I'm like you what to call... American!

One of my biggest pet peeves in life is when someone asks me what I am, or where my family is from.

This might stem from one of my favorite books- A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, where the main character, Francie, is asked in school one day what her nationality is. While all the other kids in the room say something along the lines of American-Polish, American-Irish, American-Russian and so fourth, when the teacher gets to Francie she replies "American." The teacher is startled and asks well... where were your parents born? Francie replies, America. The teacher says something along the lines of "oh, I guess you are American then." Damn right she's American, that's where she lives and that is where she was born.

Now don't get me wrong, I love history and my heritage and learning about the past generations of my family. But I'm American, my parent's are American, and my grandparents are American. In fact, on my maternal-father's side my family has been here since the 1600s, and on my maternal-mother's side I have relatives that were/are Native American.

I understand that America is a young country, relatively- but when are we actually going to start referring to ourselves as Americans? And why do we have to continue asking each other where we are from? I from Florida. End of Story (which actually isn't even true, because I was actually born in Georgia, but grew up in Florida.) Why does my answer have to be a country that I haven't had relatives in, in over 400 years.

Welcome to 'Murica- where no one seems to actually consider themselves American?

My point being, be proud of your heritage and your family and whatever else you want to be proud of- but when someone asks you where or your family are from, let's start answering from where both parents were born- just like they did 100 years ago. And some of you might actually be able to say Italian, or Russian-American and that is totally cool if that is the case. But if you can track at least your grandparents back to being born in the United States of America- then you are in fact, American.

And that concludes my rant... thank you!