How do you define nationality or who someone is?

Question

say if someone has lived in america all their life and has the accent but has welsh, irish and italian heritage.

Does purely living in the U.S. make them more american??

or are they more welsh, irish , italian, depending on the percentage of those hertiages.

sorry drunk question!

Answer 1

your genetics dont make you American, living in the culture since you were born makes you an American, I am British, but my fathers side can be traced back to the Vikings, and my mothers great granny was a Russian gypsy, I have no desire to rush about looting things, or have any idea about Russian culture, so I am a Brit, since its all I know!

Answer 2

Nationality is what you perceive yourself to be based on a mix of where you live, where you have lived in the past and your ancestoral roots & most of all what you want to be!

I live in Scotland which is in Britain but never define myself as British, only scottish.   I am proud to be scottish but do not feel patriotism towards Britain as a united alliance.

My dad is half irish but never really talks about his roots where as his older sister would define her nationality as scottish-irish.  This is because she very much celebrates her irish roots through traditions and customs & spends alot of time in ireland.

I think it is really cool how some americans are into their heritages and celebrate St Patricks & Tartan day etc!  It is a bit worrying though how some people like Idi Amin decide that they are scottish or another nationality without even visiting the country!!!

I could move to England or America and live there for the rest of my life but would never count myself as english or american.  but that is just because i am so proud of my scottish roots.

Answer 3

well i was born in America & my parents and their parents were born here.  however, i have a lot of Irish & Welsh, as well as Norwegian and Native American in me.  but I am 100% American.

Answer 4

Well, I'm born and bred in England but my dad is Irish.  Sometimes I do things which are very English and sometimes I do things which are quite Irish.  I don't really define who I am by either of these nationalities.  As far as history goes I prefer to say I'm Irish but as far as literary heritage goes I think of myself as English, convenient isn't it?

Answer 5

Your nationality would be American, because it's the nation you're from.

You're heritage would be those listed. Heredity. Get it =). ?!

For instance, I'm half Swedish but I'm not from Sweden nor am I a Swedish national.

Unless a parent was from Sweden and born there, then I would have a citizenship but if they're not, then you're not considered from there. Or it works something like that, possibly you also might need to be born there. But nationality is where you're from. (Another example is most Russians who live here consider themselves still Russian and from Russia since they are, but some others consider themselves Americans because they became a citizen or just because they choose here to live. It all depends on the person, but if you were born here, you can not say you are from Europe, because you're not.

You can still say you are _____American, but you can not list your nationality as _____ if you were born in America. You would say your heritage is ______.

There's no heritage called American, since we're built up of all different heritages.

Answer 6

well i was born in germany, spent just over half my life in germany but i also lived in uk half my life. i consider myself scottish though cos of my parents and consider edinburgh home, even though i lived in glasgow longer. its mad. yet i am proud to say i was born in germany. lool

Answer 7

I was going to give a stupidly simple reply - it depends on where you were born.  But then - I was born in England, but my father was a mongrel - English, Scottish, Welsh, with a mother who was half-French.  My mother was also half-French, an English mother, a French father, and her mother was half German and half English.  The more I go back, the more European nationalities I find.

I find foreign languages quite easy to learn, so is it in the genes?

Answer 8

Nationality is not the same thing as race, ethnicity or ancestral heritage. I know Wikipedia gives a broad definition of nationality, but if you had to fill out a passport application, your nationality would be the country of your citizenship.  

Being brought up in mostly an Anglo Saxon culture, there was a tendency to refer to people who were children of recent immigrants nationality as the country from which their parents came.  Unfortunately, children and grandchildren and even great grandchildren of those immigrants are doing the same which was done by old colonial Americans in the past who thought they were not actually fully American.  

I see nothing wrong with a person calling themselves an Irish American, Italian American, German American etc as it shows pride in their heritage as well as the country to which they have allegiance. Of couse it gets a little awkward if you have to say your are an Irish, Polish, German, English etc. American.  But they shouldn't refer to their nationality as Irish, Italian and German as they are relegating themselves to second class.