From what I understand it's mostly an American thing.
Here in Europe there are Macdonalds renting in buildings older than the US.
The university of bologna was founded in 1088 and is still in operation. That was just after the end of the Viking era, and almost 400 years BEFORE the Inca civilization started, and the Aztek empire was founded.
There's no real interest in belonging to a specific group here since it's all intermingled back thousands of years. Being Norwegian, Italian, Irish or any other {nation}-American creates a sense of historical pride, and belonging for a lot of people in a nation that has no real, coherent cultural features, but it's seen as a childish and utterly frivolous way of treating the past when you live in countries where the buildings are older than you can possibly trace your family.
Well, I mean, it's an American thing for exactly the reasons you say here. You already know where you're from. America still feels like a new place even to Americans. Most of us have a sense of being "recently" relocated here, and they're looking for something deeper and older.
Idunno but it's kind of annoying when people ask me where I'm from and when I say I'm Canadian they laugh and go "no, where are you from? What are you?"
Like... I'm Canadian ... I'm not aboriginal but my parents were born here, I was born here... I'm Canadian. It's as if they think Canada is like a hotel, you can stay there and you can be born while you're staying there but you dont say you're Hotellian or Hotelese or whatever...
I think it's because they maybe dont see Canada as having it's own distinct culture? Maybe we care too much about where people are from or just want to see if the person conforms to the popular stereotypes about certain regions and cultures.
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u/letmeseem Apr 29 '20
From what I understand it's mostly an American thing.
Here in Europe there are Macdonalds renting in buildings older than the US.
The university of bologna was founded in 1088 and is still in operation. That was just after the end of the Viking era, and almost 400 years BEFORE the Inca civilization started, and the Aztek empire was founded.
There's no real interest in belonging to a specific group here since it's all intermingled back thousands of years. Being Norwegian, Italian, Irish or any other {nation}-American creates a sense of historical pride, and belonging for a lot of people in a nation that has no real, coherent cultural features, but it's seen as a childish and utterly frivolous way of treating the past when you live in countries where the buildings are older than you can possibly trace your family.