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Why so many white Americans claim to be native? (lemmy.zip)

submitted 5 days ago by choihanna@lemmy.zip to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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For some reason when I'm talking to an American from the North East and the fact that I'm mixed comes up they always say they aren't white they're actually native because his grandpa once mentioned something about a Cherokee ancestor.

It's always Cherokee, no other tribe but that one. And it's always the whitest looking person ever, straight up 6ft tall blue eyed and blond guy.

I get it, I'm mostly white too, Spanish and Slavic. But even tho I'm not mostly native American I still look native enough that people think I'm Asian.

But when your ancestry has been so diluted over the generations... You're not native. It's not just that you don't look native, it's also that you don't even participate in the culture.

Dude you're just a farm boy from Philadelphia you're probably more Amish than Cherokee, if that supposed ancestor is even real at all and not just some random claim by some of your ancestors to have a "right over these lands".

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[–] choihanna@lemmy.zip 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Your family could embrace some Celtic heritage then 😂

It's always funny to me when someone mentions to me that they're not white because they're actually that random 5% that showed up in their DNA test.

Maybe us Southern Europeans are just used to have random percentages of DNA that we don't consider our identity.

Through my Bulgarian side of the family I'm 13% Central Asian.

So yeah I'm not going to claim some Turkic ancestry from the 7th century expansion.

To me this just means that Americans are barely mixed despite being a country of immigrants, even if legal segregation doesn't happen anymore Americans of different races don't date outside their racial group.

If Americans were actually melting pot they wouldn't pay that much attention to small percentages of random ethnicities.

[–] daannii@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Yeah honestly I was expecting some Scandinavian just because of how white I am. I figured I'd have to have some far north ancestry.

Maybe some Russian/Slovic. I was told when I lived in Europe for a while that I looked very Slovic. I have their iconic button nose.

I was a wee bit disappointed to find I was almost all British.

Maybe white Americans have more genetic diversity near the eastern coastal areas.

I'm smack in the middle of the country and most of my family has been here for many generations.

Maybe a bunch of English people settled here and no one else came cause it's kinda lame. Or the people here weren't friendly. 🤷