Falklands

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Because I imagine census forms ask for race - they do in the US at least. I can say that I'm an American from Italian and Slovak decent, but the census form doesn't ask for that - it does ask my race. Saying that I'm an American would be pretty obvious in the census form anyway - if I wasn't, I shouldn't be filling out the form in the first place.

Everyone living in the Falklands can trace their lineage back to somewhere, as the island was uninhabited at the time it was discovered. Calling themselves "Falkland Islanders" doesn't tell me anything about the people that live there or how British they are or are not. The only thing "Falkland Islander" tells me is that they live in the Falklands, which I already knew because we're talking about the people living in the Falklands. Barmy says they are as British as people living on the British Isles, and I was asking if most of the 60% therefore trace their lineage back to Britain.

I get that, but if someone asked you your race on a census form you would not fill the blank in with "New Zealander". Am I making any sense here?

Good thing she did too! The Vietnam war was already over for a few years when she became PM. She would have been duped big time if she sent troops over there in 1979 when she became PM.

 

If you go above the Norwich divide you'll find most people hate Thatcher for what she did to the mining industry. She put entire families out of work and sent them into ruin. My parents were caught up in the miners strike and had to survive on £20 a week, with 2 young children. My dad demeaned himself by queuing up to get a food parcel handouts just to feed his family. They were the hardest times of my parents lives, and the same was true for thousands of families. So don't you come on here telling me Maggie Thatcher was a saint. She ruined peoples lives, and the vast majority of people in the north hate her and won't be at all sorry to see the back of her. What she might or might not have done for the country is irrelevant to the individual.

 

thats the thing with business, when it doesnt make any money it closes. She didnt actually directly close the pits that was done by the NCB. which had been closing unmanageable pits since the 50's, the only reason that so many pits stayed open as long as they did was because it was heavily subsidised by the government, however courtesy of Messers Wilson and Callaghan, the economy had collapsed into recession and thus the government couldnt afford to keep paying to keep expensive underproductive mines open when coal was being imported so cheaply. The government did actually attempt to save several pits by offering to make them more efficient, which would have still resulted in job losses but on a smaller scale, but the unions outright refused.
Edward Heath's government was brought down by the '72 and '74 strikes and Thatcher knew that backing down on such a vital spending cut would bring her down as well.

Yes and thats the problem isnt it, the indivitual can only see himself, never mind that the entire country had it hard not only the coal industry due to the sever recession... which I will point out that thanks to Thatcher didnt last that long.

 

No, I agree with Rotku. I always fill in New Zealander on the census form or any other form that asks about race, ethnic group, or nationality. If I have to trace back in time to come up with a different answer, how far back should I go? We'd all end up putting Africa if we went back far enough. I am a New Zealander and that's all that matters.

 

Maybe it's an American thing then. I think of race, nationality, and ethnicity as three distinctly different things, and "American" only describes nationality.

 

I agree with Aldeth. I am a White, Polish/Irish/German(Dumb/Drunk/Stubborn)American... Dumb, Drunk and Stubborn. If I actually lived up to the sterotypes, life would probably be alot easier.

 

I used to believe like aldeth but now I agree with rotku. I used to be an african-american in my younger years but now I am an american that happens to be black. I think the american part is now more important than the "racial" part, since we really are all the same race.

 

In our official (4 or 5 yearly?) census we are asked which Ethnic Group we identify ourselves as belonging to. There are a range of options, then an Other box, where you enter your own answer. As of 2006 (last time it was held), they added a new catagory called New Zealander, as they were finding that massive proportion of Other were writing New Zealander. Even then, it's only about 10% of the population, compared with 65% who identify themselves as Pakeha/NZ European.

As for me, I'm like you Aldeth, and I usually tick the Pakeha/NZ European box. But I can certainly see how people tick otherwise and the situation there in Falklands isn't completely unique.

 

I would always tick the "New Zealander" box because I don't understand how far back I would be supposed to go in defining my race. What is race anyway?

I love how so many Americans seem to claim to be Irish just because they had one ancestor who came from Ireland to USA 200 years ago.

Do people in England put German or Viking or Roman or Norman as their race?

 

No, because German, Viking, Roman, and Norman do not describe race. They can describe nationalities, ethnicities, and in some cases, both.

This appears to be an American phenomenon. Let me break it down this way:

Race: For me, it's white/caucasian. The US census recognizes many different races, and if you're bi-racial or multi-racial, you're allowed to check more than one box. Your choices are: White/Caucasian, Black/African American, Native American/Inuit, Hispanic, Asian, Other Asian/Middle Eastern, and Pacific Islander/Hawaiian/Samoan. There's also an "other" box, where you can write in your race, but I would think that most people living in the United States would not consider their race to be "American". To me, suggesting your race is the same as your nationality is absurd. The former describes a group of genetically related people, and the latter describes where you live.

Nationality: For me it's American. This one is the most obvious - your nationality is the nation where you hold a citizenship, which is normally the nation you live in.

Ethnicity - This is where it gets tricky - most of my grandparents were born in Europe. Ethnically, I am Italian and Slovak. My family, and my wife's family (she's also Italian, and all of her grandparents were born in Italy) have preserved many of the traditions that our immigrant grandparents brought with them. So ethnicity applies to your heritage, and it can be the same or different than your nationality.

Of the three, I consider nationality and race to be objective, and ethnicity to be subjective. (Which is why I suspect that they don't ask for ethnicity on the census form.)

EDIT: Or in some cases, ethnicity is not only subjective, but unknowable. If you live in America, and can trace your lineage back 300 years, and all of them lived in American, then chances are you are a conglomerate of a bunch of different ethnicities that have been added in over time, making the term meaningless. Or, if you're African-American, and can trace your lineage back to the antebellum south, then chances are your ancestors were slaves, and you don't even know what African nation your ancestors were from, as they didn't come here willingly.

 

I know you've tried to explain it, but I still didn't really get it. How is ethnicity different to race or nationality? I'm white and English. I don't see what else you can add to that. You can only really be meaning perhaps where your mum and dad came from, or your mums-mum, or mums-mums-mum but what does that matter? What Harbs is saying is, how far do you go back in that line before we all say 'African'?

Like my surname is an old Scandinavian one so the chances are I'm some great descendant of some Viking invader. We don't really care about that, though.

 

I already conceded that ethnicity is subjective, and at times, unknowable. That's the biggest difference between ethnicity and nationality or race. And you're right that it doesn't really matter, and after you and your ancestors have lived multiple generations in a given area, it's meaningless.

However, nationality and race are objective, and are never the same thing. Your nationality is the nation where you live, and usually the nation where you were born. Your race is one or more of the options listed on the census form, and that's never the same as your nationality, as there's no such thing as, for example, the nation "Asian".

I really cannot see how this is confusing. People of different races look, well, different, and the differences go beyond skin color. I have never encountered an Asian with blonde hair and blue eyes. (Bleached blonde hair and blue contacts don't count - I'm talking genetically blonde hair and blue eyes.) I've never met a Native American with a beard (because they can't grow them).

 

That's race you're talking about there, though.

 

If a family from say, japan, moved to England, they had children (say a girl and a boy) and their children married other japanese people in england and had children. For those children:

Their race is Japanese
Their nationality is English/British

Say the girl and her husband kept up japanese traditions whilst the boy and his wife mostly abandoned their parents traditions and adopted british culture as their way of living.

The girls family are ethnically Japanese, they speak japanese around the house, they hang out with other japanese families and live in or near a japantown.

The boys family are ethnically British, they speak english around the house, hang out with other brits families and make no special effort to live near a nexus of non-british ethnicity.

 

I'd call that culture.

 

Well you asked about both - how ethnicity differs from both race and nationality. I answered nationality earlier in the post. It was a shorter explanation because I didn't think nationality required much of an explanation. If you were born and lived in a country all your life, that's your nationality. I'm American, you're British (or English if you prefer).

Actually, no. Their nationality is certainly British, but I'd say their ETHNICITY is Japanese, while their RACE is Asian. To me, you cannot change your race no matter where in the world you move. I'll always be caucasian, no matter what. If my family moved to sub-Saharan Africa, had a child, and completely adopted African culture, my wife, my children, and myself would all still be caucasian.

Well, unless the boy's family actually adopted British traditions, I wouldn't call them ethnically British. They would be sort of non-ethnic, in much the same way an American with ancestors from seven different European nations who doesn't stick to the traditions of any of them is non-ethnic. But racially they are all Asian, and the nationality of all of them is British.

Am I starting to make at least some more sense?

I found this on the Falklands:

So, according to the wiki, most Falkland Islanders are ethnically British. So in response to my initial query, I guess most of the 60% who identify themselves as "Falkland Islanders" came from Britain.

 

Asian isn't a race, unless you mean mongoloid. There are enough characteristic markers between different japanese, chinese, korean and other countries that call for distinction between racial categories. Much like caucasian is an umbrella term though the amount of interchange between typically caucasian countries has rendered many of the terms obselete.

 

It is in the US. People from Japan, China, Korea, Vietnam, etc. are classified as "Asian", while those from Pakistan, Iraq, etc. are classified as "Middle Eastern". While there isn't an actual box on the census form, I imagine that someone from Mongolia would check "Other Asian".

Well, of course. Just like there are a bunch of different genetic markers between someone from Sweeden and someone from Greece - but they're both still caucasian.

 

This discussion reminds me of that episode of The Office where they all had to wear cards on their forehead stating a 'race' so they could explore what is was like to be different races ...

 

The seven umbrella terms for race are Caucasian/Caucasoid, Negroid, Mongoloid, Dravidian, Australian Aboriginal, American Aboriginal and Polynesian.

Just because the American census wasn't comprehensive and was grouped by geography instead of phenotype doesn't mean the entire concept of race is divided into the boxes provided in your own country. Just that it was the simplest mode for the lowest intellectual participant to understand and complete accordingly.