on a discussion of politics, Olympics, and Ics in general...

[lagilman]

Friend: "That's because you care more about being a New Yorker, and a Yankee,* than being an American."

Me: "Um...yeah. Because those are distinctions that actually mean something."


(this came about after hearing too many people make "American" into some kind of monolith where "all Americans do x." National identity, even in a small country, is too variable to make that kind of a lazy justification, especially about a particular thought or behavior )


*as East Coasters see it, not as the world sees the term. Vastly different thing, and I'm not actually a yankee by those terms, but 80% of my family is, so that's my cultural inclusion

Comments

[elsceetaria.livejournal.com]

:)

I love your distinction on the term Yankee. I moved from Minnesota to Georgia when I was young, and we were viewed as Yankees being from the north. A few years later I had a friend move down there from New York. To her, Yankee, which became her perpetual nickname, meant something entirely different.

America is a very large country, and while there are many elements the same from Minnesota to Georgia to Chicago where I currently live, there are an equal number that are different.

It's kind of crazy when people try to cast even two counties next door to each other into the same light by saying they're both America.

I'm going to conclude this is my long way of saying that I agree with this entry.

[lagilman]

as per EB White (attributed):

To foreigners, a Yankee is an American.
To Americans, a Yankee is a Northerner.
To Northerners, a Yankee is an Easterner.
To Easterners, a Yankee is a New Englander.
To New Englanders, a Yankee is a Vermonter.
And in Vermont, a Yankee is somebody who eats pie for breakfast.

My family are New Englanders, and despite being born in NJ, I grew up eating pie for breakfast.

(also: CT/MA/RI = "swamp yankee" while VT/NH/ME are "hill yankees")

[elsceetaria.livejournal.com]

That is a brilliant quote. I can't believe I've never come across it before.

:)

I have been known to eat pie for breakfast.

[phantomminuet.livejournal.com]

I don't even know this person who spoke to you, but the idea that someone thinks he/she has the right to determine who is a "real" American and who is not really pisses me off.

And I'm a southerner by birth and education.

[lagilman]

Um, what? That wasn't what my friend was saying, at all.

[phantomminuet.livejournal.com]

Really? Okay, I guess I completely misread your intent in sharing the conversation.

[lagilman]

I shared because I thought it was funny (and true, and rather telling) that my friend had nailed me so well.

Hence the tag "again with the funny"


Nowhere was "real" implied or assigned, but rather we were discussing the idea that "American" itself is a hodgepodge of many different types.