We’ve been here a looooong time - our first arrival was in 1614 to Jamestown aboard the ship Treasurer. The family was here, both patrilineal and matrilineal, before the Revolution. We’ve got Kings and Rutledges (yep) and Crocketts (yep), Livingstons (yep) and Sherwoods. Settled Virginia, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Connecticut. Personally, if I only counted my father’s line back, I’d be Scots Irish (among the first to arrive), but there’s English, Cherokee, Irish, German and French in there. We have absolutely no fragments of tradition from any of those lines. So when my daughter’s 4th grade teacher did a project on heritage, we said American. This confused her because “everyone comes from somewhere else”. I explained that 400 years and 14 generations of living in one country was plenty to establish one’s heritage. She took a look at our family tree, filled with Signers and Pioneers and Veterans and allowed as how we made a good case.
My kid was given that project last year. “What culture do you celebrate”? “What culture are you from”? She asked me what the heck to put down. I said, “American”. The project was written by the teacher as if there were no such things as Americans or un-hyphenated Americans.