Member-only story
It happens all the time, I will be in a meeting where we will be discussing a project for several cultures and someone will say to me: “What do the Anglos think?” I want to say: “Not being an Anglo, I have no idea.”
My family heritage is Irish and I was born and grew up in Boston and suburbs. I am not nor will I ever be an Anglo. I am a Celt. That is the race of the Irish. The Irish including Irish-Americans are not Anglos. Neither are the Kenyans, the Indians nor even the Hong Kong Chinese, though each group was once ruled by the British.
There are some studies that say that genetically the Irish and British are indistinguishable. But in a 2007 article from the New York Times, Nicholas Wade reports “The implication that the Irish, English, Scottish and Welsh have a great deal in common with each other, at least from the geneticist’s point of view, seems likely to please no one.” [English, Irish, Scots: They’re All One, Genes Suggest; May 5, 2007]
This really hit home for me one time when I was in a meeting with Hispanics. They are not “the Spanish” as they were born and raised in Central America.
Using the same technique other English speakers employ towards them, one of them asked me: “What do you English think?”
I was shocked by my response, it seemed to come from the deepest part inside of…
