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Identifying With Your Heritage

Larr_E

Larr_E

Bluelighter
Joined
Jul 9, 2001
Messages
11,231
Location
Highland, Ca
Backround: I am a Mexican/German (more mexican than german) that grew up in an all mexican neighborhood and still lives there. I never learned to speak spanish (yet I could sing you about 1,000 spanish songs and not know what they mean) or german by my older relatives. When I was a child I never really felt at home in a tejano or "tex mex" setting. When I was around people whose interest I did share I always still felt awkward there too (except for at raves). Yesterday at a rave I was with a mixed group of people and when in one area they started to play salsa I just started dancing my ass off. I already knew how to dance to it from my older cousins. Even though I was was in a small group of about 15 actually dancing to this music I felt at more in the groove then I had that whole night. The problem is that I still don't feel that I can connect with my heritage...

Is there anyone who has the same problem and maybe just a little sad about this as I am?
 
Heritage is more about the environment I think, people usually obtain it through people they know and the environment they live in.

I am Russian, and I can easily identify with my heritage, but that's only because I was born there and came here when I was 10.

If I was born in the US I would probably identify with it but less, and I am sure the further down the generations you go, the more one strays from their heritage and obtains the culture of the country they are currently living in.
 
I am 1/2 mexican 1/4 iranian and 1/4 "white" (Irish i think). I don't really feel too connected to any heritage (accept maybe a general "western tradition"). It doesn't really bother me at all though and it just kind of seems how things are as opposed to any kind of problem.
 
I'm a big mix of european decent, but my family's been in the US so long I'd have to consider myself American.. I mean, what's 1/4 German, 1/4 Hungarian, and the rest a mixture of like 6 things?
 
I feel sad sometimes that I don't have a heritage to 'connect' with exactly. I mean, unlike my friends that are asian, or directly descended from irish immigrants, etc, I just don't really know most of my background due to their not being proper records. I know I'm something like 1/8-1/16 American Indian, but beyond that it's anyone's guess. If I identify with anything, it's just being southern perhaps, as far as traditions and food preferences, but I think it'd be nice to have some other aspect of culture to learn about :)
 
When i was younger, and still had much of a conservative mindstate.. and i was really concerned about identifying with "my people" so to speak.

Nowadays i see it as useless, that i'm just aiding people in seperating people due to where they were born (for better or worse). I really donn't want to look at myself as white, or american, or part german, irish and scottish.

I think all cultures have something wonderful about them and interesting to learn about, and it's nice to learn about, but i would like to see people evolve (which will be mainly due to inter-racial dating/marriage) into a a singular race. Though there will be still be cultural differences.

I dunno, i have a love/hate relationship when i speak about cultures. On one had they can be beautiful, or the other.. it's just another thing that further seperates the grander idea that we're human being first and foremost.

And besides, somewhere down the genetic line i'm related to Hitler, I don't think I want to get in touch with that.
 
I don't connect with my "heritage"--such as it is--at all. I don't identify with whites or blacks, which is sometimes a problem. The group I feel closest to are probably Hispanics, probably from growing up in a town that is mostly Hispanic. That said, I don't spend much time with them these days, either. Yes, I'm a man without a country.
 
I'm primarily of Irish descent, and grew up in Irish-majority schools, neighborhoods, and circles in the US. I never once related to my heritage or felt especially proud of it. I always thought some Irish Americans tried way too hard to be "ethnic", and it struck me as sort of fake. The stereotypes (which like all, are based upon grains of truth) of Irish being eccentric, quick to anger, impractical, anti-intellectual (read: dumb), fanatically religious, and alcoholic didn't endear me to my heritage either. I always had a nagging feeling the Irish were the biggest joke of Western Europe.

The great thing about heritage is you can take it or leave it. You can use it to define yourself. Or not. You're never bound to be and act and think a certain way just because you have roots in a particular place. In this age of global mobility and information exchange, you have total control over who you consider "your people". If others expect you to think and act a certain way just cos of how you look, FUKKUM!

In the United States, I think very few people of European descent can claim to be "ethnic" anymore. Displays of ethnic pride by white Americans get hollower and hokier with every new generation born on American soil, IMHO.

Personally, I'd rather invent a flavor for myself than take the one that was handed to me off the shelf. But that's just me.
 
im irish-chinese-italian (with some webbing on my fingers)...and im sure theres at least one guy from lesbia in the genaeology somewhere (i wonder why he left??)...
 
i am 1/2 israeli and 1/2 Russian but, i was born in the US. i speak both Russian and Hebrew (not fluently but i can get around). I identify with both of my ethnicitie, but find myself classifying myself as an american more then i would an Israeli or a Russian.
 
i'm not sure if i'm glad to see that i'm not alone with my problem. Its nice that people can identify with what i'm saying but it sucks that they have this problem... :\
 
Franco-American, in my town in Maine everyone is basically Franco American though, but yes the world does hate us.
 
Franco-American, in my town in Maine everyone is basically Franco Ameircan though, but yes the world does hate us.
 
yea its a damn shame the few snobby and cowardly pricks had to ruin it for us.

the french culture is a kick ass one though.lots of food, alcohol, slutty but fine women and just talking french=D
 
I did a talk about this once in one of my media classes at school. the topic was diaspora. What 'diaspora' is is the marginal status of groups which although have settled outside their ethnic lands of origin, still maintain strong sentimental or material links to their homeland. I know this isnt exactly the question but it relates. In that when people settle in a foreign country, they are forced to adapt to their host culture and inevitably this results in 'hybridisation'. However in hybridisation what happens is the culture which is forced to assimilate to the new one creates a sense of loss of identity for the individual in their new surroundings. That is hybridisation usually works in favor of the dominant culture, enriching it, whilst undermining the 'other'.

I was born overseas and immigrated to Australia when i was four. When i finished year twelve i went back to visit my home country (where all of my relatives still live). I spent three months there and when i came back to Australia i really got to realise how much i dont feel like i can completely identify with either of my cultures. Its really quite difficult, i think especially when your change countries when your so young... my parents especially my mum were very nostalgic and didnt take to the change very well. My whole life ive only really had anglo saxon friends and although i do feel like i fit in well with them at the same time i also always feel different from them. as i said i guess i wish id come over to australia when i was a bit older so that i would have got the opportunity to establish in my core a stronger sense of where im from and what that means for me. at the end of the day it really doesnt matter where your from its who you are... but in our world culture does play a large part in the construction of our realities. so i guess looking at it from that perspective its completely understandable for people who are multi-cultural to sometimes find it hard to feel grounded.
 
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_high_life_ said:
my heritage is all french with a bit of italian and apparantly the world hates french people:o
Click to expand...
Actually, more of the world hates Americans - sorry.
 
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