【海外の反応】「ひいひい祖父がフィリピン人だから私もフィリピン系！」→ ルーツの名乗り方で議論勃発

I remember how recently I saw a discussion whether Michelle Yeoh is Malaysian or Chinese. All Latin Americans went for Malaysian as she was born in Malaysia. All Americans said Chinese because she was ethnically Chinese from a ethnic Chinese family.

It says a lot of the cultural dfiference between the two in this regard. For a Latin American you are whatever the country you are born into. Period. If you are born in Mexico you're Mexican.

For Americans you are whatever your family line and heritage is disregarding were you are born. If two Germans have a child and he's born in Mexico the child is German not Mexican.

Filipino-American.

This weird contradiction of "IF YOU HAVE 0.5% FILIPINO BLOOD, PINOY PRIDE FOR YOU!!! <3 EXCEPT FILIPINO-AMERICANS, THEY'RE NOT *REAL* FILIPINOS!" is very much well-known, and I am honestly not surprised that these folks are white/Caucasian.

Do you know if they're being humored/entertained by… more RECENT Filipino descendants, I guess? Because them being white is absolutely important.

People like my family would NOT entertain someone like a Black-American or a Chinese-American who claims Filipino heritage from their GREAT-GREAT-grandfather, but they absolutely love white-appearing folks like Keanu Reeves, and half-white mestizas like Catriona Gray.

Meanwhile, my own mother constantly talks about how I'm NOT REALLY Filipino because I'm not a very devout Catholic, and I barely speak Tagalog… but that last part is because she didn't want to TEACH me Tagalog, because she didn't want me to get mocked for having a foreign accent. Like yeah, I totally understand colonization and racism factoring into that, but you can't NOT teach me our family's language for survival, and then laugh at me for sounding like a toddler if I attempt longer sentences.

My other Pinoy friends often throw shade at how Filipinos-from-the-Philippines ADORE when foreigners and white mestizos speak the bare minimum of Tagalog as tourists, but they will mock their own relatives who ended up like me.

The Irish think that Americans who claim to be Irish heritage are just crazy. In that regard the historical context is huge. It's similar all around.

Probably when your race or ethnicity becomes a fun fact. Like if you say "oh, i'm 1/32 indian" or "oh, I'm 1/15 black". Of course, many people who are fully one ethnicity may forgo their culture, but as long as they are visually distinct, that keeps them within the group.

This topic gets really, really awkward in Native American circles.

This is kind of a touchy subject, especially for Americans. But to be fair, they're not the only one who do it, I think it also happens (tho maybe less notably) in other, let say, colonized countries where aparte from the natives everyone comes from somewhere else, like in the Americas and Oceania at large.

Is just that in the US is maybe either more visualized or more prominent either for population or media.

And yes it generally seen as silly or disrespectful for the people that are from the country of origin. Most Europeans and Asians will role their eyes at someone who, like the example you put, have a very loose connection to their countries and claims to be part of the same culture.

But is the way it is, when your country is mostly made of immigrants and you're not native, you want to grasp into some cultural identity, especially if (like in the US) there are racial hierarchies, constante migratory waves and even rivalries among the different ethnic groups, which causes you to want to have a sense of identity. Also if most of the overall culture is somewhat imported.

There's also an interesting phenomenon that has been studies that second and third gen immigrants (or first gen that arrive at very early age) often end up in a kind of limbo. They're not really accepted as part of the host country and are seen as outsiders and foreigners, and when they visit their origin country they are also not accepted because their culture and customes is too different. They end up with a mix match of both cultures and belongin to any. In many cases they make their own culture separate from both.

ethnicity, nationality, and culture are all separate concepts that have nothing to do with one another.

Just to help explain:

Let's imagine a guy, let's call him John. John was born in China, to Caucasian (white) parents. As a kid, John moves to Mexico and lives there the rest of his life.

So John is:

Ethnically white
Nationally Chinese
AND Culturally Mexican (depending on how early he was introduced to that environment)

they aren't a set of switches where you can only have one or two set to ON

I think it's fair to say there is no actual point where this happens.

Socially though, people might just quietly not really believe you or take it seriously.

People can identify however they want, but also other people can just think "Eh… not really though", and that's kind of the end of it.

I am a Dane. I was born, grew up, and got all of my basic and much of my secondary education in Denmark. I still speak and and read and write the language fluently. My husband was equally a Dane. He had lived more than half the life that was granted him, when he and I came to Canada together. Our children are born here. They do not speak or write or read Danish and have never visitied Denmark. They are certainly interested in the culture and value some of the teachings they received from their parents. But he bottom line is, Canada is the only homeland they know. They are probably not 'Canadian', since their mindset was certainly heavily influnced by Danish thinking in their formative years. Also maybe because 'Canadian', despite what members of the 'founding nations' may think, is not all that well defined, because new elements are continually added to the mix. In our tradition, back in the old country, people would maintain that it took five generations before one was qualified to be a freeholder, or a full-fledged member of the tribe (yes, Danes are a tribe, actually with origins in a merger between several regionally based tribes back in ancient times. Our mythology includes a story of treaty-making after a brief war!) So, My children are not Danish-Canadians, but rather 'sort of' Canadians. Hope that helps with answering your question.

>If you don’t know the language, don’t know the culture, don’t eat the food, don’t celebrate the holidays, don’t practice their traditions or know them, and the last person to truly be a part of that culture died at least 100 years ago, are you still considered Filipino?

Replace "Filipino" with "Irish" or "Italian" and take a walk in the northeastern United States. If you ask the locals, they'll answer Yes.

Eyyyyy, fuhgeddaboutit!