Identity in the Scottish Diaspora

[neloon]

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The United States of America.

What do our Canadian friends say?


Alan

[davidlpope]

What do our Canadian friends say?


Alan

I don't think that they want to be known as Americans. Father Bill, can you weigh in here?

[Father Bill]

I don't think that they want to be known as Americans. Father Bill, can you weigh in here?

Quite right; absolutely not.

[neloon]

Reiver,
Some of your recent posts seem as though you feel victimised. Most countries sell "tourist tat". The French will sell you plastic Eiffel towers, the Germans will sell you beer mugs or Hamelin rats that you can paint, the Greeks sell you badly focussed pictures of the Parthenon. Are Catholics taken advantage of in Vatican City? Why do you lure Scots couples over to Las Vegas to get married? Or families to Disneyland? Or weekend shoppers to New York? It's the way the world works and some of it is pretty shoddy in Scotland as everywhere else and we don't like it. But I don't believe that the Scots diaspora is especially targeted. We're really trying to build up on Japanese and Chinese tourism just now and they seem to like tartan just as much as you. We would certainly not remain popular if we were, in some way, cheating people. And, believe it or not, we do like to be visited by those you might call "cousins" which was what the "Homecomings" were about rather than to make money.

US visitors do indeed make up the largest single country proportion (23%) of our total tourist income against a European subtotal of about 34% . That is not surprising given the current population size and wealth of the US and I don't know what fraction of that spend is on "tat" as distinct from accommodation, museum/National Park visits, whiskey, travel etc. Many of our visitors come via England and there you will be sold William Shakespeare, Buckingham Palace, Tower of London Beefeaters etc. Are those for the English diaspora? So, really, what would you like is to be selling you?

Alan

[neloon]

Quite right; absolutely not.

But you are North Americans - right? And you are on the American Continent - right? So has the US stolen clothes twice? Scottish? Well, depends what you mean. American? Well, depends what you mean.
Alan

[ThistleDown]

But you are North Americans - right? And you are on the American Continent - right? So has the US stolen clothes twice? Scottish? Well, depends what you mean. American? Well, depends what you mean.
Alan

Uh hmmm. That would be 'North' American Continent. Canadians are 'North' Americans. We are the hats. Mexicans are 'North' Americans (even if they may have to live beyond the wall one day). They are the shoes. 'Americans' are in the middle and they wear the pants.

[Reiver]

Uh hmmm. That would be 'North' American Continent. Canadians are 'North' Americans. We are the hats. Mexicans are 'North' Americans (even if they may have to live beyond the wall one day). They are the shoes. 'Americans' are in the middle and they wear the pants.

or kilts depending on the day...

[Father Bill]

But you are North Americans - right? And you are on the American Continent - right? So has the US stolen clothes twice? Scottish? Well, depends what you mean. American? Well, depends what you mean.
Alan

I never think of myself as a "North American". The word "American" to me means "Citizen of the United States of America". Here it is a bit of a touchy subject to call us "American." My sense from the family of my German wife is that being called "European" is less of a touchy subject, at least to those on the continent. I have some sense that in the UK it may be difficult.