What's your ethnicity?

[Pica Pica]

I just consider blood to be O positive. A negative AB or whatever - that red sloshy stuff what comes out when you cut yourself.

[kaLeY]

Portuguese, Puerto Rican, Polish, Filipino, Chinese, and Hawaiian.

Try and beat that!  Haha, I'm most definitely a mutt.

[LordKAT]

The American melting pot is not instantaneous.

Nor is it a monolith, growing up in NYC is different from rural Georgia, which is not LA, which is no where close to growing up in Texas, and on, and on.

guess I think it isn't a melting pot so much as a stew pot. Everyone is still different but the flavors start to blend after a while.

[Ribbons]

Puerto Rican and black, so biracial.

[Nicky]

I'm a New Zealander, but in terms of my race I would say I am slavic or Eastern European. My family is Polish.

[ativan]

A mixture of sub atomic particles, formed into globby things, that are formed into more globby things and so on.....

[rite_of_inversion]

I'm melanin-deprived...My ancestors on my Mom's side were thrown out of Scotland, and dodged a Franco-Prussian draft on my Dad's.  I stand firmly behind my genetic heritage as an exile and draft-dodger.

Kitian-Basques are genetically unique, while everyone around them all share the same pool of genes, because they presumably migrated in later.

For those not from here...

Americans mostly have odd family quirks and such that are cultural holdovers from what European country and what region they are from.  For instance, someone who has parents from an English, Irish, Scottish or German background might be likely to grow up eating bland food. (Mostly, I ended up eating things that came in a box and said "Hamburger Helper ".  Mom's hamburger needed lots of help.)
Unless, of course, those English/German/Irish/Scottish ethnicity people are from Southern states, which took up spicing ideas from the large number of mostly Nigerian people who...ahem...ended up in the Americas not by choice.  Barbeque was brought to us by way of Africa.
Also, Southern dialect can be related in small part to Nigerian.

Our structure of government was inspired by that of the Iroquois Nations. At the beginning, we had so many German immigrants that we could have ended up being a German-speaking country.

Yankees (from the northeast) generally speak faster and seem, from a perspective of southern manners, to be a bit blunt and rude at times. Interestingly enough, an accent I think of as "New York"-well, I worked with a Bosnian guy, and he sounded so Brooklyn it wasn't funny.  I suspect the influx of Eastern Europeans in the 1800's is what made the NYC accent.

OTOH, when you get an elderly southern gentleman flirting with the counter-girl ahead of you at the hardware store when you're in a hurry...um, blunt can seem attractive.

Here in Texas, having seen the driving, and for one terrifying day, drove, in Mexico...we drive like Mexico lite here. We have a critical mass of transplant drivers, and you have to drive just as cutthroat as they do. Or be cursed to miss your exit forever.
Although our stop signs aren't suggestions.  Mexico's are.
The predominant number of freshly here people are Mexican.  But they listen to Tejano, which is a cross between Mariachi and German polka. Oh, yes, the inexpensive Chinese and Indian places here...all use jalapeno peppers in their cooking. At 50 cents a pound at the big farmer's market, well...hey, price is good!

And if I ever move away from this city, I'm really going to miss the salad of ethnic communities we have here. I like multiculturality.
Someone at my current job actually found a Chinese matchmaker-who lives here-to find himself a wife, because you can't talk to a traditional Chinese woman directly.  Not at all.
Anyway-
The way it works is this: New immigrants never do totally leave behind their birth culture.  Their kids assimilate fully.  The grandkids circle back and reclaim their ethnic heritage.

[Lachlann]

To all the Americans that wrote a huge list of places - how can you be all those things? If you were born in America, raised in America and grew up culturally American - then surely you are American. Just because a person had ancestors all sorts of things, doesn't mean those things influence yourself. I could list a whole heap of Pan-European ancestral links - but I'm still just English.

It reminds me of the story about an American that went into an Irish bar and said that his Great-Grandmother was Irish so he felt at home there - to which the locals beat him up. When he asked, from his bloody, toothless state why they had beaten him up when he was Irish, the locals said, 'You're not Irish, your great-grandmother was, and she ran out on us.'

Because Ethnicity isn't the same as Nationality.

They can list those places because of Ethnicity, but in terms of Nationality they are American. It's perfectly legitimate.

[V M]

Most Americans do tend to retain a percentage of the ethnicity of their heritage depending on who they identify with most and/or how they are raised... Some reject their heritage and will have nothing to do with it

But often if you ask an American what they are, many will say they are a   Fill in the Blank  American of some sort

My heritage spans all across Europe... But truly I am an American who loves food from all over the world... Pasta, Burritos, Asian dishes, Corned beef, Blini (pancakes) to name a few

So, I am a cross cultured individual... If that makes me an ethnic American... Fine

[jmaxley]

Human, for the time being.

Okay, okay.  German-Jewish, Cherokee, and Irish being the main parts that I know of.  I don't know anything at all about my dad's side of the family though.  On my mom's side, my grandfather always talked about being German-Jewish, my grandmother talked about being Cherokee.  Then when I started digging into the geneology, I found out my grandfather had as much Cherokee ancestry as my grandmother but he would never talk about it.

[Michael Joseph]

Italian, Armenian, Swedish, Greek, German, Irish, and a little bit of French.

[some ftm guy]

i think I'm a mix of dutch, irish, german in ancestry but if i were to go to any of those countries i probably wouldn't feel at home at all since i only know myself to be american. or white. kinda like what Pica Pica said it's just ancestry, doesn't have to define who you are now but it's just interesting to know where your family goes back to a few generations.

[Simone Louise]

And if I ever move away from this city, I'm really going to miss the salad of ethnic communities we have here. I like multiculturality.

Eastern Massachusetts is quite diverse these days, especially considering it is a small geographic area. New ethnic communities include: Asian Indians, Chinese, Vietnamese, Dominicans, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Brazilians, Cape Verdeans, and Haitians. Lowell has the highest percentage of ethnic Cambodians of any place in the United States, with 10.37% of its population being Cambodian. It also has the oldest Greek Orthodox church in the country. There are older communities of English, Irish, Italians, French Canadians, and Jews (some suburbs are one-third Jewish). Blacks or African Americans comprise 23.5% of Boston. We have mosques, Buddhist temples, and Hindu temples close by. Each community retains a distinct cultural overlay and has its own restaurants and shops. Unfortunately, I have to drive half an hour to find a German restaurant.

S

[Michael Joseph]

im from central mass and its really diverse here too

[Shang]

By birth:  American, Air Force Brat

By ancestors:  Cherokee, Irish, Scottish, Scot-Irish, German, French, Lithuanian, Russian, English.

I happily consider myself American, though, because I was born here.  *But* I will say that I grew up influenced by Italy because my family and I lived there for a few years and we carried over what we learned there into our daily lives.  It will stay with me for the rest of my life, just like what I learned in England...though I plan on moving to England at some point.

[Pinkfluff]

To all the Americans that wrote a huge list of places - how can you be all those things? If you were born in America, raised in America and grew up culturally American - then surely you are American. Just because a person had ancestors all sorts of things, doesn't mean those things influence yourself.

True, it doesn't necessarily mean that they influence a person, but I feel greatly influenced by my ancestry. I'm Northern European -- from what I've been able to learn some of my ancestors were Germanic and some were Celtic. Especially in recent years I've been trying to learn all I could about these groups of people that my ancestors came from and it has given me a much greater sense of who I am and much strength to draw on. I didn't have a very good childhood experience, but I take comfort in being a part of my ancestral family, along with the few family members that are still around and I can talk to.

I am certainly American too, and some of those ancestors were among the first European colonists here. Despite being raised in the United States though, I'm not sure if I count as "culturally American". I'm not greedy, I'm not prejudiced, I don't believe that physical appearance and genetics are of such great importance, and I'm not very fond of capitalism. Culture isn't necessarily the same thing as ethnicity either. I suppose it's up to an individual as to how much importance they place in their ethnicity and culture.

[blackswan]

A mixture of many races, that's all I know.  But the majority of people would label me Caucasian.

[tekla]

America take all my many fractured parts and creates my unique sense of self.

I don't think that America does that, as much as it allows and encourages it.  Which is even cooler.

[emoboi]

Mexican and white but I'm so pale because I never go outside.

[blair]

English/Dutch