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I think they overcompensate a lot (as a person of Irish descent, I know many Irish do that as well); I can’t help but think of the scene in “The King & I” when the Thai students are upset at the relative size of Siam on the world map, which they had never seen before. I have no misconceptions about what either country was, and why our families left. I remember when I was in elementary school many of these children were in my classes; they had been born in Portugal, and came here as infants with their parents. They were the first people I met who had parents that didn’t speak English; most of the Italians and Poles were here for a longer period of time. Many of them still live in the area, too; Portuguese is probably the third largest language in the area after English & Spanish, though the recent immigration has been more from Brazil for Portuguese speakers and other South American countries (particularly Peru & Ecuador) for Spanish speakers.