What makes one American? Citizenship status? Place of birth? Culture and Ideology?
I'm Chinese (or East Asian) as far as government documents are concerned, born in Shanghai, and still hold Chinese citizenship. But I also have lived in the US far longer than I have China (I'm 22 now, I moved here when I was 6), have a far better grasp of "American Culture" (another discussion entirely) than my Chinese roots, have a better knowledge of the history of this country than most who reside here, and hold Permanent Residency status. So what does that make me?
" Careful what you say Foreigners, We Americans tend to have a itchy trigger finger now days and might just decide your hiding Al-Qaeda and invade you. "
Nope, i'm from the Netherlands... So we got dikes, clogs, cheese, weed on doctor's prescription and a declining purchasing power for the next couple of years.
" What makes one American? Citizenship status? Place of birth? Culture and Ideology? I'm Chinese (or East Asian) as far as government documents are concerned, born in Shanghai, and still hold Chinese citizenship. But I also have lived in the US far longer than I have China (I'm 22 now, I moved here when I was 6), have a far better grasp of "American Culture" (another discussion entirely) than my Chinese roots, have a better knowledge of the history of this country than most who reside here, and hold Permanent Residency status. So what does that make me? "
people who hate on america just wish they could live here.
i've been all over the world. and sure there are so many kick ass places out there. but dude, its pretttty fuckin chill here. i like it. and i'm here to stay.
I'm English, not planning on staying though. Also, it seems it's just the norm to have a dislike for America, studying politics and seeing the amount of disenchantment towards any politics is a bit worrying. Come on guys at least the bush administration is over right?
Sometimes I wish I could re-claim my viking heritage. I'm a 1/4 Swedish, that counts. "
My father did a traceback of both sides of my family for quiiiiiiite an extended period of time, and I can safely say that I am the descendent of a bastardized helspawn that I often confuse with vikings based upon how barbaric the anscestry is. Literally, a bastard child, as the Schreckengost (meaning "scary guest" or "unwelcome visitor") derrived from a lone child left outside an orphanage, assumed to be either the child of a villager raped by one of the Holy Roman Empire occupiers during the Thirty Years's War in Germany or some other equivilent.
To quote directly from this long winded text to just the extent my ancestors had on history:
"For the average German-speaking peasant, though, politics and religion didn't matter much when marauding armies entered their town or village. This war was in fact so bad, that even the rugged wooded mountains of the Sauerland failed to protect its reclusive inhabitants. In 1623, for example, "Godless Catholic troops of the Emperor's army under [the infamous Johann Tzerclaes] Count of Tilly, occupied the Duchies Berleburg-Wittgenstein." Needless to say, Tilly's troops didn't simply occupy anything. They pillaged, raped, and burned entire provinces into submission.
" Armies did not consist of just soldiers, either. According to noted Thirty Years War historians C. V. Wedgwood and Geoffrey Parker: "In Tilly's army then counted five servants for each lieutenant and up to eighteen for a colonel. The gunmen were hired mechanics, who with their master gunners, grooms for their huge horse teams, wives and servants, formed a compact unit, separate from, yet essential to, the army. Peasant girls dragged from plundered farms, children kidnapped for ransom and forgotten, hawkers, tricksters, quacks, and vagabonds swelled their ranks. In the army six or seven children were born in a week. The lords had a responsibility to all of these, which he must fulfill or let loose a disorder as dangerous to him as to the country in which they are quartered. All that they have, whether it be arms or apparel, weareth, wasteth, and breaketh. If they must buy more they must have money, and if men have it not to give, they take it where they find it. They spare no person of what quality so ever to be, respect no place how holy so ever, neither churches, altar, tombs, sepulchers nor the dead bodies that lie in them.""
Although this doesn't take up the majority of my family history by a long shot, this is still a significant aspect of it.
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