Tender Childhood Memory
>be me
>be in fifth grade
>the scholastic book fair comes to our school every year
>the kids in my class were really into “I Survived” books
>“I Survived the Holocaust” is being sold
>kids correlate Nazis being German with me
being German and start calling me a Nazi
>ask them what a Nazi is, but no one will tell me
>too poor to buy the book
>ask my stepmom at the time and she screams at me because “I’m too young to know about Nazis” and gets mad at me
>too scared to ask teachers or my dad after getting yelled at
>kids keep calling me a Nazi for weeks
>get pissed
>plot revenge
>have fake cereal brand with my friend for some reason
>never actually made the cereal yet, just pretend it exists and made fake ads for it and shit
>tell people I’m finally going to make it
>mix the most vile, abhorrent shit I can find in my kitchen together with red food dye and frosted flakes
>feed it to the people calling me a Nazi, so most of my class ate it
>gave them explosive diarrhea and food poisoning
>somehow didn’t get in trouble for biological warfare and was never punished by the school
>W
>forget about it for eight years
>randomly remember
>tell my dad cause I think it’s funny
>”Anon, that’s exactly what a Nazi would do."
>InterpersonalExpectancyEffect.jpg
I guess those kids called it.
fuck ethnicities, fuck skin colours, fuck nationalities.
If you can speak a language of a country and put effort into understanding and immersing yourself in the culture of said country you are German/Polish/Danish/Swedish etc etc.
Quite frankly I don’t give a shit if your grandmother was Polish if I can’t even complain with you how the prices of butter are too high in Polish, or laugh together at stupid fucking memes in Polish.
This is my hot take, and I’m tired of hiding it
You can be Polish and German at the same time.
My wife was born and raised in Korea, and she’s a naturalized US citizen, so she’s both Korean and American. My kids were born and raised in the US, but they have that Korean heritage through my wife, so they’re also born Korean and American.
Cultural heritage is important, so don’t give that up just because you live in another country, speak another language, and maybe have never actually been to your ancestors land. Imo, you can claim whatever your ancestry is from, plus whatever citizenship(s) you hold.
yeah, heritage and ancestry, but not “I am Polish :) my great great grandma was polish (:”
I’d go as far as to say first generation natives with foreign born parents already aren’t their parents’ nationality anymore (if the don’t bother to learn the language and engage in the culture)
They’re absolutely not their parents’ nationality, but they are their parents’ ethnicity. They’re only their parents nationality if they get citizenship in that country.
My kids are not Korean citizens because they would be required to serve in the military. But I consider them ethnically Korean because their mom is ethnically Korean (and grew up in Korea). I probably wouldn’t consider their kids Korean though, assuming they don’t marry another Korean. They don’t speak Korean and have no desire to live in Korea, but it’s part of their heritage and we sometimes read to them in Korean.
So as long as you have actual ties in the other country or actively practice its culture (and you have ancestry from there), I think you’re good to claim that ethnicity. Otherwise it’s a bit of a stretch for me.
by nationality there I didn’t mean the legal definition of citizenship, but the more vague sense of being able to confidently say “I am [insert country]-ish/ese/an”
if they don’t speak Korean then I personally wouldn’t consider them Korean, as without the language they are disconnected from the history and culture of Korea. Even when you translate said history and culture, it’s just not the same thing, every language conveys untranslatable nuance to stories said in that language.
I disagree. They eat primarily Korean food at home, they hear a lot of Korean being spoken (their mom with friends, their grandparents), and there are certain other cultural habits and whatnot they got from their mother (different “home” clothes from “outside” clothes, take off shoes when entering house, use chopsticks for eating, etc). They’re certainly different from their American friends.
I would argue that if they spoke Korean but otherwise didn’t partake in any Korean cultural heritage, that they shouldn’t be considered Korean. I speak a foreign language (other than Korean), but I would never consider myself “from” that culture because I have no ancestral or legal ties, I just lived there for a couple years to improve my language skills. I’m also very interested in that country’s history, but only academically. I don’t see them as “my people.”
seems like a difference of perspectives then. I’ve felt more commection and sort of “oneness” with an Egyptian guy who’s been to Poland once but spoke near perfect Polish, than with any of the Polish Americans that could barely pronounce dzień dobry. There’s enough differences in upbringing within a single country anyway, “how do you do things where you’re from” could apply to anything from the town next door to the country on the other side of the planet