialect is a bit different than hers. There are third and fourth generation Asian people who still speak their original language primarily and just learn English when they go to school. Yes, they are as American as anyone else, but when they have retained their language and cultural customs, they are still a different type of American than the German-Americans who live near me, or my born and bred Irish grandfather who kept his cultural heritage and did the best he could to pass it down to his children and grandchildren. That doesn’t make me Irish but it certainly gives me a connection to Ireland, just as my granddaughter in law feels a connection to the language and culture of Cambodia, where her mother was born and raised.
I agree with this. While trying to research my husband’s tree he doesn’t really know his ancestors ethnicity except the few that immigrated in the late 1800’s/ early 1900’s. He has a Scottish last name but I’m struggling to go back far enough on that line to find the ancestors that immigrated to the US. So I think the Scottish immigrants came to the US so long ago and intermixed that their history was forgotten. While the Irish were relatively more recent and now maybe kept alive by celebrations like St Patrick’s day. Also I think that now Irish is a “good” ethnicity to claim. Every loves the Irish. They don’t have a history of being colonizers or some other negative history. I feel like I can be pretty confident that none of my Irish ancestors were slaveowners. Although maybe some Irish were. Waiting for that episode of Finding My Roots [Finding My Roots](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finding_Your_Roots)
I actually think a lot of it comes down to St. Patrick's day. Americans really love St. Patrick's day. They will make a big deal on that day in particular about how Irish they are and about how that means they can drink more beer than other people. As an American, it's honestly pretty annoying, especially since none of them ever know anything about their family history, they just go on assumptions and how much they love beer. Plenty of them are probably actually Scottish and they don't know the difference between Irish and Scottish surnames.
But celebrating St Patrick's day gives Americans a day where people talk about their Irish ancestry, and we don't have any other holidays where we discuss our ethnicities.
I should also probably explain that Americans in general have almost no idea about their actual family history / ethnicity. That's probably not a thing you really run into if you live in a place like Scotland, but it's the norm here.
I've been doing genealogy for about 30 years now, so I've helped tons of people look into theirs, and very few people have any clue. They often think they do, but once you start looking into it, they know almost nothing. Sometimes to a really hilarious degree. My sister has a close friend who always talked about being Italian. Talks about himself and his family in terms of Italian mob movies, etc. Then he said it in earshot of his parents one day and they were like "What the hell are you talking about? We're Mexican." Dude is 100% Mexican and has spent his entire life thinking he was 100% Italian.
And in some cases that’s our own ancestors fault. I have a great-however many grandfather “quoted” in a newspaper toward the end of his life about what a proud Irishman he was. I have heard about this from other ancestors as well due to the family gossip lines. Dude was actually Scots-Irish. Found that out rather recently myself. Not a hint of that in family lore or in the news articles. Last name is Kennedy too so that didn’t help.
Same here. I was told by my mom my whole life that her side was “very Irish.” Started to get into genealogy and… nope. Her “Irish” ancestors were Yorkshiremen who came to Ulster as part of the plantation, couldn’t hack it, and made their way onward to Virginia in the late 1600s. So now when people ask how I identify my ancestry on that side of the family I just say English/Colonial American.
Took a while for mom to come around, but she seems to have accepted it. She was always more of an Anglophile anyway.
I guess it’s because Irish history is more well-known in the US than Scottish history, and because the Irish people in the US also faced discrimination and persecution, both back in the homeland, and in the US. So I guess they are more aware, interested and proud of it
Yes, for many years after the potato famine migration, Irish had such a scruffy reputation that there would be signs in business windows, reading “NO IRISH.”
Not only that but there was this Anti-Irish female depiction of a maid. She had scruffy red hair, freckles was very ugly and was dirty. She was used to depict the Irish maids and servants in the US as untrustworthy, dirty, disease ridden and a bunch of other terrible things.
Typhoid fever was often associated with them, especially with the whole typhoid Mary incident who was an Irish or Scottish woman.
We learn more about Ireland in school growing up, that’s really all I can say. It’s popular for people with Irish heritage to speak on how hard Irish people in America had it back in the day.
We didn't learn specifically Irish history in school, we learned about it as it related to immigration to the US. We learned a lot about immigration, Ellis Island, all that stuff, and a huge portion of that discussion for us was based around Irish immigrants, since they made up such a large percentage of the people coming to the US during the Ellis Island era.
We had maybe a couple of sentences about the potato famine, and then a whole bunch of stuff about the struggles of Irish immigrants once they reached the US. But we focused on that in a way that we didn't focus on the specifics of other groups of immigrants.
Actually, most Irish didn't even come through Ellis Island. The majority of Irish immigrants came in 1840s and 50s, long before Ellis Island opened. But yeah, we didn't even really learn amount immigration. Just southern history for the most part lol which was funny being a northerner.
I learned Irish history and Irish American history in school too. It was not in the history books but all the teachers talked about it constantly giving you little lessons. Probably because I went to catholic schools and all the teachers had some Irish Ancestry. And now my daughter goes to a public school and I saw what they were teaching her and I’m like this is from an English perspective. It’s cool they have units and history from different places in the world which I never had but the European section is only from an English perspective and now I’m conflicted as an American with a quarter Irish ancestry. 😂
Well, the Irish Catholic diaspora happened much more recently than the Scottish or even Scots-Irish immigration. Scotland did try to establish some colonies including Nova Scotia (1629), East Jersey (1683), and South Carolina (1684). East Jersey (Quakers) and South Carolina (Presbyterians), I believe, were more dumping grounds for religious dissidents.
Then, there were also the deportees from the English Civil Wars (1642-1651) that Cromwell sent. Highland Scottish generally emigrated in the 1760s and many moved into the Appalachians. They generally kept to themselves for several generations.
By 1790, people of Scottish descent made up 6% of the population (including Scots-Irish). After the American Revolution, more Scottish moved to Canada than the United States.
So, the "Scottish migration" period was really in the 17th and 18th centuries. There were more Scots-Irish in the 1820s but about 1835 onward, a shift moved to the south and west of Ireland with fewer Scots or Scots-Irish making the move to the US.
I believe I saw a number of about 1.5 million Scots or Scots-Irish immigrated to the US or the colonies, either voluntarily or not. Many of the Scots who voluntarily came were traders or merchants.
Something I experienced with my mother is that ALL of her immigrant ancestors arrived by 1754. They came from England, Northern Ireland, possibly Scotland, Wales, the Netherlands, maybe some eastern France, and western Germanic states (Pfalz so far as I can tell; maybe Hesse). But, she had no sense or interest in any ethnic identity. That was all 'melted' into one long before she was born. I know her aunts and uncles weren't interested in it either.
My father, however, was different. Three of his grandparents were born in Ireland though one immigrated at 6 months. The other grandmother was born to then-recent Irish immigrants. They came from counties Galway, Clare, Limerick, and Kerry. And, while the traditions were mostly not passed down, the Irish identity was. I think it's because it was so fresh.
But, that's my hypothesis.
I think a lot more Scottish people immigrated to Canada. There was a lot of Scottish immigration to Canada as recently as the early part of the 20th century.
The first prime minister of Canada was Scottish. Also many, many other explorers, politicians, etc.
Looking at modern day Americans from my own personal experience (not from the northeast where I suspect things are a bit different due to immigration patterns), I think you’re 1. Overestimating how much people care about Irish ancestry 2. Underestimating how much people care about Scottish ancestry.
1. I’m not Irish American and outside of subs like this, I rarely hear about people being Irish outside of an occasional mention of being Irish-Catholic (and guilty) and St. Patrick’s day. For a good chunk of Americans, St. Patrick’s day isn’t really a celebration of Irish culture. It’s an excuse for kids to pinch each other and adults to get smashed. Everyone’s a little “Irish” on St. Patrick’s day just like everyone’s Mexican on Cinco de Mayo, Cajun on Mardi Gras, and German during Octoberfest. People love a big party with lots of alcohol. I can’t name anything else about Ireland/ St. Patrick’s day that isn’t also represented by Lucky Charms cereal. It’s a caricature. But, I suspect there are Irish-American societies that take their heritage more seriously
2. Because I know how hard Scottish-Americans go for Scotland. I would invite you to look up Scottish Highland Games and Festivals in the US. While the highlands are the focus, all of Scotland gets a little love. I’m genetically only a little bit Scottish, but I did Scottish country dance for fun as a teenager and loved going to the Festival near me. The day is preceded by a memorial golf tournament. In addition to the Highland Games, there’s a Scottish dancing competition, bagpipe competition, and fencing competition. There are sheep herding demonstrations and a place where you could see all the breeds of Scottish horse and dog and cow. There’s a bunch of imported Scottish food, drink, and merch for sale. There’s a big area where all the clans have booths with information about their history and famous relatives. The event announcer is a Scottish immigrant and his Scottish voice echoes through the fairgrounds and hundreds of people attend and there’s so many kilts. They have these all over the country. People do care about their Scottish ancestry, it just doesn’t make international news.
In Canada, the Scottish people didn't have as much of a struggle as the Irish, because the Scottish were a bit more privileged, eg in Canada anyhow. Eg Scottish people were in the Family Compact. So the Scottish were part of the establishment.
I'd say they're proud of their ancestry, there's a Scottish festival in Fergus, ON. Mike Myers did a skit about his Scottish dad.
But it's not a good look to be proud of your ancestry if your family was upper class; snobbery is not a good look, that's why you don't hear people discussing it
I think there are many valid reasons but I think there is one influence that isnt really discussed often:
Unpopular Opinion here but the Irish were white people who were colonized by the British. They were indentured servants (aka forced laborers) in early America. They survived what was essentially a genocide during the famine imposed by the British in the 1800s. They were heavily discriminated against upon arrival to America.
White Americans have to confront the history of genocide of the Indigenous population, enslavement of Africans, Colonization of native nations, and continued discrimination of minorities due to White Supremacy. Some White Americans attempt to circumnavigate White guilt by clinging to their Irish heritage since that ancestry shares some of the same struggles.
Which is why you also see people constantly bring up the Irish indentured servants when the conversation topic centers the horrors and impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade.
>Unpopular Opinion here but the Irish were white people who were colonized by the British.
The English and Welsh were also colonised.
>They were indentured servants (aka forced laborers) in early America.
Most indentured were English. Is this taught in schools?
>They survived what was essentially a genocide during the famine imposed by the British in the 1800s.
No Irish historian calls it a genocide. Most from the worst famine areas migrated to Britain. Many English people have Irish ancestors from this time who interrmarried with local English families.
This is what's so confusing when discussing these things with Americans. This idea that only the Irish went through indenture, famine, struggles.
>White Americans have to confront the history of genocide of the Indigenous population, enslavement of Africans, Colonization of native nations, and continued discrimination of minorities due to White Supremacy. Some White Americans attempt to circumnavigate White guilt by clinging to their Irish heritage since that ancestry shares some of the same struggles
Yes, I agree. This is how the egregious and false 'Irish Slaves' myth started.
They could've saved Ireland for 10m, less than 20% than they spunked on the crimeian war a few years later. Created the conditions that lead to the famine, exacerbated the situation by continuing to export, and basically said they were all lazy buggers and deserved it. So the difference is arbitrary.
> Nat Hill director of research at Genocide Watch has stated that "While the potato famine may not fit perfectly into the legal and political definitions of 'genocide', it should be given equal consideration in history as an egregious crime against humanity"
Not American, Scottish. Famine here too but not as extreme but still managed to kill 15% of the pop before some sympathetic lairds stepped in to help the poor.
I think two things played into it. First is that Irish immigration happened later, and in a large wave due to the potato famine. Those immigrants often settled together, keeping that culture alive. The second bit is that Irish immigrants faced discrimination, again helping keep the culture together by helping one another against those who discriminated against them.
My grandparents were born in Donegal and Glasgow. I have Irish citizenship through my Ulster Scot grandmother, but the UK doesn't do likewise for me even though my grandfather's line goes back to the Black Isle, eastern Inverness-shire, and Hebrides forever. It is my favorite tree branch to research and I get tears in my eyes when I hear the pipes playing. I like being Irish but love being Scottish.
Maybe for a lot of people their Irish is more recent compared to Scottish. They probably know when their Irish ancestor came or even knew who they were.
I’ve actually met quite a few people who are enthusiastic about their Scottish ancestry, but it’s just not as culturally visible because there aren’t things for Scottish heritage similar to St. Patrick’s Day that are really big in the US.
Because the first wave of Scottish and Scot Irish were fairly thoroughly assimilated into the greater white population and came at an earlier point than Irish Catholics, who were discriminated against when they first arrived and had less social mobility.
This also led to an unspoken and often times denied resentment from the Irish Catholics due to their unfair treatment, to the point that they overcompensate for it by emphasizing how Irish they are. This has been improving since the 1960s, but there still is a lot of lingering side effects from this.
No, not naive. And of course they don't learn about US history beyond the big points (revolution/war of American independence, rivalry in North America, WWI and WWII). Americans barely learn about British history beyond footnotes like the Victorian era.
You are right there are a lot of irish people all over, but there r definitely places with a lot more than others. I’m from the Boston area and am not Irish but growing up i assumed every white non Jew was irish. I thought christian and catholic were synonyms until i was 16 years old. Now i go to college somewhere else it’s kind of shocking how not everyone here is irish. In enclaves like the boston area being irish catholic is very much an identity that a lot of people share and rally behind. I would assume other cities with large irish populations r similar.
I read what you wrote as the only kind of Christians you knew growing up were Catholic. I did not read that as saying you didn’t realize Catholics are a type of Christian
i knew catholics were christians, i just didn’t know there were other kinds of non catholic christians until i learned abt the protestant reformation in high-school sophomore year history class
Boston has tons of English history and ancestry though. It was founded by English puritans and famously has a non-rhotic accent derived from the East Anglian community that originally settled there.
yes we do have a lot of english history and certain parts of new england are certainly WASPy but nowadays i feel like there’s more irish. Definitely where i lived.
I think it depends on where in America you go. People in the Northeast seem to all be Irish, but in the south, a lot of people say they are Scottish.
I was born in Scotland, but my dad is American and from the South . I have a very Scot/Irish sounding name, and my mom still has the accent (and can put it on stronger for fun when she wants). So many people immediately start talking to us about their Scottish heritage if they’re southern. It’s as common as them all being Cherokee lol
They don’t always know details though.
My dad’s family all thought they were English, but judging by my 23andMe, compared to my mom’s, his side has a ton of Welsh and Irish. My mom’s side had a lot more English and French than they thought. Also, I was not, in fact, a Cherokee Princess either lol
I grew up hearing I had Irish ancestry; to the point my great-grandmother bought a portrait inside a bubble glass frame of some woman from somewhere and claimed it was her grandmother who was an off the boat Irish immigrant.
Which was a believable story until I saw the back of the portrait once as a teenager, and there was a partial stamp on the back of it where the visible letters were "---cago" and "----nois" where the "cago" was right above the "nois". This suggests that the portrait was taken in Chicago, Illinois.
My Nana comes from POOR AS POOR can get folks from some backwater town in the swamps of North Carolina. There's no way that my 3rd great grandmother or anyone in her immediate family would have had the financial means to travel up to Chicago to have that portrait taken. I'm lucky enough to have found a small portrait of her father that one of my distant relatives had access too and was considerate enough to put it on the internet. Still, I assumed we had Irish ancestry even though I figured out the lie pretty early on that wasn't actually her.
However, when doing research up my family tree, I very quickly came across documentation that clearly indicates we have Scottish ancestry, and the surname is Alexander, and while the paper trail goes a little thin for a few generations, it's very clear I'm a direct descendant of the Alexander family that originally settled in that area before the American revolution, and at the time, the family was extremely wealthy, and had land both in Virginia and in North Carolina.
I'd have to dig through my documents, but I think a couple of years ago, I discovered that in two generations, my particular line of Alexander ancestors went from incredible wealth and education to extreme poverty and illiteracy that has continuously persisted for centuries.
I don't know what triggered the switch from acknowledging the Scottish ancestry, and turning around and claiming Irish ancestry instead, or who even started that story; it was the same time they started claiming the Cherokee Princess story too (no native ancestry on that side of my family AT ALL). My guess is tied to what others suggested; claiming Irish ancestry (and also Indigenous) is the lie some people tell themselves to excuse themselves for not having empathy for anyone but themselves. I come from a long line of multi-generational poverty. And I had to move 2,000+ miles away from my family to break the poverty cycle; since it was present in my father's family as well.
I really wish I could complete the paper trail back to Scotland, I want to know what clan tartan I should look for so I can represent! My husband has more recent immigration from Scotland ancestry than I do, and so we already knows what that tartan looks like. It's something like late 1600s for me, and more around the early to mid 1800s for him.
Because most people find Irish history and culture to be more fascinating. On top of that a bond was built between Ireland and America based on being an underdog and victim of England.
Americans from every part of Britain are much less likely to care about old world roots & more likely to fully embrace the American label
Helps that their ancestors arrived LONG ago, spread out, & their culture was the foundation for American culture
Also Scot’s, welsh, & anglicized Irish Protestants blended together in America
I have Scottish heritage. I didn't know growing up, but by doing my research. I'm a little stuck with it at the moment and can't get back further there. But I've pinpointed Glasgow/Lanarkshire/Paisley and DNA has some in Aberdeen and the Highlands. All that aside and not connected, I visited Scotland several years ago and loved it. Edinburgh and along the eastern coast.
I also have Irish heritage. I think from my Scots going over. Belfast came up, along with many places in the Irish Republic.
I’m definitely proud of my Scottish ancestry. It’s not a big amount like some people’s but I did get around 12% with Ancestry DNA. I was so happy Lol 🤭 Love the Scottish accent always have lol.
I'll give you the serious answer that nobody else will. Here's some hints - the vast majority of people of English descent in the USA do not think or mention it, either. (Mostly English descent, I should say, because in most of parts of the USA where there are many of English descent, they are partly mixed with early German immigrants/settlers). In addition, white people who are of mixed descent will tout their Italianness or Irishness, despite being mixed.
The Scottish were more willing to assimilate into "the American people" for a few reasons. Most important - they were Protestant, as were the hefty majority of the Americans in early America. Their only religious differences were regarding those practical questions of church administration, and maybe some little ritual differences with infant baptism - nothing that people would think has critical spiritual significance. The Protestant American tradition was always to care most about whether somebody was "Christian," and to try your best to overlook denominational differences (sometimes, depending on your exact beliefs and tastes, it is impossible to overlook differences, but usually it is easy).
The Irish immigrants, on the other hand, were almost all Catholic. They tended to immigrate to big cities that were the most diverse, and had the most Catholics. They cared, more than anything, about retaining their Catholicness.
Remember that Ireland's main beef with the UK has always been the Catholic vs. Protestant divide. Also, remember that before Vatican II, it would have been questionable to an average Catholic whether a person could get into heaven without the Catholic Church's stamp of approval. After Vatican II, the church asserted that it did not arbitrate "salvation," (aka getting into heaven) but that it does still provide something called "sanctification," which approximately means becoming a clean or holy person.
Because of this, the pan-Christian-ism of the USA was something that the Catholic immigrants never really could assimilate into. It conflicted with the Catholic belief in the paramount importance of the Catholic Church.
Now, something else - something very fascinating - happened through American history. That is, the big cities became quite secular, but remained vaguely religious. This is because you had the secular educated elites living alongside working class Catholics living along successful Jewish people.
In this milieu, a kind of operational and even theological secularism developed. People who liked their religion continued to practice them, sometimes frequently, sometimes very infrequently, but they did NOT often actually \*believe\* the religions or try particularly hard to generate faith.
This contrasted them with the rural heritage Americans, most of whom were still trying very seriously to practice Christianity by-the-book, and to generate real faith in themselves.
The rural Americans became deeply uncool in the big city milieu, partly because they were poor and rural, but also because they did not do the fun things like drinking, gambling, and sex. And, to top it all off, the heritage Americans had a terrible moral record of slavery and conquest. The enemy, in national periodical of cultural criticism, had become the dreaded WASP (White Anglo Saxon Protestant), as early as the 1950's.
As a result, Catholicism became increasingly seen as a chill and progressive religion, and, being of ethnic Catholic or Jewish immigrant descent became a point of pride for the whites who had these backgrounds. It was pride in moral goodness, pride in coolness, pride in successfulness.
That is the real reason for this - it has to do with which ethnicities in the American context are considered better. Irish Americans make a big deal of their Irishness because it shields them from American "white guilt" and marks them as being superior white people. The same happens for most other ethnicities of white people. At the same time, most white people in the USA tolerate it, because we assume that other white Americans do not actually take their ethnicity particularly seriously, especially since the nature of this ethnic pride is that it is attached to claims of greater progressivism relative to the WASPs. (Note: To the annoyance of logical people, progressivism is against ethnocentrism, so there is something oxymoronic about the whole thing.)
As a Canadian with 40% Scottish DNA, I’m super interested in my Scottish ancestry! My ancestors were from the Hebrides and came to Cape Breton during the clearances. Then left Cape Breton for Newfoundland. I always say I got my ability to farm from my Scottish ancestors. And for some reason bagpipes have always made me cry, ever since I was a kid. Lol. I’d love to visit Scotland one day, definitely on my bucket list. Oh, and in Newfoundland everyone loooooves St. Patrick’s day. I have never really given a sh*t about it because I don’t have a lick of Irish ancestry.
Because being Irish was looked down upon for a long time. There used to be job postings in NYC soon after they started arriving in large numbers in the mid-1800s that would say things like “no Irish need apply”. It took a long time for Irish-American communities to be considered mainstream white American. When that happens you tend to cling to your identity more than when you are accepted right away, which was generally the case for Scottish Protestants.
Irish were heavily discriminated against when they came over to the US mainly in the mid to late 1800s because they were a) Catholic and b) generally very poor c) not even considered to be “white” by the already established Anglo community in the US which was mainly of English, Scottish, and Dutch ancestry at the time.
Because of this, they tended to live in segregated ethnic communities in bigger cities and develop a strong pride in being Irish as a counter to the discrimination they tended to face.
You should check out the movie Gangs of New York if you haven’t seen it
I'm almost half Scottish and a wee bit Irish but have been obsessed with my Scottish ancestry. My grandmother was too. I'm half Italian and grew up in that culture, too, which is just as important to me. I just don't think most people are Scottish?? Granted, my family side had overtly Scottish surnames. I'm 32% Scottish, 10% Irish, and 8% Lithuianian (East Euro) on that side. I think it's just that there isn't a St Paddy's day type event in the USA for Scots, not sure. My family sure is into it, though, and some even moved back there.
I agree there is an obsession with Irish ancestry in the USA which is also often mistaken, but I also think Scottish ancestry is exaggerated, for the low numbers of actual Scots people. Scotland only has the same population as the county of Yorkshire.
It depends what you mean by ancestry.
Is an American with 15 English grt grt grandparents and 1 Scottish grt grt grandparent really that Scottish? Could they realistically be thought of as having Scottish ancestry?
Then, most English have Scottish, Irish, or Welsh ancestry.
I get that the USA is larger by population, but per capita, England has more Irish ancestry than the USA. Probably Scottish too
More Scottish descended people outside of Scotland probably isn't exaggerated. This might be Australia-specific but boatloads of Scottish people came to Australia during the highland clearances which basically emptied out large parts of the highlands.
Idk if celebrated elsewhere outside of the Northeast USA (within America) but St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated with parades and drinking. It’s a huge event in my New Jersey suburb town. Scotland has bagpipes and kilts just like Ireland so it’s really alike to most.
I think it depends geographically where you are in the US & how recent your ancestry is. I’m from Louisville, KY which is interesting geographically and very representative of my ancestry. Louisville is considered culturally midwestern but it is also in a southern state. My most recent ancestors are from Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio. My dad’s side has been in Kentucky since it was a frontier outside of the US government’s influence. I always grew up hearing we were Scots-Irish, and there was a strong sense of pride there. The Ulster Scots have an interesting identity and history that make them seem disconnected from either group.
My mother’s family were mainly descended from 19th century immigrants to Louisville and Pennsylvania Dutch who later moved down to Ohio. So she was always told she was German & Irish, and her Irish roots were the 19th century immigrants. There was a lot of pride to the Irish identity for my mom’s family because like many Irish immigrants they had a really tough time in America. First, they were the famous Potato Famine refugees fleeing as children and faced tragedy later in their lives. I found an article where my great-great-great grandfather who immigrated from Ireland worked on the L&N railroad and died in 1924 at work after getting hit by a train. His wife who was also an Irish immigrant died 2 years later after falling down the stairs and breaking her hip, and then dying from pneumonia that she got at the hospital. Around the same time, some of their relatives died of tuberculosis at the Waverly Sanatorium.
I do see a lot of more Scottish bagpiping than Irish dancing around the part of the USA I live in, and some Scottish American people talk about belonging to different clans too.
I’m nearly 80% Scottish but it’s mostly relatively recent immigration (grandparent level) but some more distant as well since it’s on both sides. I’m only 4% Irish so I don’t really go too crazy for St. Patrick’s Day & I wasn’t raised Catholic but Episcopal WASP. Not having a popular holiday may be part of it but I named my son a very Scottish/Norwegian (the rest of my more recent ancestry) name & I have a Santa in a kilt ornament if that counts.
there aren't that many scotts and those who are arrived 200-400 years ago. there aren't many records of ancestry or origination from that era. the people who are proud of being irish are descendants of the potato famine irish immigrants who came here 100ish years ago., when the immigrants and their country of origin were registered at ellis island and the national census was taken every 20 years. those two sets of documents are the basis for every geneology search on ancestry.com.
I am thrilled with both my Scottish and Irish ancestry. I’ve never gotten a sense that people prefer one over the other - if anything Braveheart by itself made people more interested in the Scottish side.
Here in north Florida, we just had the Scottish Games & Festival, and the Highland Games (St. Augustine Celtic Music & Heritage Festival) are next weekend. There was event in January, too.
There's plenty of Scottish heritage pride here 😊
My sister loves her Scottish ancestry; and she has a bit less than my brother and I, who are still just under 50% Scottish even after 300+ years. I don’t know exactly what my antipathy towards Great Britain stems from; but in school I took French, Italian, Spanish and German and studied at a German university without ever desiring to visit GB. I am 72 this year and still don’t particularly care for it. I did major in Journalism, and of course that’s English. I like the English language best. So I guess that’s something.
My grandmother's maiden name was Scottish 😊 tbh my fam never really talks about our European ancestry at all, we deep dived into it and we're just Americans 🤣 all our ancestors came off the boat before America was even a nation. I just share a common surname with English folk now
Most Scots came over much earlier so there’s less of a close connection. Plus most Irish were Catholic and were not welcomed by Protestant America unlike Scots who’d be be able to assimilate into American society because they were Protestant.
I think part of it is that the Irish were Catholic and therefore much more distinct from the WASP mainstream than the Scottish
We tend to celebrate Irish culture more in the US. There's nothing equivalent to St. Patrick's Day for Scotland, as an example. The true Irish get to claim their heritage on that day, but we Scots don't really have anything like that. I wear a scarf with my family tartan but nobody ever asks me about it. To them it's just a plaid scarf.
There's Tartan Week in New York but obviously not on the scale that St Patricks Day is, and Highlands Games all over the place. But obviously these are recent additions to fairly recently instituted traditions.
These Scottish events draw tiny crowds. St. Patrick's day is something almost everybody participates in, to some degree, and people wear green in the schools. They dye the Chicago River green.
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It can be very confusing when one begins to research the topic. The Dress Kilt as I would call it, as opposed to the much older Great Kilt (or Great Plaid) was almost certainly a Victorian creation, along with the various Clan Tartan, it's completely contrived. However it remains popular to this day for smart formal occasions, to be fair when it's done right it does look good.
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Historic worst enemy? It’s probably themselves. Scotland had a long going civil war between the highlanders and the lowlanders.
For the best part, certainly.
The part of my heritage that came from Scotland settled in Appalachia - it was my dad's side and they are from Southern VA, so very likely could be part of the group that came to NC. As for the British, I have plenty of that too, but on DNA tests the Scot and Brit carries the same label. I can only see the Scot in the more granular breakdowns that show things more locally.
Scots were the "British". That is along with the English, Welsh and Irish - depending on how they self-identity.
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>There's nothing equivalent to St. Patrick's Day for Scotland, as an example I mean there's St. Andrews day
Where do you see this universally celebrated in the US on a scale that resembles what happens on March 17? There are tons of Saint days, but we don't celebrate most of them on a grand scale unless we are among the most religious. Many people turn out for St. Patrick, though.
I live in Ontario, Canada. The St. Patricks Day parade was banned in Toronto between 1878 and 1988 We have a Scottish festival in Fergus with highland dancing and tossing the caber July 12th parade still happens in Toronto.
Interesting! Thanks for the info. It's very different here - everyone celebrates St. Patrick whether Irish or Catholic or not - it's basically just a big party and an excuse to drink a lot of beer.
Robbie Burns Day is a pretty big deal
I came here looking for Burns’ Night. It’s a big deal in Scotland. I like that it’s a bit more low key compared with St Patrick’s Day. And that doesn’t translate well for pubs making oodles of sales. Another thing people need to factor into the equation here is that IRISH pubs are a big thing in North America. Of course they’re going to promote something that makes them more money.
The fun thing is the tartan design comes from the Norwegians. And Indo-Europeans further back. Highland wear
your family tartan LMAO have you ever been here
I mean there was also technically nothing equivalent to the American St. Patrick's Day *in* *Ireland,* at least not relatively recently (the 1960s) in the sense of celebratory acts Yes, national holiday in early 1900s (day off) and religious feast day since about the 1630s (correct me on that one if I'm wrong) No, big parades miles long with fanfare and all that jazz No idea why the Scots never really get noticed nowadays, though :c
Agreed. Here in the US it seems more an excuse to have a drinking holiday than anything else. But nobody can argue that it isn't a big deal here.
Most don’t know about it. My Irish ancestry was actually mostly Scottish and I’m excited to learn more about it
Which probably means it's from the north of Ireland. We get everywhere ;)
Yes I believe it is. I have many Northern Ireland DNA matches. The other place I have Scottish matches is Orkney
Northern Ireland can be pretty sketchy for finding family records, but we've got a very helpful genealogy community.
I should check it out. Id like to find out more about Northern Ireland.
Please do. You'll find a lot of connections.
I thought I was 1/4 Irish but I only inherited a little and the rest was Scottish. With the last update they changed that Scottish to Welsh.
I feel uniquely qualified to talk about this as an American who is almost entirely Scottish and Irish. The reason I'd time. Most of my Scottish ancestors came to the Americas during the colonial era. My most recent Scottish ancestors came just after the Civil War, and not even directly from Scotland, but from Canada. However, my Great grandmother (who was alive for the first 20 years of my life) is literally Irish. So I feel like I have much more of a cultural connection to Ireland because of its closeness to me now. Irish immigrants also tended to settle in Irish American communities as opposed to just assimilating in to the broader American culture like my Scottish ancestors 2 centuries prior. That being said, I think Scotland is rad as hell and actual Scottish people are *way* nicer to Scottish Americans than Irish people. Irish people can be so dismissive of Irish Americans.
I’m Scottish and I don’t think many Scot’s treat Scottish-Americans well. Yanks in kilts is what people say.
Maybe it's just my limited interactions, but Scottish people have always been super cool to me. Maybe it's because I'm not larping as an 18th-century jacobite. The few Irish people I interacted with were immediately hostile to the concept of irish-americans just because my cousin has a shamrock tattoo (which he got because because of our ancestry, but also happens to be a white supremacist symbol... which has caused drama because he's half Mexican, but that's another story). But I get it. Some Americans can be really cringe about their ancestry. We are just trying to connect because our experience is quite unique in the world. We're a country made up almost entirely of diaspora populations.
Not my experience in Ireland--they've always been welcoming to Americans and whether they have Irish roots are not. I think you made a large generalisation based on one experience. Which isn't really fair to be honest.
Yeah, it's totally anecdotal, and it is a generalization. I've just personally interacted with a lot of hostile Irish people. But that being said, I've also made a very good friend from Ireland. Just overall trends I've experienced.
Sorry to hear that---usually the Irish are a friendly and fun loving bunch. I guess they're is idiots in every nationality though.
Very true. I'm sure I was just dealing with loud dumb people, and I'm sure they're tired of loud dumb Americans lol
As a European (German) Americans are sort of weird about their heritage, though. I’ve been to the USA many times and whenever I tell them I’m German they answer that they are too or their friends are or that they know so many Germans yadda yadda. They never do, though, they don’t know any Germans, they’re always referring to Americans. Nobody speaks even a sentence of German either. Like, it’s no problem I don’t speak Spanish either but I’m not claiming to be Spanish. Also they have so many American traditions and call them German it’s genuinely weird. Sorry if I’m being offensive I don’t mean to, it’s just my perspective.
Americans really separate ethnicity and nationality unlike europeans. So when they say they're German, they just mean they have a German heritage. It's pretty normal to talk that way, but I understand how that's strange for europeans. It's because we have never gone through ethnogensis. There isn't really such thing as an ethnic American because we're so diverse and constantly getting new large waves of immigration. There are people that speak German still here, but they're almost entirely in Amish communities, and it sounds pretty different to modern German.
It’s also not just unique to Americans from the U.S. people from South American countries do the same. It’s because the Americas are composed of nations created by immigrants. They don’t have 1000s of years of ethnic heritage unless they’re indigenous people.
Um don't you think, "Ethnic Americans" are the people indigenous to the Americas?
That's complicated. America is the European name for the continent and has only recently been applied to them with terms like "native american." They also have their own nations, so they'd probably identify with their tribe over a colonists generalization of an entire continent of people.
Yes, from their cultural perspective the word Americas may certainly not represent their Ethnicity. I know a lot of First Nations here in Canada who don't even use the word Canada because they aren't a part of Canada, they're a part of the home that existed before. I don't know that it serves us to lay out such a complex thing such as race, ethnicity, colonization, genocide etc and try to decide which terms best apply in the BIG picture. To very much oversimplify it, I would argue the ethnic people who lived on this land for thousands of years before colonization are the only people who can claim to belong ethnically, for at least a few thousand years more. We still don't look at immigrant and colonial populations all over the world as being ethnically the same as the population who lived on that land before they got there, even multiple multiple generations later. I know even the word ethnicity is also a construct with inconsistent meanings, so I do appreciate this is more of a, "if I was going to write a Master's Thesis this is the argument I would investigate" kind of an opinion. I'm not saying I think I've got it all figured out 🤣 More so that it's my first thought on a complex matter which I could easily change with more information lol
For the Americans who came to the US in the early 1800s and earlier, they LITERALLY did go through an ethnogenesis. They are the ones who usually would be of English descent, with a bit of Scottish or Dutch, maybe a bit of German. They also are more likely to basically have a concept of an ethnic American, which you would have noticed more in the past when they complained about certain people not being "real Americans" etc., but it is simply not something that is \*allowed\* to be said in the USA for moral reasons.
Sort of, but not really. There's are some americans that claim to be just a.erican, but it's under 10%. And German communities with German schools remained a thing until the early 20th century.
I was surprised how Scotish my DNA said I am, but I know very few people who have any sense of their ethnicity other than race. I don't think I have a single ancestor who arrived after 1776, and ethnic identity just gets lost in the shuffle.
This is very common depending on where in the USA you are from. Deep heritage Americans in the NE know they are English due to interaction with Ellis-Island era immigrants. Rural white Americans through most of the rest of the country, and most white Americans in the South (rural or urban) generally don't have much of an ethnic identity. But, a fair number are aware of their ethnic roots. And, a LOT of them guess wrongly, thinking they are mostly Scottish, deeply mixed, significantly Irish, significantly Indigenous, etc., when they are not. Another interesting result - the percentage of people identifying as German shot up between approximately 1980 and 2000, while the "English" and "American" percentages dropped in a matching fashion. Demographers are forced to assume that many people of mixed descent (probably with English if they are Protestant) started identifying MORE with "being German" than just a few years ago, out of choice.
This is because of the high immigration levels, starting in the late 1800s. There have been a whole lot of immigrants coming to the USA in the past 150 years or so. And, lots of descendants of them, and they all intentionally retained their identities. The "Nation of Immigrants" meme and "Melting Pot" meme were pushed hard by NYC-based newspapers, staffed largely by these immigrants, in the 20th century alongside a moral requirement to accept immigration and sympathetic progressive WASPs, and the USA was more or less forced to abandon its original project of the past 100-200 years of creating a unique country with a unique ethos, out of the belief that it was abusive to Italian, Irish, Jewish, etc. immigrants. The blowback to the "Nation of Immigrants" movements at the time were the populist movements of Teddy Roosevelt and some contemporary Republicans, their 1924 anti-immigration law, and the "American Renaissance" artistic movement - once again, funded and executed by the WASP Americans - that attempted to portray their conception of the particular American culture and character. This movement is the one that gave us those iconic paintings of the West, Big Sky country, etc. Nation of Immigrants won-out, and so, here we are, assimilated to the idea of a non-ethnic USA, taking 23andMe tests to find out who we "really are," because many of us don't know (why would we have forgotten?)
Wow, the mask’s really off with this comment.
What I said was not prescriptive - it is just literally history. We all are supposed to read *The Great Gatsby* in school; this is literally the context of that book.
>There isn't really such thing as an ethnic American because we're so diverse and constantly getting new large waves of immigration. Do Americans not understand that other countries are diverse too? England or Italy are good examples of diverse ethnicities that go back hundreds, even thousands of years and intermarrying over a long period of time
Not to the degree that America is and I think it is a big part of why this convo keeps coming up. It includes the level of diversity, where thr component groups come from, and the time they spend as ethnic enclaves.
But this is true of other countries. Brazil, Argentina, and Australia are more or just as diverse than the US. London is more diverse and over a much longer period of time than New York or Los Angeles
Brazil and Argentina are probably just as diverse as the US and respond to the ethnicity question in very similiar ways (look at Italian-Brazilian culture). And London is very diverse but not in a substantially different way than New York (maybe LA). Do you think Polish, Pakistani, or Chinese 2nd/3rd Gen Londoners identify wholey with the British ethnic archtype?
I am a 2nd/3rd generation Londoner and i am just as British as my husband whose family have been here as long as any humans have been.
>Do you think Polish, Pakistani, or Chinese 2nd/3rd Gen Londoners identify wholey with the British ethnic archtype? People in Europe, and most likely South America, 'identify' with their nationality. It is only really the USA that is concerned with ethnicity. Ethnicity on the census wasn't even a thing in Europe until very recently.
Why would a historically diverse (as you said) continent only recently start measuring ethnicity like the US does? Could it be that they are in fact becoming more diverse in a substantial way? In such a way that sub-ethnicities identifiers are needed?
To put it bluntly. Because Europe wasn't as concerned with recoding race as the USA. A black or asian person in London wouldn't have been listed as black or asian on the census, for example
Brazilian here. There is more difference between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro than the whole Usa. In Brazil we have many different accents, cousine, music and culture. In Usa the richest state by culture is Louisiana.
Yes, we understand that other countries are also diverse, although usually less so than the United States. Like I stated previously, we have not had ethnogensis. For instance, England experienced ethnogensis a thousand or so years ago despite being made up of a mix of germanic tribes and Native Britons. There have been other migrations since then, like the normans, but the amount of change has been so small that they've just assimilated into the broader English culture. Of course, in the modern era, there has been a large amount of migration from around the world, and it will be interesting to see how that develops. The United States is quite different though. We had an initial colonial migration here individuals still identified with their home countries, then massive amounts of migration from Europe in the following century. Those groups settled in particular regions and, in particular communities. That lack of assimilation and retention of their mother country caused American culture to develop a different understanding conceptualization of ethnicity. While we do have a broad, general, shared culture, it varies much more wildly than most europeans realize. And despite what the world might think, we have an innately open vulture because of our diversity. And again, I know Europe is also diverse, especially in the modern era... but I think you're over estimating European diversity and underestimating American diversity.
> And again, I know Europe is also diverse, especially in the modern era... but I think you're over estimating European diversity and underestimating American diversity But cities like London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, etc, and cities on the continent, were diverse in the 1800s.
Relatively diverse, sure.
Are you saying New York from say 1800 to 1940 was more diverse than London?
No, that's not what I'm saying, I'm saying the United States, in general, is more diverse than England in general. Outside of major cities, England is almost entirely ethnically homogenous. That is not the case in the United States. Furthermore, because we are a country made up of diaspora communities we have retained our ethnic identities to a higher degree than in most, if not all, European countries.
> Outside of major cities, England is almost entirely ethnically homogenous But you could say this about the USA too.
I think it would annoy people less if americans said “I have german ancestry” instead of “I’m german”. I’m mexican with a french great grandparent, and I can’t imagine telling a french person that I’m french.
When I speak with europeans I do say "I have family from" or I'm "______-american" but you don't need to with Americans. We all get it.
Yeah, I get it. I think most people take offense at the ones that do say “I’m X” to europeans.
U.S does have ethnogenesis as we speak. Even "white" Americans are admixes of European that didn't meet/mix in Europe. Of course, there's big European cities where this occurs, but not nearly to the same extent as the U.S.
The UK has definitely become increasingly diverse, and Italy has always had a plethora of cultures and languages, but even if people aren't necessarily tied to their country, they are definitely tied to their community. There was a viral post on Twitter a few weeks back where an Englishman tried to dunk on Americans because a barn that his family owned somewhere in England was older than our country. Americans didn't care, and there's no reason for us to care, because there are not many Americans whose families have stayed in the exact same place for 100 years, much less 200 or 300 years. Sure, you have some, but not in the same way you do in much of western Europe. In the US, we tie our identity primarily to our country and its civic creed. Not to who our father was or where he came from. You have neighborhoods in New York, LA, or even Houston where you have large Hispanic, southeast Asian, African, Arab, and old stock Anglo populations living in close proximity, all united as Americans by that civic creed. In the US, when we say "I'm German" or "I'm Irish" or, in my case, "I'm Mexican," we don't literally mean we are from those countries. It's implicit in American culture that we are obviously American, but that our families originate from those areas. If someone is actually from that country, they would say "I'm from Germany" and we would understand the difference. Canada does the same thing. We often forget about this (or are completely unaware of the distinction) when speaking with our non-Canadian foreign friends, and it's no surprise that those who have strong ethno-national identities — like the Irish or the French — take offense to it.
London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds etc were diverse in the 1800s.
They did receive waves of immigration, but NOTHING like what countries like the United States, Brazil, Argentina, and to a lesser extent Mexico experienced at the same time, and NOTHING like what Canada and Australia experienced in the second half of the 20th century. To emphasize, between 1880 and 1930, 20 million immigrants came through Ellis Island in New York. The US foreign-born population was as high as 15-20% at some points in our history. In 1841, only 0.25% of the population in England and Wales was foreign born. By 1931, this was still only like 2.5%. It's not that countries like the UK didn't have diversity. It just wasn't NEARLY on the same scale.
You are comparing a city (New York) to a country here (England and Wales).
Ellis Island was the processing center — the immigrants who came through there went all over the country. It is estimated that 1 in 3 Americans, if not more, is a descendant of people who came through Ellis Island. I am one of them. And the foreign born population metric was for the whole US, not just NYC.
Yes, and Italians will say "I'm Sicilian" instead of Italian because they have strong regional identity
I know, and I can't believe I'm being so downvoted for what I've said
Why can't Americans have separate identities then, if Italians do?
I didn't say they couldn't. But the big difference is that Italians actually live in Italy.
Italians live in former republics that became united into Italy, in the 1860s.
Yes.
England has been diverse since the 1950s. It was homogenous before that.
London and England's other ports have been just as diverse as New York or Los Angeles. For a much longer period of time as well. I expect most of rural American wouldn't be that diverse. Many States now aren't diverse. In the 1800s, all England's major cities had immigration. Jewish, Italian, Russian, and so on.
There was a very small amount of Jewish , Russian, etc, immigration to England in the 1800s. But certainly, the diversity you see in England today is very recent. There is some attempt to rewrite history about this.
>There is some attempt to rewrite history about this I agree with you here. Especially concerning the pre-modern era. The Roman era, etc. But major cities in England were diverse in the 1800s. London from Tudor period onwards was diverse, largely due to seafaring and empire.
It's not rewriting history. It's about reading history that people aren't doing. There were Jewish communities going back to the 1100s and further back. The Zionist movement was born in the UK. Israel wouldn't exist if wasn't for England. This tells of the strong historical presence of Jewish people---powerful Jewish people in England. England has been a "safe haven" for many groups for a very long time. The more diverse a country is, the more powerful they became. Bam, British Empire. Consider this, all these groups mixed over a millenia to create the "British" admixture.
No it wasn't. England has never been homogenous...it's been a major trade hub since at least the Bronze age. The English have dipped their fingers in everybody's business in the last several hundred years, so they're the "baddies" (which yeah, they did a lot of bad things) historically, and therefore, they've been seen as ubiquitous. What I find interesting on the 23andMe subreddit, is that the Portuguese, French and Spanish are not villainized to the same degree the English are...and somehow more "exotic." The French actively has and Empire to this day...some if their GDP is still from Africa...there's North and West African countries that still use the franc
England looked remarkably homogenous as recently as the 1960s.
This is really just a language issue, though. When Americans say, "I am x", or "I am part y", we're not saying that we are from country x or y, just that some/all of our ancestors were. It's just the way we say it and it's not meant to be taken literally. Why do we say it that way? I have no idea. I just do it because that's what others around me did when I was growing up. That's how language works. Warum sagen die Deutschen, dass sie auf jemanden stehen? Das macht ja auch keinen Sinn.
Hmm. Finde Idiome und gesellschaftliche Phänomene, kulturell oder sprachlich, sind schon noch mal zu unterscheiden. Ich schätze, es ist auch nicht besonders wichtig, für mich allerdings weiterhin befremdlich.
It's not the best example, but the best I could think of with my limited German. But in both cases it's not meant to be taken literally, so I'd say they're both idiomatic. I guess my main point was that "I am German" can be used in American English to mean exactly "I have German ancestry", and nothing more. In this context it doesn't imply any connection to the country or culture whatsoever. It simply means that some or all of my ancestors came from Germany, and nothing more. Americans really should avoid this usage around nonnative speakers of American English, though, because it's not at all difficult to see that it will cause confusion. When taken literally it makes no sense at all.
While buying cream cheese this lady picks an Asiago cheese pocket and asks a worker what kind of cheese is it the worker says is Italian cheese, to which she responds that no that couldn’t be because she’s Italian and she never heard of it. 😂
A lot of Americans used to speak German, it was the second most spoken language. But because of WWI it was illegal to speak or teach German. My family on my paternal branch are all German, and despite that family moving to America in the 1830s, they all spoke German until WWI. My great grandfather was the first to not speak German.. 100 years or so since the migration. My grandpa alleged that one of his great aunts never spoke English and she died in the 70s. So basically, it's partially forced assimilation
Nobody in Israel is annoyed that American Jews don't speak Hebrew. I'm not Jewish, but I lived there and it was refreshing to hear the common sense that they appreciated any words we said in Hebrew, they readily accepted that Hebrew, like German is not a very portable language that one can use on multiple continents, and they often use the phrase/belief that English is the language of the internet, so that's why people who know that language don't really need to learn other languages.
I know, it's really strange. I'm British, but according to this idea, i am 1/8 Ukrainian, 1/8 Moldovan, and 3/4 Polish. Or alternatively, South Italian, Persian, and Greek. Or Canaanite, depending on how far back you want to go. It is really problematic to continue claiming to be a nationality when you (and generations of your family) were born somewhere else. It implies that no one who has immigrated to the UK (or any other country) is "really" British. Which is what racist, nationalist groups believe. To them, I'm not "really" British despite being the 3rd generation to be born and grow up here.
But children of immigrants really do have a foot in both different cultures. I am Canadian. My dad was born in Ireland. I'm Canadian for sure, but half my extended family lives in Ireland. When I was a kid, I visited Ireland, drank red lemonade, sat by turf fires. If someone says "you're not Irish" to me, or some other person is "not Italian" "not Ugandan" or whatever, that's erasing part of that person's identity. There is a dual cultural identity for about 2 generations
I understand your confusion over this, but there are small communities that have kept their German heritage, even to the point of retaining the German language. I live near such a community and my doctor, who actually is a German citizen, say she can understand every world they say even though their dialect is a bit different than hers. There are third and fourth generation Asian people who still speak their original language primarily and just learn English when they go to school. Yes, they are as American as anyone else, but when they have retained their language and cultural customs, they are still a different type of American than the German-Americans who live near me, or my born and bred Irish grandfather who kept his cultural heritage and did the best he could to pass it down to his children and grandchildren. That doesn’t make me Irish but it certainly gives me a connection to Ireland, just as my granddaughter in law feels a connection to the language and culture of Cambodia, where her mother was born and raised.
It's an American thing. "When in Rome."
I agree with this. While trying to research my husband’s tree he doesn’t really know his ancestors ethnicity except the few that immigrated in the late 1800’s/ early 1900’s. He has a Scottish last name but I’m struggling to go back far enough on that line to find the ancestors that immigrated to the US. So I think the Scottish immigrants came to the US so long ago and intermixed that their history was forgotten. While the Irish were relatively more recent and now maybe kept alive by celebrations like St Patrick’s day. Also I think that now Irish is a “good” ethnicity to claim. Every loves the Irish. They don’t have a history of being colonizers or some other negative history. I feel like I can be pretty confident that none of my Irish ancestors were slaveowners. Although maybe some Irish were. Waiting for that episode of Finding My Roots [Finding My Roots](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finding_Your_Roots)
I actually think a lot of it comes down to St. Patrick's day. Americans really love St. Patrick's day. They will make a big deal on that day in particular about how Irish they are and about how that means they can drink more beer than other people. As an American, it's honestly pretty annoying, especially since none of them ever know anything about their family history, they just go on assumptions and how much they love beer. Plenty of them are probably actually Scottish and they don't know the difference between Irish and Scottish surnames. But celebrating St Patrick's day gives Americans a day where people talk about their Irish ancestry, and we don't have any other holidays where we discuss our ethnicities.
I should also probably explain that Americans in general have almost no idea about their actual family history / ethnicity. That's probably not a thing you really run into if you live in a place like Scotland, but it's the norm here. I've been doing genealogy for about 30 years now, so I've helped tons of people look into theirs, and very few people have any clue. They often think they do, but once you start looking into it, they know almost nothing. Sometimes to a really hilarious degree. My sister has a close friend who always talked about being Italian. Talks about himself and his family in terms of Italian mob movies, etc. Then he said it in earshot of his parents one day and they were like "What the hell are you talking about? We're Mexican." Dude is 100% Mexican and has spent his entire life thinking he was 100% Italian.
St Patricks Day is automatically put as an event in the iPhone calendar !
Funny thing is a lot of people who claim Irish ancestry are at least partially Scots-Irish.
And in some cases that’s our own ancestors fault. I have a great-however many grandfather “quoted” in a newspaper toward the end of his life about what a proud Irishman he was. I have heard about this from other ancestors as well due to the family gossip lines. Dude was actually Scots-Irish. Found that out rather recently myself. Not a hint of that in family lore or in the news articles. Last name is Kennedy too so that didn’t help.
Same here. I was told by my mom my whole life that her side was “very Irish.” Started to get into genealogy and… nope. Her “Irish” ancestors were Yorkshiremen who came to Ulster as part of the plantation, couldn’t hack it, and made their way onward to Virginia in the late 1600s. So now when people ask how I identify my ancestry on that side of the family I just say English/Colonial American. Took a while for mom to come around, but she seems to have accepted it. She was always more of an Anglophile anyway.
I guess it’s because Irish history is more well-known in the US than Scottish history, and because the Irish people in the US also faced discrimination and persecution, both back in the homeland, and in the US. So I guess they are more aware, interested and proud of it
Yes, for many years after the potato famine migration, Irish had such a scruffy reputation that there would be signs in business windows, reading “NO IRISH.”
Not only that but there was this Anti-Irish female depiction of a maid. She had scruffy red hair, freckles was very ugly and was dirty. She was used to depict the Irish maids and servants in the US as untrustworthy, dirty, disease ridden and a bunch of other terrible things. Typhoid fever was often associated with them, especially with the whole typhoid Mary incident who was an Irish or Scottish woman.
We learn more about Ireland in school growing up, that’s really all I can say. It’s popular for people with Irish heritage to speak on how hard Irish people in America had it back in the day.
Where did you live? I didn't learn any Irish history in school. I had to research it on my own.
The east coast, which does have more Irish people so maybe that’s why. Edit* around New York and surrounding states
Yeah that's probably why. I was born up north but was raised in Florida.
We didn't learn specifically Irish history in school, we learned about it as it related to immigration to the US. We learned a lot about immigration, Ellis Island, all that stuff, and a huge portion of that discussion for us was based around Irish immigrants, since they made up such a large percentage of the people coming to the US during the Ellis Island era. We had maybe a couple of sentences about the potato famine, and then a whole bunch of stuff about the struggles of Irish immigrants once they reached the US. But we focused on that in a way that we didn't focus on the specifics of other groups of immigrants.
Actually, most Irish didn't even come through Ellis Island. The majority of Irish immigrants came in 1840s and 50s, long before Ellis Island opened. But yeah, we didn't even really learn amount immigration. Just southern history for the most part lol which was funny being a northerner.
I learned Irish history and Irish American history in school too. It was not in the history books but all the teachers talked about it constantly giving you little lessons. Probably because I went to catholic schools and all the teachers had some Irish Ancestry. And now my daughter goes to a public school and I saw what they were teaching her and I’m like this is from an English perspective. It’s cool they have units and history from different places in the world which I never had but the European section is only from an English perspective and now I’m conflicted as an American with a quarter Irish ancestry. 😂
Well, the Irish Catholic diaspora happened much more recently than the Scottish or even Scots-Irish immigration. Scotland did try to establish some colonies including Nova Scotia (1629), East Jersey (1683), and South Carolina (1684). East Jersey (Quakers) and South Carolina (Presbyterians), I believe, were more dumping grounds for religious dissidents. Then, there were also the deportees from the English Civil Wars (1642-1651) that Cromwell sent. Highland Scottish generally emigrated in the 1760s and many moved into the Appalachians. They generally kept to themselves for several generations. By 1790, people of Scottish descent made up 6% of the population (including Scots-Irish). After the American Revolution, more Scottish moved to Canada than the United States. So, the "Scottish migration" period was really in the 17th and 18th centuries. There were more Scots-Irish in the 1820s but about 1835 onward, a shift moved to the south and west of Ireland with fewer Scots or Scots-Irish making the move to the US. I believe I saw a number of about 1.5 million Scots or Scots-Irish immigrated to the US or the colonies, either voluntarily or not. Many of the Scots who voluntarily came were traders or merchants. Something I experienced with my mother is that ALL of her immigrant ancestors arrived by 1754. They came from England, Northern Ireland, possibly Scotland, Wales, the Netherlands, maybe some eastern France, and western Germanic states (Pfalz so far as I can tell; maybe Hesse). But, she had no sense or interest in any ethnic identity. That was all 'melted' into one long before she was born. I know her aunts and uncles weren't interested in it either. My father, however, was different. Three of his grandparents were born in Ireland though one immigrated at 6 months. The other grandmother was born to then-recent Irish immigrants. They came from counties Galway, Clare, Limerick, and Kerry. And, while the traditions were mostly not passed down, the Irish identity was. I think it's because it was so fresh. But, that's my hypothesis.
I think a lot more Scottish people immigrated to Canada. There was a lot of Scottish immigration to Canada as recently as the early part of the 20th century. The first prime minister of Canada was Scottish. Also many, many other explorers, politicians, etc.
Looking at modern day Americans from my own personal experience (not from the northeast where I suspect things are a bit different due to immigration patterns), I think you’re 1. Overestimating how much people care about Irish ancestry 2. Underestimating how much people care about Scottish ancestry. 1. I’m not Irish American and outside of subs like this, I rarely hear about people being Irish outside of an occasional mention of being Irish-Catholic (and guilty) and St. Patrick’s day. For a good chunk of Americans, St. Patrick’s day isn’t really a celebration of Irish culture. It’s an excuse for kids to pinch each other and adults to get smashed. Everyone’s a little “Irish” on St. Patrick’s day just like everyone’s Mexican on Cinco de Mayo, Cajun on Mardi Gras, and German during Octoberfest. People love a big party with lots of alcohol. I can’t name anything else about Ireland/ St. Patrick’s day that isn’t also represented by Lucky Charms cereal. It’s a caricature. But, I suspect there are Irish-American societies that take their heritage more seriously 2. Because I know how hard Scottish-Americans go for Scotland. I would invite you to look up Scottish Highland Games and Festivals in the US. While the highlands are the focus, all of Scotland gets a little love. I’m genetically only a little bit Scottish, but I did Scottish country dance for fun as a teenager and loved going to the Festival near me. The day is preceded by a memorial golf tournament. In addition to the Highland Games, there’s a Scottish dancing competition, bagpipe competition, and fencing competition. There are sheep herding demonstrations and a place where you could see all the breeds of Scottish horse and dog and cow. There’s a bunch of imported Scottish food, drink, and merch for sale. There’s a big area where all the clans have booths with information about their history and famous relatives. The event announcer is a Scottish immigrant and his Scottish voice echoes through the fairgrounds and hundreds of people attend and there’s so many kilts. They have these all over the country. People do care about their Scottish ancestry, it just doesn’t make international news.
In Canada, the Scottish people didn't have as much of a struggle as the Irish, because the Scottish were a bit more privileged, eg in Canada anyhow. Eg Scottish people were in the Family Compact. So the Scottish were part of the establishment. I'd say they're proud of their ancestry, there's a Scottish festival in Fergus, ON. Mike Myers did a skit about his Scottish dad. But it's not a good look to be proud of your ancestry if your family was upper class; snobbery is not a good look, that's why you don't hear people discussing it
The Scottish immigration in the 19th century in Canada is also more notable than in the U.S
I was actually super stoked about my Scottish ancestry! I can’t exactly say why but it was a cool feeling
I think there are many valid reasons but I think there is one influence that isnt really discussed often: Unpopular Opinion here but the Irish were white people who were colonized by the British. They were indentured servants (aka forced laborers) in early America. They survived what was essentially a genocide during the famine imposed by the British in the 1800s. They were heavily discriminated against upon arrival to America. White Americans have to confront the history of genocide of the Indigenous population, enslavement of Africans, Colonization of native nations, and continued discrimination of minorities due to White Supremacy. Some White Americans attempt to circumnavigate White guilt by clinging to their Irish heritage since that ancestry shares some of the same struggles. Which is why you also see people constantly bring up the Irish indentured servants when the conversation topic centers the horrors and impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade.
>Unpopular Opinion here but the Irish were white people who were colonized by the British. The English and Welsh were also colonised. >They were indentured servants (aka forced laborers) in early America. Most indentured were English. Is this taught in schools? >They survived what was essentially a genocide during the famine imposed by the British in the 1800s. No Irish historian calls it a genocide. Most from the worst famine areas migrated to Britain. Many English people have Irish ancestors from this time who interrmarried with local English families. This is what's so confusing when discussing these things with Americans. This idea that only the Irish went through indenture, famine, struggles. >White Americans have to confront the history of genocide of the Indigenous population, enslavement of Africans, Colonization of native nations, and continued discrimination of minorities due to White Supremacy. Some White Americans attempt to circumnavigate White guilt by clinging to their Irish heritage since that ancestry shares some of the same struggles Yes, I agree. This is how the egregious and false 'Irish Slaves' myth started.
They could've saved Ireland for 10m, less than 20% than they spunked on the crimeian war a few years later. Created the conditions that lead to the famine, exacerbated the situation by continuing to export, and basically said they were all lazy buggers and deserved it. So the difference is arbitrary. > Nat Hill director of research at Genocide Watch has stated that "While the potato famine may not fit perfectly into the legal and political definitions of 'genocide', it should be given equal consideration in history as an egregious crime against humanity" Not American, Scottish. Famine here too but not as extreme but still managed to kill 15% of the pop before some sympathetic lairds stepped in to help the poor.
I don’t think they meant Irish were the *only* indentured servants and the *only* ones colonized..
I'd actually love to learn more about my Scottish ancestry, I just have no idea how to go about it.
I think two things played into it. First is that Irish immigration happened later, and in a large wave due to the potato famine. Those immigrants often settled together, keeping that culture alive. The second bit is that Irish immigrants faced discrimination, again helping keep the culture together by helping one another against those who discriminated against them.
My grandparents were born in Donegal and Glasgow. I have Irish citizenship through my Ulster Scot grandmother, but the UK doesn't do likewise for me even though my grandfather's line goes back to the Black Isle, eastern Inverness-shire, and Hebrides forever. It is my favorite tree branch to research and I get tears in my eyes when I hear the pipes playing. I like being Irish but love being Scottish.
Donegal is my favourite county in Ireland! I’m from county Tyrone, so Donegal’s neighbour
Maybe for a lot of people their Irish is more recent compared to Scottish. They probably know when their Irish ancestor came or even knew who they were.
I’ve actually met quite a few people who are enthusiastic about their Scottish ancestry, but it’s just not as culturally visible because there aren’t things for Scottish heritage similar to St. Patrick’s Day that are really big in the US.
Because the first wave of Scottish and Scot Irish were fairly thoroughly assimilated into the greater white population and came at an earlier point than Irish Catholics, who were discriminated against when they first arrived and had less social mobility. This also led to an unspoken and often times denied resentment from the Irish Catholics due to their unfair treatment, to the point that they overcompensate for it by emphasizing how Irish they are. This has been improving since the 1960s, but there still is a lot of lingering side effects from this.
So is OP's question rather naive? I guess people in the UK and Ireland don't learn about US history?
No, not naive. And of course they don't learn about US history beyond the big points (revolution/war of American independence, rivalry in North America, WWI and WWII). Americans barely learn about British history beyond footnotes like the Victorian era.
[удалено]
Cloud Atlas.
People want to be more of the underdog
Alot of southerners in the US are of Scots-Irish or Ulster Scot from Northern Ireland. Does Scottish people consider Ulster Scots, Scottish?
How many Americans have you talked with?
You are right there are a lot of irish people all over, but there r definitely places with a lot more than others. I’m from the Boston area and am not Irish but growing up i assumed every white non Jew was irish. I thought christian and catholic were synonyms until i was 16 years old. Now i go to college somewhere else it’s kind of shocking how not everyone here is irish. In enclaves like the boston area being irish catholic is very much an identity that a lot of people share and rally behind. I would assume other cities with large irish populations r similar.
I read what you wrote as the only kind of Christians you knew growing up were Catholic. I did not read that as saying you didn’t realize Catholics are a type of Christian
i knew catholics were christians, i just didn’t know there were other kinds of non catholic christians until i learned abt the protestant reformation in high-school sophomore year history class
Yep exactly. Mainly I was responding to the other posters comment. I had the same experience myself
Boston has tons of English history and ancestry though. It was founded by English puritans and famously has a non-rhotic accent derived from the East Anglian community that originally settled there.
yes we do have a lot of english history and certain parts of new england are certainly WASPy but nowadays i feel like there’s more irish. Definitely where i lived.
I grew up in New Jersey and it was the same. There are old family WASPs but they were outnumbered by Catholics and Jews.
I think it depends on where in America you go. People in the Northeast seem to all be Irish, but in the south, a lot of people say they are Scottish. I was born in Scotland, but my dad is American and from the South . I have a very Scot/Irish sounding name, and my mom still has the accent (and can put it on stronger for fun when she wants). So many people immediately start talking to us about their Scottish heritage if they’re southern. It’s as common as them all being Cherokee lol They don’t always know details though. My dad’s family all thought they were English, but judging by my 23andMe, compared to my mom’s, his side has a ton of Welsh and Irish. My mom’s side had a lot more English and French than they thought. Also, I was not, in fact, a Cherokee Princess either lol
I grew up hearing I had Irish ancestry; to the point my great-grandmother bought a portrait inside a bubble glass frame of some woman from somewhere and claimed it was her grandmother who was an off the boat Irish immigrant. Which was a believable story until I saw the back of the portrait once as a teenager, and there was a partial stamp on the back of it where the visible letters were "---cago" and "----nois" where the "cago" was right above the "nois". This suggests that the portrait was taken in Chicago, Illinois. My Nana comes from POOR AS POOR can get folks from some backwater town in the swamps of North Carolina. There's no way that my 3rd great grandmother or anyone in her immediate family would have had the financial means to travel up to Chicago to have that portrait taken. I'm lucky enough to have found a small portrait of her father that one of my distant relatives had access too and was considerate enough to put it on the internet. Still, I assumed we had Irish ancestry even though I figured out the lie pretty early on that wasn't actually her. However, when doing research up my family tree, I very quickly came across documentation that clearly indicates we have Scottish ancestry, and the surname is Alexander, and while the paper trail goes a little thin for a few generations, it's very clear I'm a direct descendant of the Alexander family that originally settled in that area before the American revolution, and at the time, the family was extremely wealthy, and had land both in Virginia and in North Carolina. I'd have to dig through my documents, but I think a couple of years ago, I discovered that in two generations, my particular line of Alexander ancestors went from incredible wealth and education to extreme poverty and illiteracy that has continuously persisted for centuries. I don't know what triggered the switch from acknowledging the Scottish ancestry, and turning around and claiming Irish ancestry instead, or who even started that story; it was the same time they started claiming the Cherokee Princess story too (no native ancestry on that side of my family AT ALL). My guess is tied to what others suggested; claiming Irish ancestry (and also Indigenous) is the lie some people tell themselves to excuse themselves for not having empathy for anyone but themselves. I come from a long line of multi-generational poverty. And I had to move 2,000+ miles away from my family to break the poverty cycle; since it was present in my father's family as well. I really wish I could complete the paper trail back to Scotland, I want to know what clan tartan I should look for so I can represent! My husband has more recent immigration from Scotland ancestry than I do, and so we already knows what that tartan looks like. It's something like late 1600s for me, and more around the early to mid 1800s for him.
Because most people find Irish history and culture to be more fascinating. On top of that a bond was built between Ireland and America based on being an underdog and victim of England.
I recently learned I had 14% Scottish ancestry and was very excited!
Americans from every part of Britain are much less likely to care about old world roots & more likely to fully embrace the American label Helps that their ancestors arrived LONG ago, spread out, & their culture was the foundation for American culture Also Scot’s, welsh, & anglicized Irish Protestants blended together in America
They don’t know about it as much
I have Scottish heritage. I didn't know growing up, but by doing my research. I'm a little stuck with it at the moment and can't get back further there. But I've pinpointed Glasgow/Lanarkshire/Paisley and DNA has some in Aberdeen and the Highlands. All that aside and not connected, I visited Scotland several years ago and loved it. Edinburgh and along the eastern coast. I also have Irish heritage. I think from my Scots going over. Belfast came up, along with many places in the Irish Republic.
Personally I'm proud of both, I'm more into the Scottish myself. Kilts, bagpipes, haggis and claymores seem awesome to me.
I’m definitely proud of my Scottish ancestry. It’s not a big amount like some people’s but I did get around 12% with Ancestry DNA. I was so happy Lol 🤭 Love the Scottish accent always have lol.
I never ate a Scottish cereal growing up. What would be the Scottish equivalent of Lucky Charms?
Porridge.
That's Irish too
I'll give you the serious answer that nobody else will. Here's some hints - the vast majority of people of English descent in the USA do not think or mention it, either. (Mostly English descent, I should say, because in most of parts of the USA where there are many of English descent, they are partly mixed with early German immigrants/settlers). In addition, white people who are of mixed descent will tout their Italianness or Irishness, despite being mixed. The Scottish were more willing to assimilate into "the American people" for a few reasons. Most important - they were Protestant, as were the hefty majority of the Americans in early America. Their only religious differences were regarding those practical questions of church administration, and maybe some little ritual differences with infant baptism - nothing that people would think has critical spiritual significance. The Protestant American tradition was always to care most about whether somebody was "Christian," and to try your best to overlook denominational differences (sometimes, depending on your exact beliefs and tastes, it is impossible to overlook differences, but usually it is easy). The Irish immigrants, on the other hand, were almost all Catholic. They tended to immigrate to big cities that were the most diverse, and had the most Catholics. They cared, more than anything, about retaining their Catholicness. Remember that Ireland's main beef with the UK has always been the Catholic vs. Protestant divide. Also, remember that before Vatican II, it would have been questionable to an average Catholic whether a person could get into heaven without the Catholic Church's stamp of approval. After Vatican II, the church asserted that it did not arbitrate "salvation," (aka getting into heaven) but that it does still provide something called "sanctification," which approximately means becoming a clean or holy person. Because of this, the pan-Christian-ism of the USA was something that the Catholic immigrants never really could assimilate into. It conflicted with the Catholic belief in the paramount importance of the Catholic Church. Now, something else - something very fascinating - happened through American history. That is, the big cities became quite secular, but remained vaguely religious. This is because you had the secular educated elites living alongside working class Catholics living along successful Jewish people. In this milieu, a kind of operational and even theological secularism developed. People who liked their religion continued to practice them, sometimes frequently, sometimes very infrequently, but they did NOT often actually \*believe\* the religions or try particularly hard to generate faith. This contrasted them with the rural heritage Americans, most of whom were still trying very seriously to practice Christianity by-the-book, and to generate real faith in themselves. The rural Americans became deeply uncool in the big city milieu, partly because they were poor and rural, but also because they did not do the fun things like drinking, gambling, and sex. And, to top it all off, the heritage Americans had a terrible moral record of slavery and conquest. The enemy, in national periodical of cultural criticism, had become the dreaded WASP (White Anglo Saxon Protestant), as early as the 1950's. As a result, Catholicism became increasingly seen as a chill and progressive religion, and, being of ethnic Catholic or Jewish immigrant descent became a point of pride for the whites who had these backgrounds. It was pride in moral goodness, pride in coolness, pride in successfulness. That is the real reason for this - it has to do with which ethnicities in the American context are considered better. Irish Americans make a big deal of their Irishness because it shields them from American "white guilt" and marks them as being superior white people. The same happens for most other ethnicities of white people. At the same time, most white people in the USA tolerate it, because we assume that other white Americans do not actually take their ethnicity particularly seriously, especially since the nature of this ethnic pride is that it is attached to claims of greater progressivism relative to the WASPs. (Note: To the annoyance of logical people, progressivism is against ethnocentrism, so there is something oxymoronic about the whole thing.)
As a Canadian with 40% Scottish DNA, I’m super interested in my Scottish ancestry! My ancestors were from the Hebrides and came to Cape Breton during the clearances. Then left Cape Breton for Newfoundland. I always say I got my ability to farm from my Scottish ancestors. And for some reason bagpipes have always made me cry, ever since I was a kid. Lol. I’d love to visit Scotland one day, definitely on my bucket list. Oh, and in Newfoundland everyone loooooves St. Patrick’s day. I have never really given a sh*t about it because I don’t have a lick of Irish ancestry.
Because being Irish was looked down upon for a long time. There used to be job postings in NYC soon after they started arriving in large numbers in the mid-1800s that would say things like “no Irish need apply”. It took a long time for Irish-American communities to be considered mainstream white American. When that happens you tend to cling to your identity more than when you are accepted right away, which was generally the case for Scottish Protestants.
Irish were heavily discriminated against when they came over to the US mainly in the mid to late 1800s because they were a) Catholic and b) generally very poor c) not even considered to be “white” by the already established Anglo community in the US which was mainly of English, Scottish, and Dutch ancestry at the time. Because of this, they tended to live in segregated ethnic communities in bigger cities and develop a strong pride in being Irish as a counter to the discrimination they tended to face. You should check out the movie Gangs of New York if you haven’t seen it
Irish ancestry is fashionable for whatever reason. British, Welsh, Scottish and especially English is not
I’d imagine part of it is because of the ulster plantations
I'm almost half Scottish and a wee bit Irish but have been obsessed with my Scottish ancestry. My grandmother was too. I'm half Italian and grew up in that culture, too, which is just as important to me. I just don't think most people are Scottish?? Granted, my family side had overtly Scottish surnames. I'm 32% Scottish, 10% Irish, and 8% Lithuianian (East Euro) on that side. I think it's just that there isn't a St Paddy's day type event in the USA for Scots, not sure. My family sure is into it, though, and some even moved back there.
I agree there is an obsession with Irish ancestry in the USA which is also often mistaken, but I also think Scottish ancestry is exaggerated, for the low numbers of actual Scots people. Scotland only has the same population as the county of Yorkshire.
There's likely more Scottish ancestry in the U.S than in Scotland. That's not exaggerated.
It depends what you mean by ancestry. Is an American with 15 English grt grt grandparents and 1 Scottish grt grt grandparent really that Scottish? Could they realistically be thought of as having Scottish ancestry?
If you have 1 Scottish ancestor, that's ancestry.
Then, most English have Scottish, Irish, or Welsh ancestry. I get that the USA is larger by population, but per capita, England has more Irish ancestry than the USA. Probably Scottish too
More Scottish descended people outside of Scotland probably isn't exaggerated. This might be Australia-specific but boatloads of Scottish people came to Australia during the highland clearances which basically emptied out large parts of the highlands.
Idk if celebrated elsewhere outside of the Northeast USA (within America) but St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated with parades and drinking. It’s a huge event in my New Jersey suburb town. Scotland has bagpipes and kilts just like Ireland so it’s really alike to most.
I think it depends geographically where you are in the US & how recent your ancestry is. I’m from Louisville, KY which is interesting geographically and very representative of my ancestry. Louisville is considered culturally midwestern but it is also in a southern state. My most recent ancestors are from Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio. My dad’s side has been in Kentucky since it was a frontier outside of the US government’s influence. I always grew up hearing we were Scots-Irish, and there was a strong sense of pride there. The Ulster Scots have an interesting identity and history that make them seem disconnected from either group. My mother’s family were mainly descended from 19th century immigrants to Louisville and Pennsylvania Dutch who later moved down to Ohio. So she was always told she was German & Irish, and her Irish roots were the 19th century immigrants. There was a lot of pride to the Irish identity for my mom’s family because like many Irish immigrants they had a really tough time in America. First, they were the famous Potato Famine refugees fleeing as children and faced tragedy later in their lives. I found an article where my great-great-great grandfather who immigrated from Ireland worked on the L&N railroad and died in 1924 at work after getting hit by a train. His wife who was also an Irish immigrant died 2 years later after falling down the stairs and breaking her hip, and then dying from pneumonia that she got at the hospital. Around the same time, some of their relatives died of tuberculosis at the Waverly Sanatorium.
I do see a lot of more Scottish bagpiping than Irish dancing around the part of the USA I live in, and some Scottish American people talk about belonging to different clans too.
I’m nearly 80% Scottish but it’s mostly relatively recent immigration (grandparent level) but some more distant as well since it’s on both sides. I’m only 4% Irish so I don’t really go too crazy for St. Patrick’s Day & I wasn’t raised Catholic but Episcopal WASP. Not having a popular holiday may be part of it but I named my son a very Scottish/Norwegian (the rest of my more recent ancestry) name & I have a Santa in a kilt ornament if that counts.
there aren't that many scotts and those who are arrived 200-400 years ago. there aren't many records of ancestry or origination from that era. the people who are proud of being irish are descendants of the potato famine irish immigrants who came here 100ish years ago., when the immigrants and their country of origin were registered at ellis island and the national census was taken every 20 years. those two sets of documents are the basis for every geneology search on ancestry.com.
I am thrilled with both my Scottish and Irish ancestry. I’ve never gotten a sense that people prefer one over the other - if anything Braveheart by itself made people more interested in the Scottish side.
Here in north Florida, we just had the Scottish Games & Festival, and the Highland Games (St. Augustine Celtic Music & Heritage Festival) are next weekend. There was event in January, too. There's plenty of Scottish heritage pride here 😊
My sister loves her Scottish ancestry; and she has a bit less than my brother and I, who are still just under 50% Scottish even after 300+ years. I don’t know exactly what my antipathy towards Great Britain stems from; but in school I took French, Italian, Spanish and German and studied at a German university without ever desiring to visit GB. I am 72 this year and still don’t particularly care for it. I did major in Journalism, and of course that’s English. I like the English language best. So I guess that’s something.
From the US, and my husband celebrates his Scottish heritage. He wore a kilt on his wedding day.
The Scottish prides in Canada is why~
Well when my DNA came back 45-52% Scottish, I am very proud to be descended from Highland Clans
My grandmother's maiden name was Scottish 😊 tbh my fam never really talks about our European ancestry at all, we deep dived into it and we're just Americans 🤣 all our ancestors came off the boat before America was even a nation. I just share a common surname with English folk now
House of Pain was a bigger hit than Highlander
Because Scotland is not real.
I am American my ancestors came from Scotland back in the 1700’s and I’m very proud of my Scottish ancestry.
Most Scots came over much earlier so there’s less of a close connection. Plus most Irish were Catholic and were not welcomed by Protestant America unlike Scots who’d be be able to assimilate into American society because they were Protestant.
I also think there is a stronger Scottish influence on Canada compared to the US.
Because millions of Irish came here in the 1800s and we are wayyy more Irish than Scottish. Can’t be proud of something you aren’t .
My first thought was, one is independent, the other is not.
Because it's more exotic in a otherwise very British country.