[Daring Scylla]

Obviously in any conglomerate group of people online you are going to find a lot of ethnic/racial diversity. This thread is to discuss not only your racial/ethnic background - where your mum and da hail from - but how you keep in touch with that background, or even explore new ones, like those of your friends and neighbors.

Here, you can discuss your ethnic backgrounds - where your ancestors are from, even if you don't live there now - or the languages they spoke. Share a little bit of your history and culture. It's fine to include where you or your parents were born, what kind of religious/cultural holidays you celebrate or practice, what sort of foods you eat or want to eat, and the like. It's also fine to include those of your friends and neighbors - cultures are a fun discussion point. Also include stereotypes that maybe you DON'T dispaly, but are commonly directed at someone with your heritage.

I'm going to say this once: Please follow all of the Trisphee site rules. Do not bash or harass other people because of their culture or ethnicity.

Ask others about things you don't understand or want to know about. And most of all, enjoy the delicious cultural club sandwich that you can find on websites such as this! (that was terrible i know)

(Oh god I hope this is in the right forum if it's not, feel free to kick me in the right direction)

[Poggio]

By default I am sure I am from some place in Africa, my guess is always Northern Africa. My friend and I were discussing it and well it is hard to say because I know for a fact that my moms side has European and Native American in it and my dad at some point was from the Caribbean.

I don't really follow a religion as much as I should, and there aren't that many cultural traditions that I have. That is one thing that I find disheartening. Since I am American through and through we do not have the rich cultural traditions as say some Asian cultures.

[Daring Scylla]

i'm German-Irish. German-Irish mother, German father. I was born in Germany but moved to Ireland at the age of 1.5 years and so don't recall a lot about Germany though I do speak the language.
I grew up in Ireland so yes I eat a lot of Irish things like BANGERS AND MASH AND ALL THAT RUBBISH no not really now that I live in america I eat that sort of food a lot less. (I do eat bratwurst =D )
I do have an irish accent and people won't ever shut up about it i don't know what it is.
My biggest influence from my cultural shows itself in the way I speak and the music i listen to. I love Albannach, Celtic Women, Dropkick Murphys, Flogging Molly, and other bands that hail from that area or at least sing about it a lot.
if you want to get really technical I'm more German than Irish, but I identify more with Irish culture than German (though I do like Falco)

One stereotype about Irish people that I don't show is that apparently WE ALL LIKE TO GET DRUNK A LOT. I hate being drunk and while i enjoy a beer every now 'n' then now that I'm legal I don't drink a lot of alcohol overall.

and that's me.

EDIT:
Poggio that's really a fascinating mix - i am sure that you are beautiful to look at
even americans can have a rich culture because it can get so mixed... but you do like asian cultures?

[Poggio]

Actually all of our good genes were given to the first born my older sister. She got the hair the skin tone and the eyes which are very ideal for our culture. I got mostly my dads genes which makes for horrible hair xD.

I envy them, and I do love Indians. It is hard to say as a culture that Americans have something so distinct and traditional as a lot of their cultures. For examples Geisha and courtesans. For that matter even certain countries in Europe like Italy.

Edit: xD I always get the Irish and Scottish mixed up for some reason. I know that one is having an on going religious battle and one wears kilts. I am not sure but I thought they were all part of the united kingdom.

[Daring Scylla]

american culture can be so fluid based on background.

Indian culture has always been fascinating to be, especially their clothing and instrumentation. their religions are unique as well. I want to take a class studying Hinduism

EDIT: technically yeah. religious battle would be ireland i'm sure, especially the ridiculous lot up in Belfast and that area. kilts would be more scotland's speed, though i have two and wear them a lot.

[Alyssia]

I'm African American, as far as ancestry goes it's really mixed up ^^. I'm pretty sure that the African side of my background hails from the Horn of Africa/in that area. As for the rest, well on my mom's side there is Asian, and Native American(unsure which group), on my dad's side there is European(Poland,Germany), Native American(unsure which group), and African.

I think that my dad said the Native American found in his blood line was a tribe out of Florida....but I'm not 100% sure. Recently my ancestry is something that I've been more interested in than before...I guess it's because I'm getting older, so I've been digging into it recently.

Influences, well we are a church going family so there is that tradition, but compared to my extended family our traditions are a little different. My background totally influences the way I cook, but not so much as to what I'll eat as I'm game to try just about anything! Actually I don't listen to a lot of Rap, but I do love soul songs from like the 20's~early 70's. I'm also partial to old school hymns too~

If there was any stereotype that I fell into, it would have to be the "Don't make a black woman mad" one. I don't get angry often, and I'm extremely slow to anger too. But my sister, and friends all insist that I'm genuinely scary when I'm angry, she calls me she-hulk.

[Quiet Man Cometh]

Let's see, there's white, white, really white, and more white. Aka, Celtic/Northern European background.

I'm Canadian, as are my dad and mom. I'm told that I don't look like a Canadian and I have idea what that means though my mom seems to agree with the assessment. My mom's side has been in Canada since teh American Revolution. There's the hoity toity English wing (the reason we have all the health problems we do) and the Irish farmer wing (the reason we all survive said health problems ;)) some Scot and I hear one Welsh guy.

My dad's parents are English and Danish, his Danish mother arriving in Canada with her family just before WW2, and his English Father arriving after WW2 when his mother re-married a Canadian soldier.

There's a fair bit of stereotype in my family that we've poked fun at over the years. My great-great grandparents were apparently a largeg Scottish woman adn a little Irish man that were the epitome of Scottish stubburness and Irish temper, or so it's said. I love looking up family history and such, and hearing the various stories and anecdotes handed down. Some of the stuff, particularly relating to my mother's mother's side, reads a little like a Jane Austen novel.

[Hex]

My father is Puerto Rican but my mother was Russian Scottish mix...I got her skin but luckily inherited my fathers inability to burn...I just kind of turn orange instead.

I know my great great grandmother met her husband while on the run for being a Gypsy...I come from a VERY Pagan family aside from the scattered Christians who converted.

as far as stereotypes go I have the typical russian if I am going to drink I AM GOING TO DRINK! (my friends comment on it all the time when I get silly)

and also a quite from my sister -clears throat- "DON'T YOU EVER GIVE A PUERTO RICAN WOMAN A FRYING PAN WHEN SHE IS ANGRY, EVERY FRYING PAN HAS AT LEAST 1 SHARP EDGE!" when I get mad, oh man.

[littl3chocobo]

irish indian dutch germam XD three light-skined eauropeans and a red-tone darkie, sadly i look like my grandfather who was full irish, i got the auburn and the pale skin and the weight though i did get a bit of freckling from poor blending, my father is rather dark i am not at all to the point where i have to take pills because my skin does not absorb sunlight hardly at all, my indian grandmother was a baptist minister(no not even ask how) though i am not religious in any socially accepted way. i know nothing about my biological mother's side other than her mother was dutch and they are german-dutch. no idea of their religion


lond and short of it though i would give a lot to have gotten my grandmother's skin, she was very pretty i hear

[Daring Scylla]

Haha, irish temper is something I do have! Apparently irish persons are also very cagey and people tell me I'm cagey all the time.

I LOVE african heritage, don't know why - i have a friend from Somalia and a few from Ethiopa, as well as some sub-saharan african friends. The modes of dress are wonderful.

Alyssia, do you have any native american traditions that you adhere to? Like Poggio you also sound like a wonderful blend of heritages. and yeah the she-hulk thing... I have a few black friends who get scary when they get mad, yeah.

Quiet, do you want to share some of those stories or anecdotes? C: (i don't know what a traditional canadian is supposed to look like)

Manda, I'm almost the opposite. i drink often but very moderately - maybe a beer or two. do you cook a lot of puerto rican dishes? One of my friends/roomie is Cuban and she makes great food. (and lol about the frying pan her mother actually hit her with one when she was little. a spanking, like, not abusive)

Choco I am irish and I have the dark black hair! DX a lot of traditional irish looks tend to be either the red hair OR black hair and blue eyes, which is me ( my eyes are actually green though). I've read that red hair is more prevalent in scottish descent but honestly it's so mixed about now that anything can happen.

[Quiet Man Cometh]

Choco, seems odd that your skin wouldn't absorb sunlight but I doubt that has to do with colour. Lighter skin absorbs more than dark skin. Evolutionary trait that came up when people moved into colder areas and started covering up. Hence Nordic and celtic folk tend to be pastey white. My dad cetainly is (has his mother's complexion) and neither of us like being in the sun much. We burn like crazy and just plain dont tolerate the heat well.

My family is pretty much all shades of blonde to brown. My brother's father's side has more scot so there are some serious red heads over there. My dad has his mother's strawberry blonde hair which I had too when I was young. It's darker now, but apparently my hair likes to change colour as my roomate often asked me if I had anything done since there were days where it looked more blonde or more red. My mom noticed too. My mother's hair was blonde but went quite dark after she had kids. That's typical though, so I hear.

Not sure what anecdote to share, Scylla. There are a few and some are lengthy. ;). A lot of them have to do with my grandparents on my mother's side. Her mother's parents died when sheh was young, so her elderly aunts came from England to look after her. They were particularly insistent that she act properly and not become too "colonial." They had a summer cabin not far from what her aunts assumed was an orphanage. Said "orphanage" was my grandfather's home. ;). He was one of eight kids and the family farmed potatos. Story is that the patriarch of the family originally came to Canada from Ireland to escape the famine. He would have been my great, great, great, great (I think) grandfather.

[MayChan]

I only really know my mom's side...and even then not a lot about her.

My mom side is Chinese, but she was born in Vietnam. She speeks Vietnamese and Chinese and Engrish (I say Engrish cause...she doesn't speak it well at all.) I still consider it trilang. She ran away from Vietnam because of the communist and came to the US. Met my dad in Ohio, got married, had 3 daughters. She wanted to move to Florida so she did while she was still carrying Me. I was the only one born in Florida.

Only thing i know about my dad side is that he is full Vietnamese. So I am Half Chinese and Half Vietnamese.

A lot of people would say, "OH! Double Asian! That means your smart!" Haha..No, I am not lol I just try my best in school just like any other average student. I hate math and I am horrible at it.

[littl3chocobo]

ah, well my skin does not absorb and light colors reflect light, but well ok XD

[HABIT]

I have a little of everything except Asian in me. I have black cousins, Native American cousins, white of all sorts of descents, I honestly wonder if I'm not a fair example of the whole mixing pot of America. I consider myself mainly Native though. I know almost nothing of the Ojibwe language though. It's a hard language.

[Quiet Man Cometh]

Originally Posted by littl3chocobo

ah, well my skin does not absorb and light colors reflect light, but well ok XD

Ah. I can see one's skin not being able to absorb sunlight properly. White and black skin are not separate colours though. It's how much melanin one has. Melanin resists sunlight. That's why dark people rarely burn. Less melanin means whiter skin which absorbs more sunlight per inch but is more vulnerable to being burned. Basically when we all lived in Africa and it was was hot, our body was exposed to sunlight all the time and to prevent an overload of of it and to protect from burns our skin used melanin as a pigment (same thing happens with tanning). When we migrated north into Europe, it was colder and we have to wear clothes to keep warm. The remaining exposed skin had to work harder to absorb enough sunlight so we lost the pigment.

Theoretically then, if you take a very dark individual from somewhere hot, and put them somewhere cold where they wear more clothes than normal, and introduce no other bloodlines, that person would eventually (evolutionary time here ;)) turn white. Same goes if you stuck a white person in Africa. They would eventually turn dark overtime with the higher exposure to sunlight.

I'll stop now. :S

[Alyssia]

Actually Daring Scylla we don't have any traditions that we adhere to as a family, but during the summer we will attend the native american camps. You get to experience a little tribal life as it would have been long ago, as well as participate in updater versions of traditions. Since its something that we try to do regularly I suppose you could call that a tradition. It's a little hard to keep up with as we're military though ^^; so I'm looking forward to being able to do it again this summer.