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Why I regret using 23andMe: I gave up my DNA just to find out I’m British | Technology | The Guardian
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2024
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What's with the negativity from you and the other comments?
I can tell you why Americans care. Because identity matters to people. The story of the melting pot is central to the American story as a nation of immigrants (even today) and central to individual identities. Thus, there is a lot of interest in backgrounds and geneology. If you ask the average American about their heritage you're likely to get a surprising answer - so people talk about it more.
I get why it seems weird to many other cultures - if you ask the average French person (for example) their heritage they'll say 'French as far back as we can tell'.
The French person celebrates their identity through the lens of the French story, and the American does too, it's just that the American story is the immigrant story.
I hope you do actually care. I hope in this era of rising nationalism and online hate enough of us value diversity of backgrounds and ancestries.
I'm not being hateful about it. I'm just puzzled as to why people think it makes any difference to their lives, or why they'd be disappointed in having the "wrong" ancestry.
I see a lot of Americans obsessed with it so much that it borders on being fetish-like, particularly when it comes to people claiming to be Irish or Italian, and it's bizarre to me.
I can speak to this phenomenon a bit. It’s part of what was drilled into us from our families. My father’s maternal grandparents were from Donegal, Ireland. Any time a single person from a Donegal family passed away in the entire city of Philadelphia, whether they were known to my family or not, my father, his brothers, and my grandmother were going to that wake to pay their respects. Once he became an adult, he became a member of the AoH, which is an Irish-American fraternal order. They’d keep some Irish customs alive (and being separated by the ocean, no doubt hallucinate some new ones). For people that are heavily invested in their families, it’s a way of feeling connected to your ancestors. I think leaving was rather traumatic for many people, so I think there is an element of mourning in the connection for some too.
I myself wouldn’t call myself Irish, but I know a great deal about Ireland and I share a deep appreciation for it despite being a Yankee. I get that it’s no doubt annoying when someone who knows nothing of the place they are claiming ownership of says they’re Irish or Italian to someone actually from Ireland or Italy, but at the end of the day I think it comes from a well intentioned place. If my family came to find we weren’t at all Irish by ancestry, I would definitely feel shocked as much of my upbringing was framed by that identity.
Calling people out as "fetish like" for identifying with...anything... is a bad look.
A person's perception of themselves, their identity or self image isn't for you to qualify as being good enough
Don't try to compare an American claiming to de a different nationality just because they may have had an ancestor from XYZ to something like transphobia.
They are not the same. And rolling my eyes at the 'plastic paddy' crowd is not bigotry.
That is an absurd comparison to draw.
you have a fetish to shit on other people. why do you care so much?
No not hateful, you're just giving off a weird vibe about it. But you're half way there actually, transform that energy into curiosity.
The two you picked especially have a real fascinating history and I'd encourage you to check it out because both of those groups had a tough time in their early immigration days. They aren't fetishising at all - those communities had to stick together because they weren't exactly welcome, and that mentality became ingrained. Over time, it was less necessary for survival so it transitioned into more of a cultural tradition.
I'm aware of the history. It's still weird. You need to understand that nowhere else does this. It's strange.
I understand why you'd think that because we're all inundated with American culture no matter where we are in the western world. But that's just not true. There are plenty of interesting groups who celebrate cultural identities not based on the country they live in.
A web search uncovered German-Brazilians and Italian-Argentines for me, I'm sure there are many many more.