jamt
Regular Member
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- Ethnic group
- Euro-Caribbean
- Y-DNA haplogroup
- Q1
- mtDNA haplogroup
- H1a
Hello friendly people,
What do you all think when you hear people talking about 'reconnecting with their roots' or heritage. For example, an American exploring and 'reconnecting' to his heritage as a person of Scottish descent (in an authentic and respectful way) even if his Scottish ancestors emigrated to the US 100 years ago.
How important is it to formulate an 'ethnic identity' beyond the culture that you find yourself in? This type of thing seems to be more important to people within a diaspora, away from 'motherland' and generally in a relatively young region or country, as is my case. Is it simply a case of romanticising?
I've been influenced by the Back to Africa movement of Marcus Garvey and others, elements within Rastafarianism, Pan-Africanism, whereby people of African descent in the Diaspora try to 'reconnect to their roots' via exploring or adopting traditional West African cultural elements, as they see themselves as having been robbed of their ethnic identity.
I translate this into my own mostly European ancestry. Although thoroughly 'West Indian/Caribbean' as my family has been here for centuries on some lines, finding myself in a tricky or sometimes confusing situation as a person of European descent and culturally unambiguously 'White' in this society. I relate to the idea that I am too foreign for here, and too foreign for Europe, as I will never be truly considered 'Caribbean', and never truly considered European per se. That being said, I am ~80% European, and I see myself in that context. There is a quote from a West Indian writer which goes, paraphrasing, "For the European born abroad, setting foot on European soil is like a sense of returning home", and these are people who have lived in the island for a long time, there is still a sense of connection to 'motherland' and up until the 1900s among the elite class French Creole of Trinidad — the idea of being part of "L'Ancien Régime"!
So... how do "Natural Born Europeans" see these people, as foreigners bumbling about Scotland talking nonsense about being part of the Campbell Clan, or as a legitimate search for a 'deeper' cultural identity?
Is it at all similar to how people within Europe look to the past, often hundreds of years into the past, in celebrating their culture which has obviously changed since that time.
I'm going to stop myself now before I keep rambling on!!
Does any of this make sense?
What do you all think when you hear people talking about 'reconnecting with their roots' or heritage. For example, an American exploring and 'reconnecting' to his heritage as a person of Scottish descent (in an authentic and respectful way) even if his Scottish ancestors emigrated to the US 100 years ago.
How important is it to formulate an 'ethnic identity' beyond the culture that you find yourself in? This type of thing seems to be more important to people within a diaspora, away from 'motherland' and generally in a relatively young region or country, as is my case. Is it simply a case of romanticising?
I've been influenced by the Back to Africa movement of Marcus Garvey and others, elements within Rastafarianism, Pan-Africanism, whereby people of African descent in the Diaspora try to 'reconnect to their roots' via exploring or adopting traditional West African cultural elements, as they see themselves as having been robbed of their ethnic identity.
I translate this into my own mostly European ancestry. Although thoroughly 'West Indian/Caribbean' as my family has been here for centuries on some lines, finding myself in a tricky or sometimes confusing situation as a person of European descent and culturally unambiguously 'White' in this society. I relate to the idea that I am too foreign for here, and too foreign for Europe, as I will never be truly considered 'Caribbean', and never truly considered European per se. That being said, I am ~80% European, and I see myself in that context. There is a quote from a West Indian writer which goes, paraphrasing, "For the European born abroad, setting foot on European soil is like a sense of returning home", and these are people who have lived in the island for a long time, there is still a sense of connection to 'motherland' and up until the 1900s among the elite class French Creole of Trinidad — the idea of being part of "L'Ancien Régime"!
So... how do "Natural Born Europeans" see these people, as foreigners bumbling about Scotland talking nonsense about being part of the Campbell Clan, or as a legitimate search for a 'deeper' cultural identity?
Is it at all similar to how people within Europe look to the past, often hundreds of years into the past, in celebrating their culture which has obviously changed since that time.
I'm going to stop myself now before I keep rambling on!!
Does any of this make sense?