It's a pet peeve of mine, to hear people slander their nationality by hyphenating it like some indecisive person with an identity crisis. Hearing folks say stupid crap like, "I'm a Korean-American, African-American, Irish-Albanian-Lithuanian-Canadian-American", etc. PISSES me off!!!!
Why does it piss me off? Because if you were born in this country you are AMERICAN. Unless you have dual citizenship with another country you simply cannot hyphenate your nationality. Beside the fact that, as I said before, unless you are a dual citizen you ARE NOT a _______-American. You are AMERICAN. Your heritage...your ethnicity if you will, is NOT part of your nationality! If you do choose to announce your ethnicity please say it AFTER your nationality. To do anything otherwise disrespects your country.
And since I'm already ranting, I'm just going to carry right the fuck on. Ethnicity... the definition of the word has been so fucking warped over the years it's just pathetic. But before one can define ethnicity, one must be able to define ethnic.
So...here goes. When it is said in a Middle English text written before 1400 that a part of a temple fell down and “mad a gret distruccione of ethnykis,” one wonders why ethnics were singled out for death. The word ethnic in this context, however, means “gentile,” coming as it does from the Greek adjective ethnikos, meaning “national, foreign, gentile.” The adjective is derived from the noun ethnos, “people, nation, foreign people,” that in the plural phrase ta ethn meant “foreign nations.” In translating the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, this phrase was used for Hebrew gym, “gentiles” hence the sense of the noun in the Middle English quotation. The noun ethnic in this sense or the related sense “heathen” is not recorded after 1728, although the related adjective sense is still used. But probably under the influence of other words going back to Greek ethnos, such as ethnography and ethnology, the adjective ethnic broadened in meaning in the 19th century. After this broadening the noun sense “a member of a particular ethnic group,” first recorded in 1945, came into existence. In short, ethnic means: "Of or relating to a sizable group of people sharing a common and distinctive racial, national, religious, linguistic, or cultural heritage." OR "Being a member of a particular ethnic group, especially belonging to a national group by heritage or culture but residing outside its national boundaries."
Now that we all know what ethnic means, it stands to reason that we understand that enthnicity is a quality or affiliation resulting from a background, alliegance resulting from cultural ties that are maintained.
In other words - if you don't actually maintain ties with your heritage you CANNOT claim to be part of an ethnic group. And another thing, ethicity has NOTHING to do with skin color. I am so fucking sick of being told that I "can't have an ethnic background" because I'm white. Stupid ignorant people piss me off! These are the same people who claim that they are "ethnic" and can't even define the fucking word.
So in a nutshell, if you maintain active relations with your heritage then you are part of an ethnic group. That's all fine and good. However, your ethnic origins have no bearing on your nationality so fucking STOP disrespecting your country by putting another country's name in front of it.
