Sorry to ask, I don’t want to seem ignorant but I really don’t get it. Like, I saw a post on someone identifying as Norwegian-American and I thought of what another commenter said that most people don’t do the stuff Americans do and how most people will see them as American. But I see many Americans strongly identify with a culture they were raised with. Is it still okay for them to do that? What’s the point?
I’m English, but neither of my parents are - I’d never claim to be English+(X/Y) though. I’d likely get the shit kicked out of me for just thinking one of them (maybe both for different reasons).
But irrespective of these 2 generations, people have been living where i do for far longer than England has been a country. Just since the Romans left there have been major influxes of Saxons, Jutes, Frisians, Normans, Vikings, probably some others . . . not to mention many waves of smaller scale immigration and emigration. It’s no lie when they say ‘the English all are bastards’ - mostly Franco-germanic-scandinavian mongrels.
Most European countries have populations that far outlive the current set of lines on the map or the current flags. And most have been involved with a lot of migration. And most people will have ancestors died on the losing side of one war or another or for a country that is no longer there, or a dividing line that has long since moved.
It just seems odd to me to keep track of all that stuff in any specific sense.