As a Mexican American, I see lots of white Americans proudly claiming to be Italian, Irish, German, polish, and Scandinavian but rarely do I see white Americans of English heritage claiming their ancestry or even being proud of it which is surprising since a lot of the ideas which were used in the constitution came from England like how Magna Carta inspired Jefferson or how the right to bear arms in the 1689 English bill of rights inspired the 2nd amendment. Why is it that English Americans aren’t proud of their ancestry?
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Many people don’t know their ancestry at all, and not every white American has a significant amount of English ancestry anyway.
A lot of English immigration was a long-ass time ago. The English branch of my family has been in the US for easily 200 years. I couldn’t even tell you what part of England our ancestors came from.
It’s chewsday innit
But we are. Every year, we celebrate that time we made the world’s biggest pot of tea.
Yeah I think it’s kind of cool that my ancestors have been speaking this same goofy language for 800 years or whatever.
There are more Americans of German descent than English.
Most of my ancestors were not English, and many of them fucking *Hated* the English.
Pride in English ancestry was more common 100+ years ago, especially in New England, from what I hear.
I mean, I’m aware of it and acknowledge it, but it feels weird to be proud of something I have no responsibility for nor control over. I’ve got blue eyes, but I don’t really shout that from the rooftops either.
I cheer for them in soccer for that reason, but only cuz our team sucks.
I do feel a connection with the British, I’d love to visit there someday
I’m the most removed from them considering the came here in the 1600s.
My family came from Ireland and Hungary
In 8th grade (either 1998/9), a Korean kid wrote “Asian Pride” on the whiteboard. My friend and I both wrote “German Pride” as a response, being of German descent. My friend and I got in A LOT of trouble, and the reason was obvious only to us in hindsight. I think scenarios like this are why white people are hesitant to express any type of ethnic pride in the US.
I think it might have to do with a few historical things. Firstly, the US won its independence from Britain, so it’d be weird on some level to be proud of being the descendant of the colonizing nation. Secondly, a lot of White Americans are from ethnic groups that dislike/hate the English. The Irish, Scottish, French, etc. As for being proud of English philosophers because of their influence on the Constitution and such, there was also a lot of influence from non-english philosophers like Roseau, Voltaire, etc. And also I don’t think many Americans are aware of the English influence on the founding documents anyway.
Because my parents immigrated from Yugoslavia in 1972.
And I grew up in an area where being white occasionally meant you were in the minority, so I got a lot of misguided angst towards whites aimed in my direction.
Most America that have English ancestry have absolutely zero relation to it. No one knows or partially cares about their 400+ year old ancestry that has no cultural or personal relevance to them. Also other immigrants in American history purposefully brought their culture with them, and immigrated a lot closer to modern times than when the English left for America.
Many of us dont have English ancestry.
My father was born in Germany. 3 of my mother’s grandparents were born in Ireland. I have a greater sense of “identity” to that heritage than “English” which, on that remaining grandparent’s line, I’d have to go back to early 1700s Massachusetts to find.
My family came to The US (Louisiana) in the mid 1700s. They’re all still poor as church mice and a bunch of lazy drunks. I have friends who are Asian whose parents came here from utter poverty 50 years ago and they’re successful people who have given back to their communities. What am I to be proud of?
Probably 3 reasons.
1. Most settlers from England arrived before the Revolutionary War, so we’ve had up to 400 years of separation between us and the mother country. People of English ancestry are thus much more likely to think of themselves as simply American, and not English.
2. Because it is the English language that predominates, we think of “English” as the default setting for most Americans, regardless of their ethnicity, because we’re English-speaking. We can see this in the way the Amish refer to their non-Amish neighbors as English, regardless of where those neighbors’ families originated.
3. Historically, persons of English descent are probably the least likely to have been discriminated against because of their background. Thus, they never had to think about their ethnic identity. Just about every other group in the country was looked down upon by somebody else (especially by those with an English background).
First of all English ancestry is considered boring by most. No fun cultural practices or food. It’s the default, not exotic at all.
Second the large portion of English ancestors came to America hundreds of years ago, so you don’t have stories about grandma coming here and living through hard times because of her heritage. Such stories help to reenforce culture, but the stories of our English ancestors have been largely forgotten.
Third the English by many are viewed in a negative light in history. “They were oppressors, colonizers, slavers, etc.” and many attribute those qualities uniquely to the English because they are the history most people are most familiar with and we tend to overlook such histories with other cultures. So to many being proud of English history is seen as akin to white supremacy. This on top of the fact that past Amerians of a WASPy persuasion were quite proud of their English ancestry has made being proud of being English feel to many as somehow wrong.
My English ancestors came here hundreds of years ago while my Scandinavian ancestors came over in the 20th century. My family has more holdover from Norway than from England. Also, soooo many people are partly English—it just isn’t as special or interesting as being Italian or Irish or whatever.
My ancestors from England came to the US pre revolution and are not my only ancestry. I am of German, Irish, Scottish, English ancestry for sure. My spouse has other ancestries. I don’t really elevate one over another. The English people/government did a lot of things in the past that I would not be proud to claim.
Because I’m more Norwegian than anything else and am only 4th generation American on my dad’s side so there are more traditions on that side. There is also the fact we fought a war.
Most of our more enthusiastic ethnic identities (especially Irish-Americans and Italian-Americans) are that way because they were making the best of being treated like shit by the ‘default’.
That is, there weren’t Little Italies, Greektowns, and “Irish Neighborhoods” etc just because they liked each other’s companies. It was a form of ghettoization that they turned into a positive. Turning various cultural traditions and institutions into points of pride that other parts of society joined in on wasn’t something that just *happened*. It was a way of claiming a valid identity outside the default.
The “default” in this case was the mostly-WASP majority, including English-Americans. There’s no particular need to claim an identity on special occasions when your group’s everyday “identity” is “this is our country.”
Any ethnic pride they might have had was basically made an institution anyway. When we talk about ethnic groups assimilating, they were what was assimilated-into.
The whole, for instance, “Irish people became white” process makes it a lot different than when it began, but that’s how it started.
My English ancestors came to the US in the 1600s so those ancestral ties are extremely remote. Many of their descendants -my 7th great grandparents – were patriots and I had 12 7x great grandfathers (that I know of) that either signed the Declaration of Independence or actively fought against the British during the American Revolution. One who was part of the Maryland 400 went injured onto a prison ship following the Battle of Long Island and his wife and children never heard from him again. That doesn’t really engender British ancestral pride.
My nearest immigrant ancestors arrived in the 1880s. I’ve never even met a family member who emigrated to America. There’s absolutely no connection to those places. I don’t even think of myself as “Irish American”or “English American” or “German American” or anything. I’m just American. The same thing will happen in a 2-3 generations for your descendants.
I would venture to guess that lots of people that have English heritage haven’t taken the time to find out that’s specifically where they have roots. They think of themselves as “white” without breaking down the specifics beyond that.
Perhaps it’s as simple as English ancestry is the default. I guess to say, it’s not unusual so perhaps less unique/interesting.
At the end of the day, most Americans more than a couple generations removed from their immigrant ancestors are probably a mix of things and probably do not retain strong cultural ties to those places. I think human history, movement and genealogy are fascinating but I think having pride in something you have no control or influence over is silly.
It was a long time ago and some people have ancestors who fought specifically to not be British.
I’m half Mexican-American, and the other half is mostly of British origin, so I’m able to see both sides of this at once.
1. It was just so damned long ago. The last Mexicano in my family died when I was a toddler and I’ve got zero personal connection to Mexico itself. However, I *am* related to a bunch of Chicanos in California, and I consider that to be the homeland. Now, what about the last Englishman or Scotsman? I don’t think even Doctor Who could help me find him. The paper trail starts with the Revolutionary War, and before that it dead ends. Absolutely zilch. North Carolina is how far it goes back.
2. Wasn’t the whole Revolutionary War so that they wouldn’t be the boss of us anymore? My great-something grandfather was a tailor who made a coat for the Swamp Fox while fighting for a new country to be born. We’re proud of that. I suppose his great-something grandfather was clapped in irons after stealing a loaf of bread or whatever, and sent across the Pond. Whoopty-doo. At any rate, we don’t know who he was, and have no way of finding out.
3. It was and is kind of the ‘default’, and therefore boring. Your ancestors fled to Texas from the chaos of 1848, and spoke German until 1914? Interesting. Your ancestors on the East Coast were speaking English and farming the land since the 17th century? Yawn.
4. It could be argued that ‘Appalachian’ is an ethnic group in and of itself. Well, if my dad’s side has any long-ago ancestral connection to anywhere, it’s a lot more rooted on the NC/TN line than anywhere in Great Britain or Northern Ireland. A Dubliner once told me my surname “comes from County Antrim” and I shrugged. If I went there I’d be just another Yank tourist (one who was baptized Catholic, at that); nobody there would give a shit, and I don’t blame ’em! But the foundation of my great-something grandfather’s cabin is reputed to be somewhere in the GSM Nat’l Park, and coming across *that* would actually be pretty cool.
Aside from what other have mentioned about the immigration being more distant in general, English culture is also more or less our default. All of our institutional history, like our court system, our laws, our language, our general value structure, etc., are English in origin.
A lot of people don’t think of it that way, but it’s true. Before independence, the Founding Fathers wanted their “rights as Englishmen” restored. And pride in America replaced English pride in large regard. And when people signal pride in something else, it’s in a way saying “not just English.”
A lot of us just consider ourselves American and don’t think much about where our first Ancestors from outside the US came from.
I’ve never specifically tried to trace my ancestry back. But both sides of my family back home in Kentucky have family graveyards. One side has graves with DODs (Date of Death) in the 1820s in the oldest part of it. The other side goes back to the 1790s.
So from what I can tell both sides of my family have been in Kentucky specifically for 200+ years. Probably atleast a generation or two before that in the US before moving to Kentucky I’d guess.
So I don’t see why I should be celebrating any heritage other than plain old American.
How many English claim Roman heritage? Or even more pertinent how many Scotts claim English?
I think largely the reason is after the American Revolution, Americans were donning their new identity (albeit is was much more state centric than national until after the Civil War) and were not particularly keen on touting the heritage of the Monarchy they just went to war with (and again a few years later). On top of that they were the majority, there was no need to maintain since the society was dominated by English customs.
Compare that to the identity Italians/Irish/Polish/Czech/etc formed, their largest waves came after the country was established and were very much looked down upon by native born Americans a century later. That Italian/Irish/Polish/Czech pride was because they formed communities to look out for each other.
I mean. The purpose of founding America as a country was to not be English anymore. So… that might have something to do with it. (Oversimplification but y’all get what I’m saying, we all know history’s complicated, sit down.)
Americans are pretty proud of the whole independence thing, so that tends to intrinsically philosophically conflict with being proud of coming from England. To be fair I doubt it’s exactly a top-level conscious thought for most, but I do think it’s an underlying philosophical tenet in USAmerican culture.
In addition to the length of time many of are separated from our English ancestors by, there is often a difference in *why* English vs Irish, Italian, German, etc, ancestors came to the States. It was more often the case that the non-English ancestors didn’t actually want to leave wherever they came from, they came here looking for opportunities they didn’t have at home, whereas the English often wanted (or had to in the case of exiles and convicts) to leave England. So the people who came *solely* for the opportunities brought and maintained their cultural practices and pride, while the ones who were here to escape England itself were less likely to want their children and grandchildren to keep up English ways
Because I’m German and Irish. And the English haven’t exactly been kind to either of those countries over the centuries
Keep in mind that America began when the colonists seceded from England.
Because we ain’t all English, compañero.
Bcz it isn’t very relevant to us now. Nearly all of my ancestors had migrated here by the 1730’s. And when there hasnt been a familial tie in three centuries eventually people just become natively “american”.
I think that most Americans understand that we’ve inherited a essentially English political structure and philosophy, we talk about Hobbes and Locke and we briefly go over the Civil War.
But my ancestors were smelly peasants who lived in the West Country or whatever, they weren’t getting involved in all that! They came here to create a new world, and after so many years the son must become his own man.
Because the British Empire cut a raw deal for its colonies and monarchy fucking sucks.
My English ancestors arrived on the Mayflower. They wanted to be here and stayed here.
Because I’m not English and have never been English. My family has been American for as long as any traditions we hold remember.
Also why I don’t identify as Scottish or Croatian. Has no bearing on my life as an American.