If you are of European descent…

[Anonymous]

Leave and take your guilt trip with you

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:… do you ever think you should move to Europe to “go back where you came from”?

I have started to feel this way. I feel like no matter how much I work to be inclusive and tolerant, there’s no getting around the fact that my presence as a white person in North America is the result of colonization, slavery, and racism. All things I fundamentally oppose.

Sometimes I think it would be better for everyone, including me, if I returned with my family to my ancestral roots (Germany or Norway). Not just because I feel the US really belongs to Native people and the descendants of enslaved people who built the country, but because I wonder if living where my family lived for thousands of years before immigrating to the US in the early 20th century would make me feel like I belonged more.

I just feel like I’m not supposed to be here. It wasn’t my choice to come but maybe it could be my choice to leave.

Does anyone else feel this way?

It's kind of cute that you think that you will escape racism in Germany or Norway. Germany hates the Turks, Syrians, Irais, and Afghans who became refugees there. My family was one of them and we were told everyday what a drain we were on the Germans and how they couldn't wait for us to get out. One of my colleagues is Eritrean and she ended up in Norway with a bunch of Syrians and Afghans. They were also made to feel very unwelcome and urged everyday to find another country to take them. When your ancestors left Germany and Norway in the early 20th C, both countries were primarily white and had only class issues. You will be returning to very different countries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I have no clear way to move to Germany or Norway, and my understanding is that it would be hard. I also speak neither language, and my family immigrated to the US too long ago to qualify for one of the programs that allows you to get citizenship based on recent ancestors.

I do actually have one Irish great-grandparent too, I don’t know if that would help.

I just don’t feel like I belong in the US.

Then get out. You are a drain on the social welfare system and someone more deserving could take your place on the dole.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, that's racism applied to yourself. And worse, if you apply it to others, you would bar any current immigration as well.

As a French multiethnic national living in the US on a visa and hoping to get a green card and citizenship, I utterly reject your premise. Countries NEED immigration. Just not too much too fast, as it creates cultural integration tensions and shortages in public services. But immigration and mixing of cultures is a GOOD thing.

As I mentioned, I am multi-ethnic. What does your reasoning lead to concerning mixed-race people? Do you think they don't belong ANYWHERE?

So. Maybe think a little before you post.

I think you are misreading my post. I’m not saying anyone should feel this way, only that I do.

I feel no connection to this country. I’m fourth generation on both sides, but have no sense of roots here. I know people who trace their family in the US to native tribes that predate colonization, to Spanish families who settled in the western US back when it still belonged to Spain, or when it was Mexico. I know people whose story of belonging in the US is traced to ancestors who were enslaved in the US, which I think makes them deserving of belonging in a way I am not.

I’m not anti-immigration. People should immigrate if the want or need to, I understand the value of immigration.

But I did not choose to immigrate to the US and don’t feel like I have a place here. I wonder if living somewhere that I have deeper roots might offer more belonging on some level, even if it meant learning a new (to me) language and culture.

Do you know how long your ancestors lived in Germany and Norway? Maybe they came from other countries and their roots are not that deep.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A lot of Europeans don’t like Americans.

True. But they like their money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I have no clear way to move to Germany or Norway, and my understanding is that it would be hard. I also speak neither language, and my family immigrated to the US too long ago to qualify for one of the programs that allows you to get citizenship based on recent ancestors.

I do actually have one Irish great-grandparent too, I don’t know if that would help.

I just don’t feel like I belong in the US.

Welcome to the club! I'm a non-white immigrant's kid. There is no going back. I'm different than my cousins who still live in "the old country." They would be the first ones to tell me so. So I'm staying and fighting for my family.
Maybe you would like to go and fool around in some "white land" where you would be more accepted, but I think the existence of that land is a myth.

Me too. I am not an immigrant, per se, but my mother is half Thai and half Cambodian and married an American GI during the Vietnam war. I remember the first time my mother took us back to Thailand. We were 6 and my brother 8. We absolutely hated it and were scared to death of our relatives. She has made us go back on multiple occasions and we cry when we arrive and cheer when we leave. I feel no connection to those relatives and do not feel bad about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of Europeans don’t like Americans.

True. But they like their money.

Especially the foreign military aid that relieves them of another tax burden.

[Anonymous]

Dude, your thinking is very off. Your ancestry can’t even be traced back to primal man and his location. No way you will be aiming for your origination point. It would be thousands of years to trace through. Moreover, armies and men have been fighting over land forever. The Greeks, the Romans, the tribes, etc. man conquering land, man maintaining land and fighting for more, etc. This has been going on for human history. Just move on. It wasn’t you. Don’t repeat bad history. You can’t be so hyper focused on this. Really. Let it go. Move if you want to, but no guilt on things that were never under your control to begin with.

[Anonymous]

There is nothing, nothing that Europeans love more than when an American shows up and says “I’m German, I’m Italian…etc.”


OP, you’re American. Embrace your destiny. No one is going to mistake you for a Norwegian or German. Especially with no real knowledge of the language or culture.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Leave and take your guilt trip with you

OP feels guilty for being born white?

OMG.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Leave and take your guilt trip with you

OP feels guilty for being born white?

OMG.

Wait until someone fills her in on all the things her Viking ancestors got up to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is nothing, nothing that Europeans love more than when an American shows up and says “I’m German, I’m Italian…etc.”


OP, you’re American. Embrace your destiny. No one is going to mistake you for a Norwegian or German. Especially with no real knowledge of the language or culture.

You know why that is? It’s because Europe is just as racist as the US, if not more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, that's racism applied to yourself. And worse, if you apply it to others, you would bar any current immigration as well.

As a French multiethnic national living in the US on a visa and hoping to get a green card and citizenship, I utterly reject your premise. Countries NEED immigration. Just not too much too fast, as it creates cultural integration tensions and shortages in public services. But immigration and mixing of cultures is a GOOD thing.

As I mentioned, I am multi-ethnic. What does your reasoning lead to concerning mixed-race people? Do you think they don't belong ANYWHERE?

So. Maybe think a little before you post.

I think you are misreading my post. I’m not saying anyone should feel this way, only that I do.

I feel no connection to this country. I’m fourth generation on both sides, but have no sense of roots here. I know people who trace their family in the US to native tribes that predate colonization, to Spanish families who settled in the western US back when it still belonged to Spain, or when it was Mexico. I know people whose story of belonging in the US is traced to ancestors who were enslaved in the US, which I think makes them deserving of belonging in a way I am not.

I’m not anti-immigration. People should immigrate if the want or need to, I understand the value of immigration.

But I did not choose to immigrate to the US and don’t feel like I have a place here. I wonder if living somewhere that I have deeper roots might offer more belonging on some level, even if it meant learning a new (to me) language and culture.

Do you know how long your ancestors lived in Germany and Norway? Maybe they came from other countries and their roots are not that deep.

So true. I love to watch those celebrity ancestry tv shows and people are always surprised by that stuff. And Germany wasn’t even a country until the late 1800s. Would you even know if your ancestors came from one of those border areas that went back and forth between countries, like the Alsace region of France. Imagine moving to Paris and thinking you were “home” and then learning your family were actually German speakers.

[Anonymous]

I mean there is racism and classism and xenophobia all over the world. We did not invent it. We are just the only ones who talk openly about it and sometimes obsess about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:… do you ever think you should move to Europe to “go back where you came from”?

I have started to feel this way. I feel like no matter how much I work to be inclusive and tolerant, there’s no getting around the fact that my presence as a white person in North America is the result of colonization, slavery, and racism. All things I fundamentally oppose.

Sometimes I think it would be better for everyone, including me, if I returned with my family to my ancestral roots (Germany or Norway). Not just because I feel the US really belongs to Native people and the descendants of enslaved people who built the country, but because I wonder if living where my family lived for thousands of years before immigrating to the US in the early 20th century would make me feel like I belonged more.

I just feel like I’m not supposed to be here. It wasn’t my choice to come but maybe it could be my choice to leave.

Does anyone else feel this way?

If you think that enslaved people built this country, you need to learn more about history. Did they contribute, sure. But they were a small part of the population and the wealth they built in the South was wiped out by the Civil War. After that, the South was a third world country.