SC's upset cause I'm not what they think I am

[Samaliel]

I'm a Norman, of Norse descent, and nobody can argue with that. But, NO, I never went to Sweden and I don't speak a word of Swedish, for frak's sake. My father and grand father are working on the family tree and, as far as we know, their side of the family have been in France since at least the First Empire. Yes, my last name is Swedish. Yes, my first name is also Swedish, but that's just because my parents are proud of their Norse lineage and thought it was a nice way to make sure I wouldn't have at least two fellow classmates with the same first name.

[draftermatt]

This is why I don't guess accents, and I don't ask ethnicites. Period. I know my own family and my wife's, but I don't bother asking other people.

Accents, I'm terrible at. I talked to a guy over the phone for a long time, never met him. I always thought he had a British sounding accent. Turns out he's South African from what I've been told.

Another guy, I thought was British, but he said "mate" a lot, and sometimes sounded Australian (like Paul Hoganish). Then I heard my boss (who lived in England as a kid, no accent) talking to him about England, so I knew he was in fact British.

I figure it's easier to just talk to people and hope like hell I can understand them. I have a very bad ear so if your accent is too thick I'll have a hard time picking up what you are saying. I almost failed Calculus 3 because the teacher's British accent was so thick.

[unclejampuff]

On my mother's side I'm 3rd generation Irish-American, my dad's I'm 2nd generation German-American. Now my paternal grandmother has a little bit of everything in her blood: Scottish, Cherokee, African, German, Italian, Swedish, Filipino, Russian, etc. I think the reason I identify with my Irish and German side so much is because they're the largest parts of my heritige, and they haven't been in the country that long. My respective families are very proud and active in their "native" culture, so half the time it really does feel like I'm back in the old country.
But yeah, I get mistaken for a lot of things. I just shrug and say "It's possible, but it'd be so far back I'm surprised you could see it at all."

[mharbourgirl]

I have a weird quirk... I'm a dialectical chameleon. I've convinced Newfoundlanders that I was transplanted from the Rock a few years back, Aussies often end up thinking I was born in Aus and moved to Canada at some point, same with Kiwis. I also mimic a lot of Asian accents, European accents, etc. I don't know how I do it, it's just that after talking to someone who speaks English with a different accent from mine for a while, I start to speak it like they do. I don't do it on purpose, it just... happens. So I don't get a lot of questions, until someone asks me when I moved to Canada from whereever they think I'm actually from, and tend not to believe me when I tell them I'm 6th-generation on my father's side, 10th on my mother's side, and my ancestors came from practically every European country (plus some First Nations). The European bit people believe after seeing me, I'm so pale I pretty much glow under flourescent lights and I sunburn like a bitch. No tans for ME.

I'm also oddly good at telling where someone is from just by the tilt of their English, so to speak. I can tell South African from Netherlands, French from French Canadian, Chinese from Japanese from Korean, guess pretty closely where in India someone was from, even distinguish between a lot of middle-eastern countries, etc. It's kind of cool in some respected, but it feels weird when it's something a lot of people seem to have difficulty with and I'm going 'What? It's pretty obvious from the sound of their speech... isn't it?'

[Mordecai]

I've been told that I look Jewish, Italian, German, Croatian, and even Mexican. It's weird, because my girlfriend thinks that I look plain ol' white, while one of my coworkers who is Mexican, think's that I could totally pass as a Latino. Personally, I think I look Italian more than anything, especially with a mustache on.

[poisoned_flowers]

I have a weird quirk... I'm a dialectical chameleon.

I'm the same way. I pick up the accents of those I'm around. Also, I am addicted to the BBC, so I hear British accents a lot. When I was part of my high schools thespian club, I always got ragged on for sounding English when reciting or reading screen-plays.

[powerboy]

I am Black-Irish, German, Welsh with a little bit of Cherokee thrown in. I have a last name that could be mistaken for Spanish. And what is weird, I sometimes speak in a Italian accent or British accent

[Estil]

My family is about at pale white as you can get, but we're from Africa and thus technically "African American."

This is why I personally don't use the term African American. In fact, nearly every black person I know calls themselves black. And on the other side of the coin, there was this story I read in Bernard Goldberg's book Bias about a reporter who was forced to call a person he interviewed for an article "African American". What's so wrong about that? He was black right? And isn't that a more polite term? Maybe so, but this interviewee lived in Jamaica, born and raised. IOW, he was neither African nor American. Yet this reporter was forced to refer to him as such for the article by his boss under threat of termination if he refused. Go figure.

[lightmylamb]

I'm so pale I pretty much glow under flourescent lights and I sunburn like a bitch. No tans for ME.

Me too! Although, when I'm out in the sun for any length of time (This usually happens around April) my skin goes from pasty to pink. I call that my tan. It's not a sunburn, to me anyway, because it doesn't hurt at all, it's just pink.

I'm a mix of most of the European nationalities, although it's been a few generations since anyone's actually lived there.

When people point out how white I am, I like to point out that I have nice dark brown spots all over my arms and face, therefore, I'm darker than them. I like to attribute that to my diluted Native blood, but I don't think that's it.

[ArenaBoy]

Mum's side is French and Lithuanian, dad's side is Polish. The only way you can guess my nationality is if one were to see my surname.

I love the idea that if someone is a certain race or ethnic group, then they must know all the other members in that race or ethnic group. I think blacks must get it the worst.

"Hey, do you know John?"

"Why? Is it because I'm black that must mean I know him? Is that what it is? You think that a person of a certain race knows everyone of that race?"

"No. I asked if you know John because he works in the Parks Department like you do."

[Sharsarannon]

I have a weird quirk... I'm a dialectical chameleon. ...

I'm also oddly good at telling where someone is from just by the tilt of their English, so to speak. I can tell South African from Netherlands, French from French Canadian, Chinese from Japanese from Korean, guess pretty closely where in India someone was from, even distinguish between a lot of middle-eastern countries, etc. It's kind of cool in some respected, but it feels weird when it's something a lot of people seem to have difficulty with and I'm going 'What? It's pretty obvious from the sound of their speech... isn't it?'

So totally a hobby of mine. I love linguistics, especially accents and dialects of English. In America we get a LOT of them, being all of us from immigrant families recent or otherwise, and add to that having learned our American English in some specific part of the country. It's fun!

As to the OP and the question of What "are" you: I don't look like my siblings. I look like I'm my great-grandfather's daughter, judging by his photograph, but I don't have his coloring. I'm paler of skin, darker of hair, and darker of eye- mine are blue but not pale.
Those stupid surveys always ask if you're White, or Native American, or So on and so forth- legally and accurately I should mark NA, but I'm physically White. If I gotta be classified and labeled out as White, have the decency to call me Scottish, English or Saxon, dangit!

PS: I made a friend's day back in high school once by asking her, "You have a lovely accent, isn't it South African?" She said she was so sick of getting people telling her she HAD to be British or Australian- that she can't be from Africa because she's "White".

[Samaliel]

I have a weird quirk... I'm a dialectical chameleon.

I pick up accents, too. Since I don't speak English that often, I don't know if it works with the English language, but when speaking in French with some one with an accent, next thing I know is that I'm mimicking their accent. Some people even think I'm trying to make fun of them.

The worst part is I sometimes have troubles dropping an accent I picked up. Worst case was when I spent a few weeks on holiday in Provence with my family. I still had the accent a few weeks after we came back. Same thing after spending a long week-end in Belgium : I kept the accent for a few days.

[Ironclad Alibi]

I used to answer the "What's your ethnicity?" questions with the usual "German-Polish-American" but now I answer it with "Earthling."

"Earthling"? I prefer "Terrean". Although "Solarian" might also work.

I suppose I could call myself English-Welsh-French-Cherokee, but it just doesn't roll off the tongue with ease. Perhaps I should just with Ohian-Floridian, referring to the birthplaces of my parents.

[SpyOne]

Several topics in one reply:

I had a coworker who the customers call, when that ask about him, "You know .... the Indian guy?"
The "Indian Guy" was from Louisiana. Has dad was black and him mom was ... not entirely black. Ethnicly diverse. "Collored" was the term they used in her childhood (and some of her adulthood). His name was French. He liked to mark "Other" on forms that called for race.

I have a customer who, if I had to guess based on looks alone, I'd say was Iranian. I knew an Iranian guy who looked just like that, and he looks fairly similar to the current Iranian head of state. But I happen to know he's from Italy.

Myself, I could pass for Arab. Or hispanic. Possibly Portuguese.


I have a pet peeve about forms that ask for ethnicity. See, if you mark "Native American", they want you to list your tribe. How the Hell should I know? My people have been "passing" for 200 years! You don't ask people who marked African American their tribe?
If you want to know my culture, then I am an Irish-American. But if you want to know my ethnicity, I'll stack my DNA up against anybody named John Redfeather - I have all the genetic-recessive markers of the aboriginal peoples of North America.


I knew a full-blood Cherokee who could have passed for Anglo-Saxon: light brown hair, pasty white skin, Old English family name, etc.




"The High Court in South Africa has ruled that Chinese South Africans are to be reclassified as black people." Which might be regarded as a step in the right direction, since under apartheid they had been classified as "people of mixed race".

I don't know how I do it, it's just that after talking to someone who speaks English with a different accent from mine for a while, I start to speak it like they do. I don't do it on purpose, it just... happens.

I do that too. I have always blamed it on the fact that my best friend from pre-kindergarden through 8th grade was a guy who had, when I met him, just moved to the US from England. So most of my social conversation was with a guy whose accent was so thick you could walk on it (when he asked me if I'd like to go up and see his room, I made him repeat it three times. Each time, he pronounced the word "rum". )

Later in life, I found that if I was talking to British people, I slowly started to sound more British.
Then I noticed it happened with other people: the owner of the place I worked (and his wife) were from the southern edge of Virginia, and on days when they were in the store, I tended to sound a little like them. I eventually moved to where they were from, and I fit right in.


The only problem is, If I watch a lot of Top Gear, i go to work and sound English. (More like Hammond than May or Clarkson, if it matters to anyone.)

[ThePhoneGoddess]

I'm a European mutt on my maternal side and Scotch-Irish and Cherokee on my paternal side. I have my mother's extremely fair complexion and my father's 'exotic' NA features. People often ask me as well what I am---the rude ones will preface it with 'you don't look all white. Are you mixed race?'

The only thing that amuses me though is how many times I've been asked if I was Sami (Like Renee Zellweger). My eyes are a bit squinty and I have the really high sharp cheekbones, and anyone that's spent any time in Northern Europe will think I am part Sami. (I'm not.)