I don't remember what ethnicity was subbed in around Boston. (My guess would have been Portuguese, the Irish having a long history of professional ethnic pride.)

You never heard Irish jokes in New England, Cindy? Maybe that's more of a Boston thing.

I never heard Polish jokes. I heard plenty of Irish jokes (but they often had to do with drinking, religion, or repression). What a lot of the country knows as Polish jokes (often, these are based on the premise that the ethnic group is stupid) were told as Italian jokes, here (which roughly equate to Newfie jokes in Maritime Canada).

I grew up about 7 miles from Boston. The T and the commuter rail had stops in my hometown, so there wasn't a big separation between Boston and my town.

It's American. Will you white people stop drawing lines? You have perfectly good non-white people to differentiate yourselves from.

I dunno, I've always thought of myself as "French". From Maine, and French. Probably because my last name is so blatantly French that it's constantly mispronunskiated.

That link I put up is very interesting. It looks like the Italians edge out the Germans in sheer numbers on immigration. I think the Germans tended to spread out more, though, getting farms out in the countryside, so their influence is more widespread.

It's funny...I think I'm fascinated by all the ethnic and regional shit that my grandparents moved out to the middle of the desert to get away from.

I didn't see Japanese anywhere. Did I miss them? Or are we statistically insignificant?

Not that I identified myself as Japanese in the last census. I think I went with "other."

I don't know if all the people here, when asked "What are you?" and say "American" are optimistic or just ignorant. Of course, my experience shows some overlap, and then again, I'm only two generations removed from Ellis Island and the Trail Of Tears(neither side being "easy breeders," you might say, and being late,) so that might color that perspective.

I want to know how long you'd consider yourself ethnic. I call myself mongrel white American, because one German here or there three generations back does not an ethnicity make. (The English and Scottish people eight generations back, I think they've expired.)

I wouldn't place myself firmly in any particular ethnicity, but I do still identify with the idea of being Italian-American, even though you have to go back to my great-grandparents before you hit someone who was born in Italy. (My grandmother did grow up speaking Italian at home, though, and as my mother's mother she kind of won the ethnicity game.)

My mother grew up in Northampton, MA, with Italian and French-Canadian parents (she actually attended a French-language Catholic elementary school, and that was in the 1950s), and has very clear memories of being considered Unacceptably Ethnic because of her ancestry--getting the hairy eyeball in stores, that kind of thing.

My name is incredibly ethnic for these parts. Probably not in Chicago.

I want to know how long you'd consider yourself ethnic.

As long as you care to.

It's interesting. We use the word "Anglo" on the reservation to refer to the non-Native population. Which includes me, although I am decidedly not Anglo.

And I'm fourth generation, which is longer ago than some of you, but since my bloodline is all Japanese, I identify as such.

As a sidenote, my mother (who, like all three previous generations, grew up in Hawaii) when asked about her ethnic heritage will reply that she's from Hawaii. When pressed for detail, she will elaborate that she's Japanese. I, who grew up in Ohio, when asked (if not giving a snarky answer to an ill-phrased question) will respond that I am Japanese. When pressed, I will elaborate with my familial history & immigration tale through Hawaii.