True , and in that case I would NOT call hyphenating it stupid . Hyphenate and be proud ! In a way I ' m jealous because I know where I come from , but can ' t really relate to any of it . I guess for me it ' s because it ' s been SOOOO long since my people got to the US 1850 s in some cases so its different . And growing up we really didn ' t have any Irish or German traditions , but that said where I am from there ' s a lot of normal things that came from Germany i . e . a lot of the food my mom made at home would be closer to German than anything . Lot ' s of Americans with German ancestors in the area etc . Again , I do take pride in my heritage , but don ' t feel that I can readily say I ' m Irish American . That has faded in a few generations to where I ' m just American . Even though my last name is superIrish ScotchIrish actually .