I swear, money has gotten disgustingly complicated of late...

Quote Originally Posted by curious aardvark View Post
Ask an american what nationality he/she is and they will answer german, polish, italian, irish, hungarian - basically anything other than american (or english for that matter - I'm sure a lot of the settlers were english - but they're descendant refuse to ever mention it - that kinda makes me proud :-) .
If you had asked in the 1960s you'd have gotten a whole different impression. People tend to lean on ancestry to other places when it feels appropriate to do so, after the war backlash of the 70s and the globalization campaigns of the 80s through today, and it's not as "cool" to be American (at least in pop culture) as it used to be.

Personally, I say I'm from Georgia first not because I dislike America, but because there's not really a way to get an impression of one's environment by just saying "America" any more than there is for someone just saying "Europe"... If someone says they're from America, it gives a much different impression than them being from New York or Utah, for instance.

As for people who identify with ancestral cultures, you tend to find that in either very urban areas on the coasts or very rural farming areas. Industrial towns and military towns tend to have people in them that care less about their family culture and more readily integrate into "the melting pot" of society. I have my own theories on this but I'm off topic enough already. Long story short, if you want to find proud Americans, you have to go to parts of America that aren't tourist destinations.