Well, a brave's feather kind of slants, so we'd have .Indian and /Indian For Sikhs we could use a magnifying glass to represent a search bar (seek Indian). The Internet will define us all.
The "dot Indian or feather Indian" thing does help alleviate confusion, but some folks probably find it offensive. Although I wouldn't be offended by it if I happened to be Indian. Either kind, that is. QFT. Or, from your mouth to God's ears, as we Jews say. Be proud of your personal accomplishments, of what you've done to improve yourself or to improve the lives of others. But being proud of something you were basically handed at birth has never made sense to me.
Mom's maiden name is Lawrenson, which was Scandanavianized* from Lawrence, supposedly Irish. *Because they were in Manitoba, which is full of Scandanavians, so they wanted to fit in. But they spoke French. Odd bunch.
I'm Irish. My family's name is Tighe (from a Mc name original) and we have Duffy, McCabe, etc. I'm like 90% Irish. My dad has a little non-Irish in him. Needless to say, we take St. Patrick's Day pretty seriously. Always a family gathering.
Is All Along the Watchtower playing in your head? 'Cause if it is. you ain't from Aerilon or Ireland.
Illini would work too, though spell check doesn't seem to like it. But where I come from, we always just called you FIBs. This is an interesting topic, and honestly I think more than anything else you are what you think you are. No one would find it weird if I was interested in the Revolutionary War, it created the country I live in. But I have no connection to it, my family didn't arrive for another 70 years. 19th century Irish history? I owe my existence to it. So it shouldn't be unreasonable for that to hold an importance place in my core. I would never say I'm Irish, though. I'm American, and Irish-American (which honestly is more about the experience of Irish immigrants in America than it is about Ireland, though Ireland obviously plays some part in that).
Well, we use it only between ourselves really, and neither of us are offended as our respective flavor of Indian, but that's just us. Speaking of Irish, apologies to all the Irish folk, but I hate St. Patrick's Day and I'm fucking glad it's over! I basically spent my first 15 St Patrick's Days trying to use my green eyes as an out against being pinched because I inevitably forgot to wear green, and the last 15 trying to avoid obnoxious drunken crowds, very few of whose members are likely even Irish!
I completely agree. Except for the part about the Doctor. I think your mom had more to do with it than anyone else.
I think people just mean that they are proud of their country and happy about being part of it. Not that they had some special achievement themselves.
To me, while many things contribute to the make up of a person, while it's neat to me personally that I'm 1/4 Irish, it really didn't contribute to my personality. I'm almost 50yo and just finding out about this, so nothing there having an effect during my formative years. This is not like my being raised Jewish, being born in the US, in CA in particular, being short, being dependent on glasses, etc, all those factors that went into making me who I am.