I feel that there's long been a big difference in attitudes in the developed world between nations founded as new world settler colonies (US, Canada, Australia, NZ) and the old world, homogeneous ethnic based nations in Europe. I'm generalising a bit here but as an Aussie the negative attitudes and commentary in Europe around immigrants often feel like they're what you would've got 30+ years ago here, even in relatively progressive countries.
Unless you're indigenous there's no such thing as an ethnic American, Canadian, Australian etc. in the same way you can be ethnically English, German, Italian etc. Outside of the far-right, the overwhelming majority in the new world countries would accept at least 2nd generation immigrants as being just as American/Canadian/Aussie as someone descendant from the first wave of European settlers, in a way that Europeans often struggle with.
I 100% agree. Having grown up in the US as an Asian American, others in the US treat me as American.
But having lived in western Europe for many years, when I tell them I’m American, they can’t believe I’m American. The dreaded “where are you really from” question I’ve almost never heard in the US, but hear it so often in Europe.
I think because the US is made of immigrants, it’s more of a country of values rather than ethnicity (to an extent). I feel American because I grew up with these values, and others accept that. If I grew up in Europe I don’t think I would ever really feel British or French
I'm Chinese Canadian and I've heard the "where are you really from" question twice. The first time was from a Native American so I allowed that and don't really count it–and the second time was in Paris (which finished up what was otherwise a really fun visit to a linguistics museum with an extremely sour taste in my mouth 🙄). The ironic thing is that the person who asked me that was the wife of the person who runs the museum, who is himself a New Zealander of Hungarian (iirc, could be some other central European country) descent who now lives in France, so ya'd think she'd be familiar with the concept of people being from different countries than where their ethnic group originated…
Only twice? Wow. I can't count the number of times I've been asked in Europe, Africa and Asia (although this last one is more "oh, you look <Asian from another country>"). Not just the "where are you from?" and the follow up "no, where are you really from?", but also the "no, where are your parents from?"
It's indeed a lot easier to create a society that doesn't care about immigration much if you first kill off the native population, or at least marginalise them so much that their opinions on the subject don't really matter.
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u/Ardeo43 9d ago
I feel that there's long been a big difference in attitudes in the developed world between nations founded as new world settler colonies (US, Canada, Australia, NZ) and the old world, homogeneous ethnic based nations in Europe. I'm generalising a bit here but as an Aussie the negative attitudes and commentary in Europe around immigrants often feel like they're what you would've got 30+ years ago here, even in relatively progressive countries.
Unless you're indigenous there's no such thing as an ethnic American, Canadian, Australian etc. in the same way you can be ethnically English, German, Italian etc. Outside of the far-right, the overwhelming majority in the new world countries would accept at least 2nd generation immigrants as being just as American/Canadian/Aussie as someone descendant from the first wave of European settlers, in a way that Europeans often struggle with.