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[jaydub]

I got to "But like a thief / Who steals and runs" and couldn't press on.

Damn folks - rhyming in a poem is neat and all - but when you twist the language beyond comprehension to accommodate a rhyme, you're doing it wrong.

[miles]

I got to "Pop it."

[theinevitable]

at the GF's house for her grad party, her family started discussing ethnicity. But in a weird way where they had no fuck*ng idea what they were talking about. I was simultaneously a little mad, and pretty embarrassed for them.

"My ancestors were English"
"I mean, English isn't a real thing. It's like, the same as us. We speak English. They just have an accent."

also a discussion of whether it is correct to call any Hispanic person Mexican. AHHHHH.

[jay-ell]

also a discussion of whether it is correct to call any Hispanic person Mexican. AHHHHH.

Pedro's family has been subject to this. My MIL is six feet tall, fair-skinned, and a natural blonde. On hearing her Argentine accent, though, many, many people will say, "Wow, I didn't know your mom was Mexican."

There is "colorblind," and then there is oblivious.

[Nabubrush]

It's odd how many people do not know that the language called Spanish is not limited to Mexico. You'd think they'd at least realize it is spoken in Spain (to say nothing of that little continent south of us).

[jay-ell]

Pedro and I had to discuss whether or not to claim "hispanic" as well as "caucasian" as our children's heritage on school forms, etc. when Danger Boy entered the early intervention programs. Pedro and some of his siblings did; at least one of his siblings didn't. They definitely qualify, though. We decided not to claim it for our kids because they have no ongoing meaningful contact with Spanish culture. Though Danger Boy is suddenly fascinated by the Spanish language and wants his Abuelita to read to him in Spanish all the time lately.

This led to a discussion of the difference between Hispanic and Latino, and we weren't quite certain of the definitions so we looked them up and determined that Pedro's family is definitely Hispanic (which is defined by country of origin) but not Latino (which is an ethnic group). What an odd distinction to have to make.

Which, of course, makes me think of Louis C.K.'s revelation that he is Mexican. When I heard that interview for the first time, I was like, yessss, an Hispanic famous person who is as white-looking as my husband, maybe fewer people will be ignorant about that shit now.

[Nabubrush]

I came to America as a little Mexican boy.

I've never seen that - that is awesome.

[greenkoolayd]

i always refer to myself as half-beaner/half-cracker, but culturally, im mostly a cracker.

[Nabubrush]

I'm pretty sure I am straight-up cracker.

[smick]

I'm a Heinz 57 myself.

My mom has done some pretty extensive Family Tree crawling.   On my mom's side, somewhere is Meriwether Lewis.   On my Dad's side there's slave traders, and most recently my great grandfather Fritz, who fought in both WWI and WWII... for Germany.

So...heritage, I guess isn't everything.

[jay-ell]

Dad's side -- 100% Polish, been here since the 1920s and 30s. Mom's dad's side -- straight-up English colonials, descended directly from a Revolutionary War general and some other assorted Connecticut bluebloods. Mom's mom's side -- blended German, Irish & Scottish immigrants from the late 1800s.

The result: a tallish, dirty-blondish, blue-eyed mutt with fair but olive-toned skin who miraculously manages to tan easily and without burning. (I think somebody must've had an Italian mailman somewhere along the line.) Pretty much the epitome of white America. My kids are more German than anything else -- I've got a whole German branch on my maternal grandmother's side, and Pedro has it from both parents. But culturally, we're Geek.

[Nabubrush]

My dad was adopted into a family which was very active in the LDS church. "Old last name" + LDS retrieves 1.5m hits. I know they do plenty with the family tree stuff and we used to have a 100+ page xeroxed genealogy booklet on the family, but I don't know where it went. So that's one grandparent. Another emigrated from Russia, and the last two nobody knows anymore.

Although I'm fairly closely related to Twain somewhere (a fact which is in that "two truths and a lie" thread or whatever it was).

[Choop]

Austrian on one side, French & Welsh on the other. Naturally, I'm short and blonde.

[CortJstr]

The ladyfriend's mom spends virtually all her time on ancestry.com doing family tree research. I wonder if it's yet been broken to her that not only  does nobody in my family know anything more than one-generation back but I'm not blood-related to any of them anyway.

[jaydub]

When I moved back to the US in 1981, I was so dark skinned that I got called a Mexican kid quite a bit - until I opened my mouth and my Australian accent spilled out.  Then most folks were just baffled.  Brown person speaking heavily accented English.  The tan faded faster than the accent, but both are ancient history now. 

Despite sharing a name with a famous Scottish patriot, my family on both sides is Irish from two waves of the Diaspora; my Dad's side in the 1840s and my Mom's in the 1890's.  There's some Norwegian and a Luxembourger in there too.