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As a German: Could someone explain me, why Americans love to be "1/8th something"? There is a high chance that whenever I talk to someone, they say "Oh, yeah, I

by jagermo 11y ago

As a German: Could someone explain me, why Americans love to be "1/8th something"? There is a high chance that whenever I talk to someone, they say "Oh, yeah, I am 1/64th German!" - and if I ask them if they know the language or culture (besides Rammstein) or if they visited Germany ever, almost anyone says no. Is it just one of these safe smalltalk topics, like sports or weather? In the future, should I be interested and ask them about it? Or just say "how nice" and move along?

rspeer 11y ago
Something that's pretty big in American culture is celebrating whatever your non-American culture is. In many cases, if people couldn't claim to be 1/8 something, they'd feel left out. When people tell you that, they're making small talk about their family. Don't ask them about the culture they're claiming to be from, ask them about their family.
smcl 11y ago
I think it's innocent enough, a country with a huge amount of semi-recent (within 2-3 generations) immigrants is bound to have a lot of people with a bit of mixed heritage, a number of which will be doing a bit of searching for some kind of cultural identity. An "oh really?" and maybe a polite question about which part of Germany their family is from, if they are still in contact with their German family etc will probably suffice. However there's little excuse for "You're Scottish? Do you know my cousin Kenneth?" to which the appropriate response is "Ohhh Kenneth ... yeah everyone knows him. He's a real jerk" :)
pluma 11y ago
One theory would be race. The US is all about race. Some of it probably has to do with white guilt (white Americans killed the natives, white Americans enslaved black people, white Americans heavily discriminated against black people, brown people and yellow people). Prior to paying attention to American culture I didn't understand that for Americans "latinos" are a race and all black-ish people are "black" and that "white" people are "Caucasian". Another would be that the US has barely any culture or history of its own. You can only go back a little more than two centuries if you want to talk about the US and only a little bit more than that if you want to talk about the Americas. Worse yet, the US is a nation of immigrants so most people's ancestry hasn't even been in the US that long.

by jagermo 11y ago

rspeer 11y ago

Something that's pretty big in American culture is celebrating whatever your non-American culture is. In many cases, if people couldn't claim to be 1/8 something, they'd feel left out. When people tell you that, they're making small talk about their family. Don't ask them about the culture they're claiming to be from, ask them about their family.

smcl 11y ago

I think it's innocent enough, a country with a huge amount of semi-recent (within 2-3 generations) immigrants is bound to have a lot of people with a bit of mixed heritage, a number of which will be doing a bit of searching for some kind of cultural identity. An "oh really?" and maybe a polite question about which part of Germany their family is from, if they are still in contact with their German family etc will probably suffice. However there's little excuse for "You're Scottish? Do you know my cousin Kenneth?" to which the appropriate response is "Ohhh Kenneth ... yeah everyone knows him. He's a real jerk" :)

pluma 11y ago

One theory would be race. The US is all about race. Some of it probably has to do with white guilt (white Americans killed the natives, white Americans enslaved black people, white Americans heavily discriminated against black people, brown people and yellow people). Prior to paying attention to American culture I didn't understand that for Americans "latinos" are a race and all black-ish people are "black" and that "white" people are "Caucasian". Another would be that the US has barely any culture or history of its own. You can only go back a little more than two centuries if you want to talk about the US and only a little bit more than that if you want to talk about the Americas. Worse yet, the US is a nation of immigrants so most people's ancestry hasn't even been in the US that long.