> Top 3 Ancestry groups (2015 Census) are actually 1) German, 2) Black/African-American and 3) Mexican. English comes in #5. If you tally English/Scottish/Welsh, you are only talking about 10% of the US population is British descent.
And yet, the vast majority of American language, culture, law, civil institutions, etc., come from the British. That’s why there are deep similarities between the Anglo countries on a variety of dimensions.
> They would. You don't have to adhere to some sort of defined American culture or fully assimilate into it, it's not Denmark.
You’re playing a word game where “American” is some shallow legal distinction, but “Danish” implies both a legal definition and a cultural one. Americans have a distinctive history, culture, and worldview which recent immigrants do not share. My parents were fully formed when they came to America at the age of 39. They aren’t American in anything other than a narrow legal sense. They don’t share American values, they aren’t the product of American history, etc. They are Bangladeshis—they think like Bangladeshis, embrace Bangladeshi values, etc.
My kids are markedly different in worldview and values from my parents (in ways that are often quite disconcerting to me, as an immigrant who is only halfway to American). Other Bangladeshis would instantly recognize that “your kids are Americanized.” You can chafe at the label because it offends your sense of multiculturalism, but the phenomenon exists and is instantly recognizable regardless of what label you use.
And yet, the vast majority of American language, culture, law, civil institutions, etc., come from the British. That’s why there are deep similarities between the Anglo countries on a variety of dimensions.
> They would. You don't have to adhere to some sort of defined American culture or fully assimilate into it, it's not Denmark.
You’re playing a word game where “American” is some shallow legal distinction, but “Danish” implies both a legal definition and a cultural one. Americans have a distinctive history, culture, and worldview which recent immigrants do not share. My parents were fully formed when they came to America at the age of 39. They aren’t American in anything other than a narrow legal sense. They don’t share American values, they aren’t the product of American history, etc. They are Bangladeshis—they think like Bangladeshis, embrace Bangladeshi values, etc.
My kids are markedly different in worldview and values from my parents (in ways that are often quite disconcerting to me, as an immigrant who is only halfway to American). Other Bangladeshis would instantly recognize that “your kids are Americanized.” You can chafe at the label because it offends your sense of multiculturalism, but the phenomenon exists and is instantly recognizable regardless of what label you use.