Identity in the Scottish Diaspora

[davidlpope]

Er, did you not see my post answering almost the same question from I think you David, many, many, many posts ago, saying much the same thing?

Yes, but now I think everyone is clued in.

[Jock Scot]

Of course you don't....you see no connection between a large local industry, predominantly focused on the diaspora overseas, selling Clan gear to 'Scots'.....and some of the folks that responded to that very aggressive endeavor?

Are ye blind man

The scots have sold goods to the world for ages and if the world wants it then they will buy it. Look at the whisky sales.

[Reiver]

The scots have sold goods to the world and if the world wants it then they will buy it. Look at the whisky sales.

You are losing focus and did not address anything I've said as it pertains to the specific 'selling' of Scots/Clans to the diaspora....if you hit the earlier provided link to a company in Edinburgh it asks you to 'find your Clan'....now, who has a Clan in Scotland? The Pakistani's? No, perhaps the diaspora with the same name.

Here is another avenue that is extremely common...."Come home to Scotland"

http://www.travelagentcentral.com/un...-home-scotland

[Jock Scot]

You are losing focus and did not address anything I've said as it pertains to the specific 'selling' of Scots/Clans to the diaspora....if you hit the earlier provided link to a company in Edinburgh it asks you to 'find your Clan'....now, who has a Clan in Scotland? The Pakistani's? No, perhaps the diaspora with the same name.

Here is another avenue that is extremely common...."Come home to Scotland"

http://www.travelagentcentral.com/un...-home-scotland

It a free world, the trade, any trade, try to sell to the rest of the world and the customer might or might not buy depending on how he/she feels at the time. Its the same the world over.

[Reiver]

It a free world, the trade, any trade, try to sell to the rest of the world and the customer might or might not buy depending on how he/she feels at the time. Its the same the world over.

Jock, obtuse does not become you.

[Jock Scot]

Jock, obtuse does not become you.

I am not in the least being obtuse. We/I sell much of the produce from the farms on the world market and much of what I buy is based the world market. Perfect it is not and mostly we/I try to win and sometimes---not too often I hope------ we/I loose. That is how it is.

[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

[Reiver]

I am not in the least being obtuse. We/I sell much of the produce from the farms on the world market and much of what I buy is based the world market. Perfect it is not and mostly we/I try to win and sometimes---not too often I hope------ we/I loose. That is how it is.

Then let me break it down for you. Your comment above is marketing jibberjabber.

You, your Countrymen and Scotland, have been aggressively selling more than bits of cloth.....when you go to that Scottish website it directs you to "find YOUR Clan Tartan"....that indicates inclusiveness and exclusivity at the same time....not 'a' Tartan...YOUR Clan tartan.
What you've been selling is an idea...an idea of Scots ness that extends beyond your borders...and you've been marketing that idea, that thought, for decades.
When a travel bureau says 'Come home to Scotland' what idea are they selling...who can 'come home'?
You've been pushing an idea, a state of mind, a thought for decades and are now upset that people actually bought into that 'idea'.
No Jock, it is not a bottle of scotch nor a Farm implement....you've been selling an idea..an attitude...you've been selling your Scotishness abroad and are now upset we've taken the bait.
Sorry....you've been hoist with your own petard...there is another analogy that comes to mind but I'll leave it there.

[ThistleDown]

ThistleDown: "The question that I asked earlier is why? What's the difference that makes this the way in the new land of North America and not in the new land of Scotland?"

Reiver: "One would have to live both places and know them intimately to know both sides of that story."

I believe that exactly characterises Rex (Thistledown) yet he's the one who asked the question!

Alan

I was not asking that question of myself, but hoping that David could answer it from an American perspective. What he said was that "there is no unifying American culture. Immigrants to Scotland have a new culture that comes with their new adopted country, There is no singular American culture. So, in a sense, you get to choose. Usually that choice is based on your family's ancestry. Italians in New York do the whole Columbus Day thing. Descendants of Greeks in Charlotte, NC have a big Greek festival. Germans have Oktoberfest and Polka. The Irish (from the South, who arrived after ~1860) have St. Patrick's Day. Descendants of Scots have the Highland Games."

So David is saying that the lack of an American culture causes immigrants to stay within their native cultures, although obviously vastly changed over the generations.

Reiver said you would have to live in two countries to know both sides of the story. I don't live in the US so I can't speak about the culture there as can David or Reiver. But I do live in both Canada and Scotland and can speak about those two nations.

Immigrants to Canada DO find a Canadian culture and do not stay lodged in their native cultures for longer than the first generation. They have feast and special days, too. In Western Canada, the only part of the country I know well, the largest visible immigrant population is Asian and older immigrants do have difficulty adjusting and merging. But their children assimilate quickly and do not refer to themselves as Chinese or Cambodian or Indian or Japanese and they don't combine origin or ethnicity with citizenship when they refer to themselves. The recent Syrian influx is consciously and strenuously becoming Canadian. There are cultural differences between Newfoundland and Alberta, but if you were to move from one to the other you wouldn't carry with you your origin in the form of a hyphen. Canadian culture is rich and inclusive.

Scots understand multiple cultures very well. Five million people in the country, with such amazing and varied native cultures. Borders, Western Isles, Highland, Northern Isles, Lowland, Clydeside, Northeast.... Two official languages (and a third unofficial one) and many dialects. And every immigrant brings with him his own culture (and special days) to add to the mix. Somewhere earlier in this thread I reported on a few immigrant inputs, but a quick story: a few weeks ago I was in an Inverness restaurant and made the mistake of asking our exceptional waitress if she was Polish. She had a slight accent, but what I was really paying attention to was her service skill, generally not seen in Scotland or in Canada. She was visibly upset. She is Scottish! Turns out she was born in Poland. Scottish culture is rich and inclusive.