What would you think if I started calling myself a European-American?

Question

Before the hate mail comes out, let me first tell you that I do not mean this in a demeaning or racist way - AT ALL. I really just want to know what you would think if people of a certain ethnic persuasion started calling themselves Caucasian-Americans. There's already African-American, Latin-American. Italian-American. What would be wrong with European? It's my heritage ....

I love it! Most of you are getting it! Why this fascination with hyphenating? Why can't we all just be flippin' Americans?!

Here's why I can't get over it: do you see people in Germany calling themselves, American-Germans?. Or how about American-South Africans? Or get this one, American-Polish? Seriously.

Answer 1

Why can't you just get over the fact that people are different? Why do you want everyone to be the same? Why does it bother you so much that people hyphenate their ethnicities? Why? Honestly.

Answer 2

Hyphenated Americanism drives me nuts! I think some people do it because they are America-hating Americans who want to dissaccossiate themselves from the country. America IS a heritage. One day all of it's citizens will be Mutt-Americans, anyways.

Answer 3

You would not be Eurpoean American. You be of German, English, Polish, Slavic, Czech, Italian, Greek, French, Spanish, Norse, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Bosnian, Albanian, etc.

I don't agree with the terms "African american" or "Asian American" or "Arab American." Africa, Asia, the Middle East are not all one country.

The main reason for the term African American is because many Black as decendents of slaves, and they do not know there ancestory. Many black that came to America afterwards are called Somali-American, Ethiopian-American, Sudanese-America, and the like.

For Arabs, some say they are Egytian American, but that mainly applies to Copts, who are not Arab at all. At one time, all of the Middle East was one country, so there were no countries like today.

And Asian Americans, I don't know. Maybe because there are so many Asain counties, and there aren't many Asians in American?

With Native Americans, that is wrong, too. There were so many tribes.

Are we all just plan old AMERICANS?

Answer 4

what to do with the answer?
America is a land of distant cousins
Read the autobiography of Ishmael Reed (his ancestry includes Ireland, Native Americans etc)
and Murray's The Omni-Americans (1970).

Buy a leaf from Brazil and Argentina. The people are just that, Brazilians and Argentinians (of course there are class distinctions).
It is unfortunate that in the US there's still this us/them racial categories years after MLK Jr.'s dream, after Thurmond's kinship and in the age of Obama vying for presidency!

The land of the free and of the brave falls seriously short on this score of race.

Answer 5

I would love it, because I'm a Black Woman who's not too partial about referring to myself as African American. What's the deal with that, like the Delaney Sisters said "we're Americans". It also causes confusion since there are lots of Black people here who immigrated from Africa. Sometimes Africans - no offense to anyone this from personal experiences- can be very rude towards Blacks too. Just like Mexicans snub Chicanos, or Japanese snub Nisei, etc.

If you started referring to yourself as "European American" I'd feel a lot better about the "African American" thing!

Answer 6

America is racist. White people are the ones who started this racial labelling, saying that they're the original Americans but forget that Native Americans are the original ones. And so they call themselves just Americans, and everybody else, Asian American, African American, Latin American, etc.

They have brainwashed people into believing that these are the correct terms. Have you noticed, when someone mentions "American", people autimatically assume that its a white person? That is clear evidence, I tell you.

Answer 7

Remember a few years ago a name for European Americans was Anglos-that never caught on. It does seem a tad derogatory. I was born in Europe and now I'm a citizen. I don't deny my heritage(German); but, I would just like to be known as human, no color, no ethnic word, nothing.Plain old everyday human.

Answer 8

I actually think it would be anti-racist to call yourself European-American. This label brings to the forefront the fact that whites are descended from immigrants to this land. It makes it sound more like whites are a (very generalized) ethnic group just like other ethnic groups and are not just "normal" Americans. Does what I said make sense?

Answer 9

okay well why we are at it lets see mine okay do my great great grandparents are Indian and my but after that they went to Guyana were my parent are from but i was born here and before that everyone came from Africa like 100 thousand years ago so that makes me American- Guyanese-African-Indian-American .you know what i think i've got some iranian in there af ew hundred years back so indian-guyanese-iranian-african-american-american. you know what i think i'm going to stick to american maybe citizen of the world ,human ,worldenese oh ya i'm worldenese. really the whole think of adding you family history to American is silly

Answer 10

Hey whatever trips your trigger Baby. You can call yourself a ******* tangerine for all I care. I'm white, I guess you'd call me a Danish-American, but I think plain old American works just fine for me.