I’m X(-American): A Counter View
There are a number of blog posts, YouTube videos, and other social media entries by citizens and members of specific nations, ethnicities, and cultural groups who take issue with (presumably) Americans (particularly “white” Americans) referring to themselves as being of the poster’s distinctly-mentioned in-group. (Examples: Sam Heughan, Scottish, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g12NWqUhe_A&t=6s; Diane Jennings, Irish, https://www.youtube.com/user/DianesAudition; Benny Wayne Sully, American Indigenous, https://medium.com/insider/7-things-you-should-never-say-to-a-native-american-ec30c049d9a2)
Being a natural-born citizen of the United States who claims a (possible) Scottish ancestor three or four generations back and a (possible) Hawai’ian ancestor of similar vintage, I’d like to offer an explanation of why Americans tend to hyphenate ourselves and claim ownership of heritage in ways others find presumptive, triggering, off-putting, or just plain inaccurate.
North America is a continent of Immigrants (both willing and non-willing)
The dominant European phenotype and “English-derived” governmental structure(1) and culture(2) of the United States is based on the dominance of British colonization. Much of our cultural history, including cultural oppression, appropriation, and assimilation (or lack thereof) starts with that assumption.
That said, much of our (non-Black) immigrant population didn’t arrive in North America until late in the 19th century or some time in the 20th. We are not Sons (or Daughters) of the American Revolution. We may be members of the local Italian-American Club, Knights of Pythias, Japan Society, Saint Andrews Society — or not.
The United States is a country of assimilation (and sometimes cultural appropriation)
While we pride ourselves on being a nation of immigrants, we’ve seen each new tidal wave of immigrants from a specific country or culture as a threat to our dominant culture. I need not go any further than “No Irish Need Apply” or the (anti-Italian) Sacco-Vanzetti case to apply this to US residents of European phenotype (aka “white”). These immigrants were Other, and their Otherness was apparent by their names, languages, religions, or minor traits (such as hair color). But within two generations, most European immigrants lost their language, assimilated into Americanized versions of their religions, and intermarried into the dominant culture.
How this relates to Blacks, Indigenous Peoples, People of Color, and non-Christian Peoples
It has been more difficult for People of Color to assimilate, and for some non-Christian persons of faith to assimilate. In the first case, laws and culturally-imposed fear have separated out the non-white races and imposed distinct restrictions and repressions upon each (e.g., forced migration, enslavement, segregation, etc.) In the second case, distinctions in religious dress, days and practices of worship, and religion-based social restrictions serve in lieu of civil laws to maintain these peoples’ Otherness.
Framing the Self as part of a Continuity
Most of us are brought up to see ourselves as part of some continuity, whether it’s a political continuity (“I am an American”), a religious continuity (“I am Jewish”), or a cultural community. The last is where the definitions get really fraught.
Romanticization of the Past
Regardless of our levels of assimilation, many Americans maintain some sort of emotional ties with our ancestral countries and peoples of origin. Whether it’s through a weekend or afterschool language or “cultural enrichment” program, a fraternal or charitable society, or a social club, we believe we are trying to maintain some sort of social and cultural knowledge of our foreign and/or Indigenous brethren, a tie to our not-so-long-past family history.
While some of this is practical — requirements of our religions or the desire to maintain contact with branches of our families who have stayed in our countries of origin — much of this emotional attachment is a romanticization of what it means to be “X” (where “X” is a nationality, ethnic or cultural origin): we see young girls dancing competitively in expensive costumes celebrating Irish or Scottish traditions without seeing the devastation of English colonization (“the Pale”), cultural suppression (“the ‘45”), and deliberate depopulation (“transportation”); we see colorful feathered and beaded costumes (again, expensive) of various First Nations/Indigenous/Native performers at festivals without seeing the Trail of Tears, various types of depopulation and forced assimilation, marginalization onto increasingly small and inhospitable “reservations”…
Success Envy
In addition to romanticizing what it was like to be, for example, a 19th-Century Irish person forced to starve because of a potato disease, or a family making its uncertain way to the US in the cargo hold of an overcrowded ship, our collective majority culture tends to root for the underdog, and clings to the mythos of the “self-made man”. When we see a marginalized group reclaiming its culture for itself, overcoming the discriminatory hurdles we (or our ancestors) set for it, we simultaneously rejoice in their success and are envious of them for it. We believe we want to be them, even though we would have never wanted to live through a hundredth of the difficulties individuals of this group went through — and often are still going through — for any individual in that group (or the group as a whole) to reach that level of “success”.
“Saving” the Culture
Finally, the communication technology of the late 20th Century introduced us to the idea that we were in danger of losing many languages, cultures, and follk wisdom due to forced assimilation. We seem to have developed the belief that if we don’t claim our ancestral backgrounds, and try to reclaim at least parts of these cultures, that our pasts will literally disappear before our very eyes. And so we put a lot of effort into making sure our children learn the languages, foods, and dances of those peoples from whom we have become alienated.
It is perhaps instructive to note that these are skills which can be performed, tested, and judged as a proxy measure to determine “belonging-ness” to the ancestral community, without belonging to the dark parts, the ongoing politics, and/or the ongoing oppression of those peoples. We see the glitz and glamour, and process it as a cachet of which to be envious (like the popular rich kids at school), while ignoring the dark, oppressive underside — and in the cases of many still-marginalized peoples, the economic poverty and systemic discrimination in which they live today.
The Divide
Americans who self-identify as “X” — or perhaps less controversially,“X”-American — may, or may not, have bona fide ancestors from “X” modern state or “X” First/indigenous nation. Generations of separation from those living in “X” state or belonging to “X” nation have distanced most of us from any understanding of what makes natively “X” people, “X”. We replaced it with the purely American concept of claimed ancestral descent, emphasized by our interest in (and study of) the language, cuisine, and arts of those people, while distancing ourselves from the poverty and oppression that brought our ancestors to North America, as well as the religious, patriotic/nationalist, and daily lives of those living in, and claiming (or being claimed by) “X” today.
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(1)The United States Constitution (among other things) is a substantial borrowing from the Iroquois (https://www.pbs.org/native-america/blogs/native-voices/how-the-iroquois-great-law-of-peace-shaped-us-democracy/)
(2) As an example, culinary historian Michael W. Twitty (https://afroculinaria.com/) has documented how much of what we consider “Southern Cuisine” is the history and/or development of enslaved African peoples.