Comment on What common American habits do people find quietly annoying?

phr@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

• ViperActual@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  The whole ethnic identity is mostly to identify where in the world you ethnically originated from to other Americans. Because almost every single person in the US is either an immigrant, or a descendent of one. So we identify to each other where we came from as Americans.

  Where people go wrong with this is if they happen to be traveling internationally and take this US centric identity with them. If traveling internationally, you could be ethnically from the place you are traveling. But in that context, you’d be American. This is a part of that whole well traveled awareness thing.

  The genealogy thing is their curiosity in tracing that ethnic origin with greater detail. I personally don’t find it too interesting myself, but different strokes.

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  • blarghly@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Really, I think a far more charitable (and common) instance of this is an american, say, travelling to Ireland and noting that they actually have Irish heritage. And then some nice local appreciates their interest and they have something to talk about. American tourists these days don’t seem any more annoying or tone deaf than, say German, Israeli, or UK tourists. If you encounter a tourist off the beaten path, then they are almost always polite, curious, and a very nice person. And if you are hanging out where the big bus tourists congregate… well, what did you expect? They are dumbasses fishing for selfies - the lowest common denominator doesnt differentiate based on nationality.

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• Madzielle@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  You’re not wrong, this is totally a thing. I’m a euro mutt (I coin for myself) and I can trace some lines.

  It’s because were all immigrants in a young country. Even the census we take asks where we hail from. I’ve maked “American” on it the last two times. It is a deal here, and yes it can be annoying especially when you get the tropes going. “Oh my family is Italian we like big families” mean while I’m fourth gen Italian (mixed obvs) and like what, are you inbreeding to stay Italian? Your husbands last name is “smith” like, fuck off. My full first gen Italian great grandmother married a first gen polack and had one kid. One. Fuck off with your stereotypes. This bitch I’m thinking of feed her kids all the american processed foods, give no fucks about the quality of her food ingredients or where they come from, just fuck off “were Italian” bitch shut up.

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  • MutilationWave@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Yep. And so many white people here claim native ancestry. “I’m 1/16th Cherokee” they’ll say. Usually it is Cherokee because that’s the group their parents or grandparents had heard of and told them. I think it comes from trying to absolve the guilty feelings of what the settlers did to the natives.

    The genealogy conversations are just tiring and predictable.

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    • Madzielle@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      So many! I think it was possibly, a almost pop culture trend in the 70s to claim native history tbh. So many folks I met who do this would have been teens/young adults in that time. But you’re probably right, it’s some warped cope for the atrocities committed against native people. Fucking warped.

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• jaycifer@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Potentially annoying American here with a point of clarification: is it annoying just to be interested in one’s heritage, or is it Americans that make that heritage their entire personality?

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  • phr@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    the identity thing. as far as i see it’s usually white people who do this. to gain ethnic distinction?

    sure its cool to find out more abt what your granparents did (unless you are german).

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    • A_norny_mousse@feddit.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Also never forget that these gene tests are almost fraudulent. Mostly bull.

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    • jaycifer@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      I think a lot of it stems from living in a relatively young, immigration heavy, multicultural country and the little conversations that arise from that.

      At least in the city I grew up and still live in I have met a lot of people who either immigrated or whose parents immigrated from other countries. In high school human geography I learned it takes a couple generations for an immigrant family to fully assimilate into a new culture, so a lot of these first/second generation immigrants still have connections and traditions from their family’s old country. The history of those countries (or at least the regions modern countries occupy) stretch back hundreds to thousands of years. I think many caucasian Americans, often raised to be competitive, want that sense of history when comparing to their own family but American culture has “only” developed over the past 300-400 years. To get an older/deeper sense of heritage they have to ask where their ancestors that immigrated to the US immigrated from, and because a sense of superiority is at least some part of American culture that older heritage has to be better than the other older heritages and therefore something to be loud and proud about. Even if it isn’t actually a big part of one’s life.

      All that to say yes I think you’re right about it being a matter of ethnic distinction, which I think is brought about by the circumstances of US history. I definitely get how it’s annoying.

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  • Styxia@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    I’m an immigrant in the U.S. When my accent gives me away, I’m often asked where I’m from, which somehow leads to the discovery that the other person is also Irish. Or Scottish. Usually Irish.

    I’m not offended so much as confused. “I am Irish” carries an expectation of shared culture and experience. When that’s clearly not what’s being offered, it lands less as connection and more hollow. Offense arises when clichés or affected accents appear. That’s no longer about identity; it’s just being an eejit.

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• SoleInvictus@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  I also find it maddening, not only because it’s silly, but because the analysis is largely crap anyhow.

  My mother’s family touted their “Irish heritage for three generations”, then quickly shut up when their genome analysis “proved” they were instead largely English. I’ve had to point out Ireland and England’s relative positions and ask them if they thought anyone in our ancestry might have ever moved from island to island. Maybe consider that they were from somewhere else in Europe even earlier? Now they’re “Irish” again.

  Point entirely missed, JFC. They were Irish, their ancestors were maybe English, and way back, their ancestors were definitely African, but I don’t see them getting into African cultural heritage. Thankfully.

  You’re United Statesians. I get the draw, they’re looking for genuine but effort-free connection, identity, and belonging in a country whose dominant culture is homogenization, commoditization, and exploitation, but their search for culture through tenuous connections to long-dead ancestors instead of family, friends, and neighbors is just as hollow and unfulfilling.

  Don’t obsess about great³-Grandpa Pádraig’s life harvesting peat from the bogs; he’s long dead and probably would have hated you. Embrace what and where you are and utilize and improve what you actually have.

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• Doubleohdonut@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  “English, Scotch, Welch and Irish” always drives me nuts. You can’t even pronounce one of them correctly; how is that honouring your “heritage”?

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  • Nemo@slrpnk.net ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    no, they’re literally 25% grape juice

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    • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      They’re Americans so grape jelly.

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      • SLVRDRGN@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        In America, juice and jelly have the same sugar and fake ingredient contents.

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  • A_norny_mousse@feddit.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    And I also wonder how the machines that create these results even manage to distinguish between, say, English and Welsh “genes”. I mean sure, there’s some science behind it. 0.1% to be precise.

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    • SoleInvictus@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      I can tell you, I’m a real molecular/microbiologist!

      Tl;Dr: It’s mostly bunk.

      Most of these services don’t analyze your entire genome*, but instead just regions of genes, looking for something called SNPs: single nucleotide polymorphisms. DNA is composed of four nucleobases, commonly represented by their initials: T and A, C and G. A SNP is a spot on a gene where there’s some variability in these, e.g., a C or A or even a T instead of a common G.

      Through whole genome sequencing and statistical analysis, these companies were able to identify frequency trends in SNPs according to where the person lives and their self-reported ancestry. Now they use a cheaper, less comprehensive (but still fairly accurate) process to look for the SNPs that data suggests are most strongly correlated with different regions/ancestries and dole out your supposed ancestry.

      There are problems.

      Conclusions are only as good as your data, and the data are often based strongly on self-reporting, which is usually pretty inaccurate.

      SNPs aren’t static - every child has some, about 20 to 60, that their parents don’t have. Many detrimental SNPs can lead to death, so most that persist have no effect, though some are weakly detrimental or, even more rarely, beneficial. That means there’s a limited pool of viable options, so your kid might have spontaneously developed a few strongly associated with a region they’re not at all connected to. You have a few too, as does your coparent and all of your parents. Through a couple of generations of new SNPs, a person’s ancestry results can shift. Through random chance and no new SNPs, one might inherit a combination of SNPs commonly seen in other regions, simply through the right combination of ancestors not at all from that area.

      Some SNPs are better than others. Those on what are called “highly conserved” genes, i.e., fuck this gene up at all and you die, tend to be less common and more stable. If a defined group has an unusual SNP or SNPs on these regions, it’s a far better indicator of relatedness than a SNP on a gene for something like vitamin C synthesis, which we have but the process is broken so it doesn’t matter if we break it more.

      In summary, these services are built on data of varying quality (shitty data) and moving targets of variable utility (shitty targets).

      Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

      *If you can swing it, genome sequencing and analysis can be really interesting and useful for healthcare decisions. You can learn a lot about how you, specifically, work, and we’re learning more all the time.

      Just be sure to get sufficient sequencing coverage, at least 30x if you want “good enough”, 100x or more if it’s medically vital and/or you’re looking for rare genes. 1x is fairly worthless, paying for it is a waste of money.

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      • A_norny_mousse@feddit.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        Thanks for your comment! I read all and yeah it sounds like they applied barely enough (bad) science that they cannot be accused of actively grifting.

        Apart from the shitty targets, I’m extremely put off by the self-reporting. While I could get fairly accurate knowledge from my dad, I still would have trouble defining which countries my ancestors were from, and anything beyond my great-grandparents is lost in the mists anyhow.

        Do these commercial gene analyses treat Central Europe as one big entity?

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• exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  I’ve always understood it to be a remnant of a culture that de-emphasized genealogy and family pedigree, and had a lot more cultural and ethnic mixing in marriages at an earlier era. In Europe, it seems like there are a lot more family crests and aristocratic titles, from centuries of families maneuvering for political power through strategic marriages and what not, and stronger cultural taboos against marrying and having children outside of one’s ethnic group (and religion), at least up until maybe World War II.

  So if there’s just less to learn from DNA testing (a person who happens to already have records of all 16 of their great-great-grandparents, who all lived in the same geographical area), I’d expect there not to be much demand for that kind of analysis.

  Or maybe I’m wrong to focus on the gentry and aristocratic families, and have a misplaced view of how long that kind of stuff culturally persisted in Europe.

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  • phr@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    • “germans”, “french”, “danes” weren’t a thing. up until recently. they are genetically diverse groups.

    • euros aren’t all nobles. i don’t know my grandmas maiden names.

    • there was a lot of movement (read: fucking around) in europe. what do these tests even mean by “dutch”?

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    • exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      • “germans”, “french”, “danes” weren’t a thing. up until recently. they are genetically diverse groups.

      I was under the impression that the DNA kits described actual ethnic groups and showed a map of the distribution of those groups overlaid on modern political borders or region names. Here’s the page on 23 and Me’s reports, which have a lot more granular detail, mapped onto modern political borders for reference, but where any listed nation or territory may have up to dozens of different sub-groups listed.

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• morphballganon@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  If it means we can get citizenship somewhere else and get out… you’re offended by us figuring out our options? Oh how inconsiderate of us

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  • FaceDeer@fedia.io ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    We're not talking to you in this thread, we're talking about you. You don't need to jump in with "but that's not annoying!" After people answer the question OP posed, that's not useful.

    This is ironically another annoying behaviour.

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    • morphballganon@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Oh, pardon me, I forgot you’re allowed to find someone seeking a path forward in life as dreadfully inconvenient, because where you were born grants you superiority, m’lord

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      • FaceDeer@fedia.io ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        Yes, we see it, you can stop demonstrating the annoying behaviour now.

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    • A_norny_mousse@feddit.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      This is ironically another annoying behaviour.

      Unable to resist a challenge. But it’s usually the doubling- and tripling down that makes it really funny.

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  • Jesus_666@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    It typically doesn’t. Most countries don’t care about where your ancestors came from. Being fluent in the local language and culture will generally give you a leg up if you already qualify for immigration so I hope your family kept those alive (and not Americanized versions like Irish-Americans wearing green on St. Patrick’s Day). But your ancestry is usually completely irrelevant.

    Those genetic test results absolutely don’t mean anything. If you’re culturally American with an American passport, you’re American and that’s it.

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    • Fondots@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Kind of funny you specifically call out Irish-Americans, because Ireland does actually have some options for citizenship-by-descent. It’s not quite as simple as anyone with Irish ancestry can become a citizen, but it is a thing.

      If you have a grandparent who was born in Ireland you’re eligible

      Or if your parent was an Irish citizen at the time of your birth

      So hypothetically if you have a great grandparent born in Ireland, your parent could apply for Irish citizenship, even though their parents (your grandparents) weren’t citizens and had never set foot in Ireland

      And if they did that before you were born you would also be eligible

      And so on down the line to your children, and their children, etc. if everyone keeps on top of it.

      There’s actually a decent handful of countries with some sort of citizenship-by-descent, not a majority by a longshot, and of course every country that does offer it has different requirements and restrictions, but for some people it can potentially be a viable pathway to another citizenship.

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      • 14th_cylon@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        i am not going to verify what you said, but regardless of if it is true, if your grandparents have the citizenship, you probably don’t need dna test to find that out…

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  • phr@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    by all means do.

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    • morphballganon@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Why wouldn’t we give our family members a tip on how they can also get out, on a platform where they would see it?

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      • phr@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        did anyone ever get a passport because some lab result said they were 10% “genetically slovakian”?

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      • 14th_cylon@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        great, another american immigrant. we need to build a wall and make america pay for it.

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  • Nalivai@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    There is only one country that gives a flying shit about where your great-grandma allegedly came from, and that’s Israel. For every other country you’re not figuring out any options, you’re cosplaying.

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    • AbsolutelyClawless@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      It’s not quite the same, but I know someone who acquired Italian citizenship because their grandparents were Italian/had Italian citizenship. They don’t even speak Italian.

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      • Spitefire@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        Italy has recently changed their requirements and now language proficiency and residency are required. But yes, up until very recently heritage was mostly enough.

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      • Honytawk@feddit.nl ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        They did not get citizenship because of their grandparents.

        They got a foot in the door because they knew someone living in Italy (if that even is the cast), and then went through everything a normal migrant needs to go through.

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    • drev@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      This is not true. I personally acquired citizenship of Lithuania for example, solely because my grandmother was born there and left during Soviet occupation (as many did). I speak no Lithuanian, have no other connection to the country, and have never even been there.

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      • AbsolutelyClawless@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        ITT: confidently incorrect people who can’t take 5 seconds to do an internet search, lol.

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  • A_norny_mousse@feddit.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Ah Cheesus that’s funny. I hope you weren’t serious. As if “having Italian genes” makes you eligible for a residence permit.

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    • morphballganon@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Not Italy perhaps, but there are such places.

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    • Spitefire@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Italian ancestry can qualify you for citizenship, that’s not the best example.

      Source: me, American of Italian ancestry working to get dual citizenship

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  • Honytawk@feddit.nl ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    You don’t get citizenship just because you had ancestors there once.

    Otherwise everyone is an African citizen.

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    • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Germany will give you citizenship for having had a single Great Great Grandfather from Bavaria. Ask me how I know…

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    • morphballganon@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      There are such places.

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• AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Jay parlay Francsays trey beein. Jaytude on laycole quart ans.

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  • phr@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    if i had the power to do so, i’d give you a french passport right away.

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• phr@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  maybe clearing this up: germany has a hereditary citizenship. i. e. children of germans can get a german passport.

  being “german” means owning german citizenship (or citizenship of the one of the former constructs the federal republic sees as its precursors), not owning a set of genes. you can have no ‘distinct european genes’ (e.g. be ainu?) at all and get citizenship for your kids, as long as you have it. you can be “genetically german” and still don’t have a passport.

  jus sanguinis usually isn’t genetically defined

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