[Ethnicity Thread] Who Do You Think You Are?
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@Chime said:
I think race is kinda silly from the biodiversity perspective; the dna differences are negligible.
Oh, I agree. Even the most startling revelation wouldn't change my life in the slightest degree. I don't give a damn about finding relatives but it would be pretty cool to discover that I'm 3% Neanderthal. And I'd definitely find a reason to bring up in conversation having Denisovan DNA. Now that's unlikely since I don't have any ancestors from Asia that I know of but given how the Mongols swept into eastern Europe, it's possible and would be pretty interesting to find out.
On a side note, reading up on various testing companies, I've found a few that say AncestryDNA is the least reliable (which would explain why they're cheapest) so buyer beware.
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Fairly recently immigrated on all sides, as in 20th century so not as mixed as many Americans, 5/8ths German a Quarter Irish, and an 1/8th Czech .
Though that is discounting any of the various mixing that happened everywhere in Europe for basically ever, but without some expensive DNA testing that is the basics. -
I come from mostly Italian, Spanish, and Catalonian stock.
I still remember my grandmother telling me stories about her grandmother (or mom? I don't remember) throwing pots of boiling oil on Spaniard soldiers from her second storey balcony...
I'm fairly pasty, skin-wise, but I have weird ancestry. I live in a highly Europized hispanic country but I also lived in a very hispanic neighborhood while in the states. I tan really well if I'm patient and use the right sunblock, though. Like, I can easily go several shades darker and it looks so great in contrast with my blue eyes. Just doesn't stick, obvs.
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100% Indian on both sides of the family up to my generation, but none of us has actually ever been to India, speak Hindi, or really follows what goes on there. We've been in this hemisphere since the mid 1800's, mostly spread out between Trinidad, Jamaica, and South America- yes, we fell for the "Hey, wanna go on a cruise?" line too. I'm 1st gen American, born and raised in Brooklyn, NY.
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According to a lot of story telling and missing records and then suddenly found records, then missing....anyways. According to myth and legend from one side of my family we're all from the UK somewhere, Brittany (supposedly), and Native American by way of a great...great grandfather having an extra martial affair which is how my great-grandfather came to be adopted by my great-great-grandfathers wife and raised as her own.
Cool thing is that my grandmother's side of the family we know for a fact fought in the American Revolution, and we're related to one of the many dudes that signed the Declaration of Independence. However, this is also the side of the family that evidence is starting to point towards being Travellers...who knew, and the jury is still out there as we're trying to piece together a broken timeline of my pops' family. And this is the side we know the most about...
The other side....who knows! Scuttlebutt says German, but since we are almost 99% certain that my dad's family made up their surname or it was altered from the original we're not certain except that all people with that surname in the US are related. Then there's some Native American and French, iirc.
So beyond being blessed with dark hair and the ability to tan if I go out into the blinding sun...I'm about as pale and pasty as they come.
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My father told me that his grandfather (therefore my great grandfather, I think his mother's father) was full Apache. I saw said great grandfather's grave and there is a little portrait of him on his headstone and I can see the distinctly Amerindian look. Also his name was distinctly un-caucasian. That's a neat cemetery which exists in Rye, Texas next to a little country church all alone on a quiet highway. My father is planted there with both of his parents and many of his mother's siblings.
Then it turns out that my mother's mother comes from Oklahoma and brought with them some Cherokee, which I kind of wrote off because it seems like everybody in the US is "part Cherokee". Mother's mother turns out to be related to Edgar Allen Poe. Also mother's mother's uncle lived to be almost 100 and was an oil painter (artist) in Arkansas. I have some of his paintings now. He was very good and mostly did landscapes.
The rest of everyone I am related to has been in the US forever. My family name is English in origin and I am aware of an ancestor that moved to Virginia in the 1600's, presumably from England. Over time they moved west and spread out. One of my great uncles became a Vice President of the United States. He has that name. There's also a huge state park named after him and stuff, but these days people forget about him because most people forget the VPs, which is fair.
My mother's father's father came from a family that has a homestead in East Texas, which I have visited. It's a nice place. Unfortunately a lot of the people out there are freaking crazy. I don't have much to do with them. Mother's father's mother is from a different family mostly from Georgia and North Carolina. I have been out there and met them. They seem nice, but distant.
Short answer: Mixed but mostly caucasian. People used to assume my father spoke Spanish because of how dark skinned he was, but that's because he worked in the sun a lot and thanks to aforementioned Apache ancestor he tanned.
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American Mutt. Dad's side has been over here since the colonies and comes from English/Irish/German stock. Mom's side is Polish, or maybe Russian (my grandfather's birth certificate is questionable at best). That said, my family never really embraced any particular heritage, other than American.
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As far as I can tell, I am all Western European. Welsh, French, English, Scottish and Irish with perhaps some Norse blood as well, thanks to all the... spreading of the seed, to put it nicely, that the Vikings did.
"Just leave me alone. I'm not myself. I'm falling apart, and I don't want you here." - ― Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon
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100% Greek. Although after years of first studying in England and eventually living in Canada who knows what I sound like any more.
I'm Mediterranean-white, which essentially means when people around me are bursting in the sun like vampires I'm immune to its rays.
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I'm a white blonde haired, blue eyed Swede.
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My paternal grandfather's family wandered out of the woods and started farming turnips and dirt sometime before the Mayflower landed. One of my ancestors managed to become a wealthy farmer, and somebody (one of his kids, we think) bashed in his head and left his corpse in a ditch. Because he was also a dick.
Another of my distant relations (and one of said farmer's sons) was Ransom Clark, one of the survivors of Dade's Massacre in Florida. The Seminoles decided he was "dead enough" and left him there to die, and the miserable bastard crawled back to the fort. I mean that -- he crawled back. It took four years for his wounds to kill him, and he had like three kids in the meantime, if memory serves.
My paternal grandmother was a 50/50 Italian/Irish split (and suuuuuuuuuuuuuuper Catholic... though she married a Protestant... go fig). We're still Irish enough that we get invited to the McGuire family reunion every couple of years, I guess.
There's some Seneca in there too, somewhere. I have no idea where. I've had people I've never met look at me and ask me if I was part native. I don't see it, but apparently they do.
My mother's family is a 50/50 split between Scot and German. Grants, actually. One of these days I plan to get a tattoo of the clan crest. My great-grandfather on my mother's side bailed on his family by hopping a train. If anybody's ever heard of a "Red" Grant that showed up out of nowhere, let me know where he's buried, I need to go piss on his grave for my grandfather.
In other words, I am a complete mutt and I turn as red as a lobster with minimal sun exposure.
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Dutch, Scottish, and French as far as I know.
Super white in other words.My first and last name also match my supreme whiteness.
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I'm an American Woman of Color with shades of (presumed) African, Native American and Mystery White. But to look at me? I'm just a Black chick.
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Half Mexican and then Mutt-White-Mostly-English-And-Irish on my dad's side which results in me being asked what my heritage is now and then.
One time these weird white supremacists were asking me what "breed" I was, that was awkward and creepy and uncomfortable.
Then there was this one Australian chick, while I was out of State. When she found out I was from Texas she proceeded to shit-talk Texas as being just a racist shit-hole and that she's above that. I kind of just let her ramble about how diversity conscious she was and went on to talking to her friends.
We were talking about school and work and she just interrupts me with "so what is your background?" I answered with my educational background since I thought she was trying to catch up to the current conversation, only to get, "No, I mean your BACKGROUND, what is your heritage.?" Oh. okay, woman who just told me race shouldn't matter, I'm half Mexian and half Irish. So I tell her, and she's all "Oh, I'm part Maltesian." I asked her, "Oh, you mean like the dog?" and she fucking didn't get the joke because she was too busy telling me how exotic Malta is.
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@GentlemanJack Re: The Magical Maltesian - I get this from so many people outside of Texas that pretty much any time someone that's never even spent time in Texas starts to criticize Texas to me I quietly and internally start putting little red flags next to their name and looking for a way to distance myself from them.
They're often the sort of people who see no problem with the vast humanitarian sins committed in China, India, Russia, and across the rest of the world, but Texas really bothers them somehow. Usually because people there dare to disagree with them on some political issue.
But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?
-Mark Twain -
Hahaha.
What I usually get from outside of Texas is
- "So that's what the Texas accent sounds like?" or some other comment on how either I talk like I'm from Texas or I talk like I'm NOT from there
Or,
- How many guns do you have (answer: what kind?) and/or "Allow me to debate you about gun control." Dude, I'm not here to debate with you, I'm here to enjoy your city. I'm not fixing to vote on issues that will impact your life and I'm not fixing to pass or veto some political bill, so just calm your titties.
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@GentlemanJack Dude, just http://imgur.com/gallery/YjgUuFa
Seriously, though, as a Washingtonian... I don't think anything bad about Texans. Well, Houston could use some work but I don't hold it against you all.
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@Silver, It depends on where in Texas. I like El Paso and really like Fort Worth, but I can understand wanting Dallas and Waco to fall into a deep hole in the earth, never to be seen again. (Well, except for Kalachandji's in East Dallas, but I'm sure Krshna would fish them out in exchange for some of their papadums.)
As far as state-wide politics, though, Texas has given us two Bushes, Rick Perry, Tom Delay, Dick
ArseholeArmey--sorry, I have a problem with assonance--and now Ted Cruz. Being the birthplace of the Church of the SubGenius can't make up for that. -
Oh, I can think of plenty of bad things to say about Texas.
But that's true of most places. As a young child, I rode through the panhandle, which was an endless waste of desert, road, and 'Don't mess with Texas' signs. As an adult, I realize-- it gets better.
I've only really spent time in IAH flying to various places, and a week or so in Austin. Austin is really nice and the people are great. I could be pretty happy there. Texas has never really felt 'south' to me; I lived for a while in Tennessee, and have spent many weeks in Georgia, Virginia, and others over the years. Texas is different.
I don't like most of the Texas politicians that we hear about from outside-- but I understand that the news being what the news is, we really only hear about the crazies.
Comparing it to China is pretty absurd. Texas can be ugly. China is a shithole. Even with China though, I know individual people there and they are wonderful.
I sure as hell don't want to debate you on gun control. No one ever wins those arguments. (Disclosure: am armed and would apply for ccw if it were feasible in my county).
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You can find shitty, crazy ass politicians from any state if you look. Some are more vocal. As someone who lives in Texas, but isn't a native of Texas, I have to say that there are a ton worse places. In fact, I grew up in one that has at turns been the meth capital of the US, one of the last bastions of the KKK, so deep in the Bible belt that people believed someone when they claimed that you couldn't get pregnant if you were raped, and well... I'd rather be in Texas, especially in the area of Dallas I live in.
Got to agree with Chime. Texas is something different. And I can't say that it's a bad different. There are plenty worse places.
