Identity in the Scottish Diaspora

[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.