Why Have Americans Forgotten Their British Roots?

Hi dear MN.

I openly embrace my English roots. My great grandmother (mother's side) immigrated from England in the early 1900's. My father and my aunt commissioned a family tree for my grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary and if you take the genealogy company's fruits of that commission with a grain of salt, they claim that I am directly related to the first governor of the Plymouth colony, William Bradford, and thusly my direct descendant hitched a ride on the Mayflower.


My favorite restaurants in NYC are the Spotted Pig and Tea and Sympathy.
http://thespottedpig.com/ and http://www.teaandsympathynewyork.com/home.php

I love the institution of that is the English murder mystery. The English produce the best police procedurals in the history of the television medium.

I love their oddly bent sense of desert dry humor.

Most Americans (at least in from my shortened perspective on things) truly shy away from their personal ancestry until their respective holiday comes around and then they revel in their shallow association with their heritage. They tend to be fair weather ethnocentric fans.

Many Americans tend to be nationalistic in that they embrace all that is pop and lowbrow American culture.

Admittedly, I am not all embracing to the English cultural import. I still find soccer ... sorry ... real football to be a monstrous bore!! And even though I don't faint and swoop at the site of a possible Beatles reunion or even an Oasis reunion tour, (I think both bands are a tad overrated), I have learned to enjoy their music over the years.

The simple answer is that most Americans don't have "British roots". The largest ethnic group in this country is German; next is the Irish. Immigration, both legal and illegal has brought huge numbers of latin Americans, south Asians and others here to swell the majority of the population that has no historical or cultural connection to Britain. One can become an American by choice. It has very little to do with roots.

If only it was that simple!

Not to talk about those millions that would like only live in the US..

Not me , I won first prize in the lottery of life, born English.

If you want a grand tour of Europe from your sofa you cannot do better than watch the Tour de France on Eurosport. The race is over 2,200 miles and takes 3 weeks.

The TV coverage is, there is hardly another word, fantastic. You can see your roots laid out physignomically. You might never use the word France again in the way you are used to doing.

That is what TV was invented for. No bullshit.

I'm a European.

However you don't have the exclusivity of first prize, I'm well endowed by life too, even though I'm not English.

Just read Spendi's post above..

I am beginning to suspect, George, that somewhere in your illustrious naval career you have been treated with a modicum of understated disdain by British officers. Possibly you caught one rolling his eyes towards a colleague when listening to a particularly crass speech you were making.

To really get the historical pseudomorphosis of your British roots cleansed from your soul it might be better if you took up Spanish instead of English.

Tea and Sympathy? That place is great. They make an amazing Shephard's Pie. It's interesting to find someone who is not only living in the city you take residence, but even goes to the same restaurants as me. Cool.

Sorry Francis but first prize has been allocated.

I think first prize goes to the first settlers in New York/Amsterdam. Left on their own by their government and East Indian Company, they secured their liberty of religion in the Act of Transfer (1664). This was the first time the British gave in to popular American demands.

For me the most significant symbols of American denial of British roots are American football and baseball. The political advantages of cricket and proper football were simply tossed to one side in a petulant fit of doing things in a new way which has resulted in a provinciality that can only lead to small mindedness. And the rest of the world giving both games the go-by with the convenience that US sportsmen are not tested to the limit as can easily be seen by looking at men who have played in a Superbowl compared to men who have drained themselves in a World Cup match after, often, 120 minutes of unrelenting mental and physical strain who are examples to the young whereas most Superbowl players could hardly offer an example of how to run for a bus.

And as for catching a high skier with a mitt compared to a fizzer at ankle height from short range at 90mph with bare hands or middling a full toss compared with a ball, polished on one side, which starts out on the off stump, drifts further in the breeze, swings back to the leg stump, bites the pitch 3 yards from the batter and rears up at his throat at 94 mph with no second chances--what can one say except that American sport is specifically designed to make as many men look good as possible.

It's the same with the racecourses. Flat, dirt and in the same configuration. Jockeys here need to know every undulation and drainage character of 20 odd tracks all of which are different.

I daresay that a Grand Prix car could be made to go around a NASCAR circuit without a driver.

American sport seems designed to avoid humiliation whereas British sport is designed to humiliate.

There's a deep psychological underworld to all this in my opinion. Some sort of hero complex. We know we are all wankers.

As a young officer I rather enjoyed the Royal Navy. I even qualified in the Buccaneer and have four carrier landings on the old Arc Royal and some good memories of friends there. Later on I got a different view as we dealt with the endless parade of visiting RN Admirals (but no ships) - always eager to tell us what we were doing wrong - in the Arabian Sea & Indian ocean. The French were much easier to work with and much more reliable.

My parents, both immigrants from Ireland, were moderately anti British ... no overt hostility, just unwilling to ever trust them.

I have no connection to Britain. I am German, Greek, and Polish. Why would I remember British roots if I never had any in the first place?

Well George--I don't think anybody trusts anybody else all that much. Life would be a bit dull otherwise.

BTW George--that your parents did not trust the British does not prove that we are untrustworthy.

Hi Mark !

For better or for worse ex-colony´s never thank the colonizer...must be an Edipo´s complex going on...

Thats probably not true for most of the former colonies, many are still part of the Commonwealth.

the The largest ethnic group in this country are the British because according to the 1980 census 60 to 70 Million americans reported british ancestry.

British Americans are the largest ethnic group in the U.S and its around 60 to 80 Million.

That's enough to provide top flight football and cricket teams.