General Discussion

After some years, an American who became a naturalized citizen of France would be regarded as French by many people, especially if he or she lost their accent. People would probably not forget the American origins, but would accept the citizenship.

Here in the US, a frequent American conversation is to discuss ethnic heritage. Hyphenated IDs are common, e.g. Irish-American or German-American.

I spent my early childhood in a neighborhood that always seems to attract the latest wave of immigrants. My mother had lived there as a child when there were German and some eastern European immigrants there, plus a couple Italian immigrants. My parents bought their first house from a German speaking Hungarian family friend in the neighborhood.

My mother was first generation American of German parents. My great aunt, who was born in Germany lived with us after her husband died. But the neighborhood had become primarily Italian-American by then. Older couples there were Italian immigrants. Younger couples were first and second generation Italian-American.

We all got along well enough with different holiday customs and religions. But the German, Italian, and Hungarian identities were strong. People did not say, "I'm Italian-American." Or, "I'm German-American." They said, "I'm Italian." Or, "I'm German."

The same thing was true of the other side of town, which was primarily Polish. And the Irish and Russisn neighborhoods were the same.

Even in high school where we met kids from other neighborhoods, kids from old WASP families who had been in America since colonial times identified themselves as Scots, Scots-Irish, Anglo-Saxon English, or Norman English.

In the US, people keep their ancestral ethnic identities for generations.