This is a very american issue . I ' m 140 th part Irish so I ' m going to visit the old country ! . You won ' t believe how often I hear that shit . Oh you ' re German ? ! Me too ! Me Really ? Freut mich ! I don ' t speak German , but my mother ' s greatgrandfather had a German shepherd or something so I ' m German . Me . I ' m all for people taking pride in their heritage , but bitch , don ' t tell me you ' re from my country if you don ' t know a single thing about A that country , B your ancestors and C have never been there . <| sep |> Serious point though Does the concept of ethnicity even have any meaning in that context ? If you happen to know that two of your ancestors came to the United States from Norway 200 years ago , how much does that still play into your identity today on a practical level ? Obviously ethnicity matter if it makes you look Black or Asian , because of how other people see you , but can other people see whether the ancestors that you picked for identifying with prob . the ones that happened to pass on their name to you were Irish , Norwegian or German ?