The Czech National Day: celebrating a state that no longer exists

ICE ^ | 27.10.2006 | David Vaughan

[It's me]

I was asking "DTA" because he/she said

Nope, he is Slovakian-born Czech."Slovak" is ethnicity, Slovakian is citizenship. Being born in one country does not make you member of people living in that country, but make you citizen.

My parents were Czechs but they moved to Los Angeles- to America- in 1958 and I was born in 1960 in Los Angeles.

So I was asking when do I get to be an American by his/her standards. I am an American born Czech but I am American.

[DTA]

If you ask me, you are an American because you want to be an American in an ethnic sense and you are American citizen by birth.

However, not all people born in U.S. want to be Americans in an ethnic sense.

American citizenship makes you American the same way Slovakian citizenship makes someone Slovakian. Hovever, Czech born in Slaovakia is still Czech, not Slovak in an ethnic sense, although he is Slovakian.

It is hard to tell difference because American and Slovakian denote citizenship (nationality) and Czech, Slovak denote belonging to people in ethnic sense. . In Germnan, there is an obvious distinction beween "Volk" (Slovak) and Nation (Slovakian)

In Canada, "Canadians" are only people of British descent, (there are no "English-Canadians"). Everyone else is forced to declare himslef/herself as "-whatever-Canadian". This is subtle discrimination- if an "hypenated" Canadian declares himself simply as Canadian, the mandatory question is - yes, but what is your ethnic backrground? (subnote is - you are not British and therefore you can not call yourself a Canadian)That is a difference between being American and being Slovak, Czech or any other ethnic group - you do it by your free will.