Who cares if most people in the US had ancestors that came from somewhere else? My English ancestors have precisely no bearing on the way I live my life any more than my German, Dutch or Polish (well, they came from what is now Poland, but would never have thought of themselves as polish). The child of immigrants in Germany is going to be far more German than I am despite my ancestry.

American culture is undeniably real. American values and beliefs likewise.

Is the only thing that decides an ethnicity how far back your ancestors have been procreating within a country’s current borders?

Culture and values is a better delineator, and it is pretty undeniable that America has a distinct culture and value set.

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stickfigure 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Ethnicity is a social construct with some fuzzy boundaries, but I don't think anyone credible tries to claim that there is an "American Ethnicity". Usually when that term comes up it's from some racist overly proud that someone in their ancestry came over on the Mayflower.

Personally I think it's one of the strengths of this country that a first generation immigrant can come here and become an American. I don't think this is very common around the world.

	▲	Amezarak 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Census-2... Large numbers of people report their ancestry simply as "American." I would actually argue this is the origin of a lot of political divisiveness in the US. It also sort of boils down to the "America as an immigrant/proposition nation" vs "America as a settler nation" debate. The former seems to be ascendant in the past few decades but it's definitely not consensus.