Nationality vs. Ethnicity

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Aldeth wrote:

I once had an exchange student from Texas in my class. I think he understood that la Suisse n'existe pas after two weeks. Italy remained to him a enigmatic existing/non-existing-entity the whole year he stayed. I think he never resolved the question.

The problem is, I think, that there is an incredible amount of fallicies to surmount before the different concepts of Europeans and North-Americans of things like ethnicity and nationality can be cleared up.

Firstly, Aldeth, you describe the USA very well in your posts. The US is incarnated homogenity. I do not know another place that is so homogeneous in every way. And yes, that's my point and I consider it true. There maybe skincolours like a rainbow, the ethnicity is still extremely homogeneous.

As a result, Joe Italy in your example is Joe All-American. There is nothing of Italy in your example but everything about the US. Italy is compared to the US a very young and ehtnically very diverse country. Giovanni does not consider himself Italian firstly and Gino surely doesn't either. Maybe Mauro does. But on the Italian peninsulia, it's about the regions you hail from. And internal frictions among the regions are strong.

On the other hand, I consider Switzerland as extremly heteregonous country. Ethnicity for me means not the place someones grandmother came from, but it means that 50% of the 20-30 age-group (in which I am in) are at least fluent in one foreign language. And maybe 25% can only studder the domestic languages. That means that I deal on a daily basis with people coming from Peru-Croatia-Serbia-Italy-Spain-Sweden-Denmark-England-Brazil-Iran-Germany-France-Austria-Slowakia-Ukraine-Alabania-Greece-Turkey.

Question of ethnicity are to me as practical as it is impolite to converse in Italian, Serbian or Spanish while there's always a certain number of people present that can't understand it and are therefore excluded from that conversation. Or sorry, I've forgotten again, are you from Slovenia or Slowakia?

Edit:

^

Uuuuups. THat's it. There's an ocean between us and our cultures. That level of homogenity is strictly unbelievable. Weird, you go to a goverment agency and you don't get a form available in 30 different languges. Extremely weird.

 

Well, I'm Slovak, although technically my grandfather was born in Chekoslovakia, which no longer exists as a single country.

 

Oops, sorry. . That was an example from my every day life in Babylon and not a question at you. Because there is a girl I know and she's Slovak, but I always blundered and had to ask again because I mixed Slovena and Slovakia constantly up. Which always comes to my mind when conversing with a new employee from Ukraine, who was introduced to me as being Slovakian which of course reminded me instantly of Slovenia.

Edit: That's the langauges in which one can do the tests to get a Swiss driving licence in the canton of Zürich and you can have everything bureaucratic done.

-German
-French
-Italian
-English
-Portuguese
-Turkish
-Serbo-Croatian
-Albanian

[ January 24, 2006, 15:02: Message edited by: Iago ]

 

In my school I had some class' taught in English (eg History), and others classes taught in Gaelic (eg Maths), so I don't see how teaching Spanish as a problem as I would like to think that most Americans have some grasp of Spanish.

 

And you would be very, very wrong. Few Americans have a minimal working knowledge of another language, let alone sufficient fluency to learn an academic subject like math. So where's the line between a reasonable accomodation, and coddling that allows immigrants to avoid immersion in the larger culture? I agree that people should maintain as much of their heritage as they can, but for cryin' out loud people, this ain't the old country and stop expecting it to be. IIRC, the reason immigrants come here is specifically BECAUSE it isn't the Old Country!

 

But it won't hurt anybody if students are tought foreign languages, and that goes for students everywhere. I myself studied French, German, and English, because it were basic classes we had to take. Learning foreign languages enriches you in every way.

 

I'm not saying it doesn't, PacMan, and I wholeheartedly agree that Americans should - NEED TO - learn other languages. However, to try to teach the higher concepts of a different academic subject like math or history or science in a language that the students don't know is to make them do twice as much work. I have a feeling that people would be more likely to come away learning nothing about either the subject at hand or the language in which is was being taught.

So is it fair to expect Spanish-speaking kids to do well in American schools, where the classes are taught in English? Perhaps not. Where there is sufficient demand and resources to meet the demand, schools should offer a class taught in an alternative language. But where there is little demand or limited resources, I think it's better to provide additional help for the affected students, aimed at bringing them up to the English fluency required for success in the mainstream.

 

I think it would be a waste to let their Spanish fall into disuse or stop developing beyond the language of a child. But they need fluent English if they live in an English-speaking country as citizens.

In Poland, people can have schools where they teach in different languages, perhaps even schools where Polish isn't taught. There are provisions for foreigners at my university (they can always choose oral exams instead of written etc) and all, and no one expects a foreigner to speak flawless Polish, but it wouldn't be great for naturalised foreigners to speak no Polish several years after being given citizenship.

Personally, I think it's flattering for the whole nation if someone comes from afar and wants your citizenship, your education, wants to work there and be a part of the society. He shouldn't be treated like an outsider at every step, rather he should be welcome (as are black doctors here, for example, among civilised people at least). I don't really feel bad the same way when I hear about Poles misbehaving abroad as about some foreigners doing bad things in Poland. Or foreigners doing bad things abroad and establishing HQ's for that here.

As for the thing with what Svyatoslav said, I understand it's not Russians to blame when some outsiders come and make a mafia there. But when the outsiders have settled in Russia and run their operation from there, the government is responsible for them somehow. It's not the same as if a normal Russian went abroad and stole cars or murdered people, of course, but it's still relevant, I think. Personally, I tend to consider ethinicity ("blood"), nationality (identification maybe) and citizenship (if it happens to be different from nationality). Perhaps also residence. Everything matters. One thing can't decide it all, but it's not like any one of those is irrelevant just because it's only one.

As for learning other languages, it helps think in concepts instead of words. It develops a certain special kind of approach to language, as a result of which people aren't so literal about everything. Perhaps learning languages other than English helps a native speaker communicate with people who speak English as a foreign language, by making it easier what the foreigner means when he isn't being particularly accurate or when he speaks English but still thinks in a foreign language while speaking.

I think it's a nice idea to learn the language of a large group of immigrants, but I don't think Americans should be forced or even expected to learn Spanish unless we're talking about a representative (congressman, councilman, elected official), maybe priest or pastor or social worker, someone whose job is to tend to people. I don't think there should be any no-English zones in an English-speaking country. It may be slightly arrogant to refuse to pick up any Spanish when hearing it daily but it's hugely arrogant to refuse to learn English when living there.

 

Iago mentioned a very important fact, IMO. Almost all european countries are historically a blend of different cultures. You have the northern and southern italians, the eastern, western, northern and southern germans, and so on.
Our countries borders cross through the territories of many of these cultures, while others spread and/or moved across the continent through the various large and small migration movements of the past 2000 years.

The only thing that brought our countries together was the nationalism from the 18th and 19th century. So, through forming nations out of groups of people who for the most part only shared a common language (roughly, if you consider bayuvarian and northern german), new ethnicities were constructed; some stronger than others.
That is why all people from Germany are called germans or all people from Belgium are called belgians. Even if they don't consider themselves as part of these nations first of all. Belgians might think of themselves as Walloons or Flemings foremost. And I know I'm a Berliner first, then a Marcher (from the March Brandenburg) and then a german.

The construct of the nation was used only because the monarchs and politicans needed an unifiying factor. They needed recrutes for their armies. So, the european nationalism is about lifting the own nation above all the others and drawing strong ideological borders against all others. That is why many 'old europeans' have problems accepting strangers. This ideology still lives.

The US-concept of a nation was also created as a unifying factor. But with a positive goal in mind: Gaining freedom or independance. Okay, there was a negative factor in it all the same: the fight against the brits. But that was not the first intention.

Also, the US as a nation were created through a democratic process and not in the minds of few absolute rulers, like in Europe.

This is why US-americans can accept immigrants more easily than europeans.

[ January 24, 2006, 22:23: Message edited by: Fabius Maximus ]

 

That goes for pretty much every country in the world. However, Britiain is one of the oldest established nations.

 

I think one of the reasons people in the USA if asked their ethnic background will give a litany of various lineages is because the country is so young and so mixed. We may be a' melting pot' but just as in a stew you can still tell the potatoes, meat and carrots, etc. apart.

If asked about my ancestors (and I have been) I usually answer : Mutt, Heinz 59, or mainly British Isles. Depending on my mood I might throw in German and Native American.

 

In this year's census, people in New Zealand will finally be allowed to answer 'New Zealander' as their ethnic background on the census form instead of being forced to acknowledge allegiance with some overseas group of people (English, Chinese, Polynesian etc). I always used to answer 'Other'.

So I guess it takes about 200 years for a country to become mature enough to recognise itself as an ethnicity.

 

Well, that's good to know. It may explain why Europeans are so messed up with their ethnicities. In contrast to dinsosaurs Australia/New Zealand/Canada/USA most Europeans countrie are still young and naive and way younger than 200 years. Therefore, it's no wonder they're messed up about ethnicity. Europeans are still in the puberty of ethnicity.

The obsession of North-Americans and South-Pacificians with ancestry is a whole different matter. But I am not aware that you would sell to any other tourist "trace your ancestors" tours. In contrast, Europeans don't really care about ancestry in the ethnical sense. The suppose they are what they are and that's enough.

The importance of ancestors and their ethnicites in overseas countries is probably given by their culture, colonial history and the fact that the happen to have less experience with immigration than Europeans. Look up the numbers, intra-European (involving parts of Asia and Africa) migration was bigger than emmigration to overseas. Therefore, Europeans are way more ethnically mixed than overseas dudes.

But both ways, the mixture of ethnicites is so huge, that it does not acutally matter for people in overseas or in Europe concerning their daily life, except someone's first generation or secundo.

Ethnicity is not hard fact, mere a subjective feeling, a little bit capricious and erratic... fashion!

[ January 24, 2006, 22:08: Message edited by: Iago ]