10-26-2023, 12:44 AM
Don't get me wrong, the county where I live is 93 percent white/Europeans descent. Way too many Trump flags flying around here for my comfort. Any obvious "diversity" we've got in this rural county is associated with industry: Chinese restaurants, Indian/Pakistani in the hospital, Hispanics in the natural gas industry. Those European influences I just mentioned -long since completely "Americanized" (whatever the hell that means) for the most part. But you've got a lot of people who've never been to Ireland or Italy with flags and stickers on their houses and cars pretending to be from those places because their grandparents were or because they have names that sound foreign. I find it quite annoying actually. My mother researched our family tree extensively over twenty years ago. I know when my ancestors got here and where they came from. But I don't understand the compulsion people have to define themselves in that way. When I was a kid in school they taught us that the Unite States is a "melting pot." I'm not asking / expecting people people who were BORN here to deny the heritage of their ancestors. But I resist the need/desire to divide everyone up into smaller groups. All of those groups... together they are America. To say that you are American is the same thing as saying your grandparents were from Poland, or Italy or wherever.