I’m from the Northeastern US (Jersey) and it seems like everyone is proud that they are of Italian, Irish, Polish, German, etc heritage. Especially the Italian and Irish Americans tend to be really vocal about it. It’s like this all the way from Maryland to Maine.
However, in the other regions of the US, this seems to be less of a big deal. Save for maybe the large Great Lakes metro areas like Chicagoland, Detroit, St. Louis, Cleveland, etc.
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That’s where the immigrants from Europe landed.
Most immigrants went through the Northeastern cities. There were not many ships going from Europe to the Southeast because it was all agriculture up into the mid-20th century.
The answer to this question has not changed since the last zillion times it was asked, nor since it was added to the FAQ in the sideboard.
Because immigrants came to that area, ere not well treated, so they formed their own communities. And then married within those communities, passing history and culture down to their kids.
Other parts of the country often had immigration waves that were much longer ago, and are more integrated.
But definitely check the FAQ because this gets asked a lot and there are a lot of great answers.
Oh it’s this time of week already?
Not restricted to the Northeast, but any big city in the US.
Ancestry isn’t only important in the Northeast, it’s just that many of the most recent immigrants and there were still (even when I was growing up in 1970s) Irish, Italian, French-Canadian neighborhoods, churches, schools, clubs, etc.
They are were tight knit communities that because of missing home and feeling in a land a bit hostile, kept tight and leaned on their culture and traditions.
I had friends in each group – and it was very obvious, in each home, what heritage it was.
My family mostly came really early (1620-1640), so while I am right in the middle of all the new immigrants, we were Yankees – which out any discussion about it.
But I have heard people in the South be more passionate about their college football team than I have heard most of these people when discussing their heritage. Same with how important how many generations you’ve lived in Texas. Like it’s on politicians flyers.
So sports team, the state you live in, or where your grandparents came from — everybody’s got their thing.
In those areas, a large amount of 20th century immigration happened from Europe.
Those people still have cultural memories from Europe, such as dishes, holidays, songs, or any number of cultural artifacts that didn’t just get lost in one to two generations. Also, because members of a certain nationality often settled together, especially when they were discriminated against in the general public, those new communities have started new traditions, and so maintain a distinct cultural identity through a shared experience. That community is key to keeping the identity alive, which I think is the distinction OP is noticing between the northeast/midwest and everywhere else.
In say Texas or California, the two other places I have experience with, the gringos mostly don’t have that, because the time of immigration was usually long enough and the ethnic community small enough that white Texans or Californians pretty much just think of themselves as white.
That said, if you go to those states, you see strong Mexican, Honduran, Salvadoran, Indian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Nigerian, Filipino, etc. etc. etc. American identity, showing that this tradition of keeping an ethnic and national identity at the same time is alive and well in the US.
Maybe because those populations are more recent immigrants? I have a mix of British, Irish, German, and a few other ancestries in my heritage, but they arrived here mainly before the Civil War. My family is more about our Appalachian heritage than that of those original countries.
It’s my turn to ask this next
Why wouldn’t you be proud of your heritage?
>in the other regions of the US, this seems to be less of a big deal.
How do you know that?
Because their is a difference between nationality and ethnicity. They share culture that consists of practices that are hybridized between the US and their ancestral country of origin.
Also, because jersey has a reputation outside of jersey. so you don’t go around just telling people that kind of thing.
I’d imagine it has a lot to do with 1. How many European ethnicities are in the area and 2. How recent immigration there is.
Where I’m from, most people whose families have been there for generations are basically ethnically the same: white people are English with maybe a little Scots-Irish and German heritage and black people are descended from slaves taken from west Africa. Our families have all been in America since the colonial era. Since we’re mostly all the same, the only time people mention their ethnicity is if they happen to be different or if (they think) they’re part Native American.
The NE is where immigrants from Europe lived in ethnic ghettos.
Yeah have cities both big enough to accommodate cultural enclaves and old enough to have had them pop up when European immigration waves were still large and often discriminated against strongly enough to force those enclaves to arise. They preserve cultural identity.
Idk but I think it’s sooo funny too. I could go on for days about Italian Americans who’ve never been to Italy, don’t speak Italian, live in the complete opposite culture of an Italian and then constantly talk about how they’re Italian bc they scream when they talk with an accent they don’t deserve. It’s actually insane to me.
I pointed this out to a friend once and they told me it’s bc heritage matter and I questioned to what extent? What is sOooOoOo important about it that you must mention it frequently? I find it so odd and don’t at all blame foreigners for thinking this.
Because of all the immigrants who ended up in New York. That’s really really important heritage, history, and family for everyone.
Not only that, it was fairly recent, like people grandparents and great grandparents who could still be alive today. And they all still live in the same area.
Italian, Irish, Polish, and German people came over in large numbers and then faced discrimination which forced them to form their own self-protective communities. It’s a reaction formation.
Here on the West Coast plenty of people are proud of having Latin or Asian heritage.