An Open Question for 'Jock Scot' (and Scots)

[MT4Runner]

All the world over, people have adopted American styles of dress. Blue jeans (especially Levi Strauss) have become wildly popular. You can hardly look anywhere in the world without seeing people wearing American style sneakers, trousers, t-shirts, baseball caps, etc.

Are they playing at being Americans?

Or is it just part and parcel of being a human being in this global age, where styles which were once unique to a particular country have been exported elsewhere?

And I daresay that every single one of us have done it in one form or another. Whether it's a native Scot wearing distinctly English styles, or a German wearing distinctly American clothing, or an American wearing distinctly Scottish garb.

Very, very, very well-said.

[O'Searcaigh]

Very, very, very well-said.

***

[be da veva]

I'm reminded of the movie ''My big fat greek wedding''. They don't live in greece, but they sure are proud of their culture. BTW, When I was young, I had a lot of greek neighbors and the movie is pretty much spot on. The same thing could be said about the italians. And when asked about their nationalities, they were greek/italian first, then canadian.... I think the same could be said about any nationality.

[be da veva]

Just to add a litle more, I am part of the Invisible Majority. Wearing a kilt also helps to define that I have a cultural background and that being a white caucasian doesn't mean I come from nowhere, or that my parents appeared out of the blue in Montreal....
Some ethnicities you can spot easily enough, others you can guess. Some are pretty much unknowable because of the similarities.

[ForresterModern]

I was born in West Virginia of West Virginia born and bred parents, and moved to Ohio before my first birthday. So I am technically an American and West Virginia-ex-pat. I spent a lot of the free time of my youth and young adulthood back visiting family who remained in West Virginia and still do to this day. 31 years and a lot of education and life after that original ex-pat move, I started my professional life, left Ohio and have been a migrant worker of sorts for the last 21 years, having lived/worked in 6 different states across the US, now settled back into Kentucky, the state immediately west of West Virginia and south of Ohio, NOT home yet but close enough to keep up relations with family still based in West Virginia and spilled over into western Virginia itself.

I have traced my WV ancestry (speaking patrilineal only here) back at least 10 generations in that state, visited gravesites and homesteads and read family bible annotations and church and government records and deeds. These led me to the preceeding few generations in eastern Virginia, again with documents and deeds and homesteads and such. Through tenuous links I have traced that line back across the ocean to a ship leaving London in the late 1600s, and then through work performed by other members of my extended family, presumably still in the UK, back through another 10 or so generations to the several generations of my surname/patrilineal relatives who inhabited several castles in southern Scotland and Northern England (Torwood, Corstorphine, Bamborough come to mind). That same work of my distant relatives connects back through the Norman invasion to Flanders, where our first Forrester of that name originated, and then chased it back further to several generations of Flanders nobility until even the historians can go no further back. I also have traced other family lines to Germany, and Italy, and France (one supposed direct line to Charlemagne, if you can believe that), as well as more recent lines into the eastern Cherokee nation (I am 1/16th Cherokee), but there is far less information about the who's and the where's and such in those other lines. Where is this all leading you might be thinking?

The question you posed about "Why Scotland?". It is not just Scotland, but it has led to a well documented existence in Scotland for an very important part of my lineage, but by no means all of it. It is also West Virginia, Virginia, the pieces of the puzzle I can find to connect through England back to more solid and serious and historically important involvement in Scotland that has interested me in particular the most. Family owning multiple castles and estates, being wardens of several of the English and Scottish border Marches as well as part of the reiving culture of the time, all starting with that first Flemish-Norman Ricardus Forrestarius, first lieutenant to and brother-in-law of William the Conqueror of the 1066 Norman invasion, the first to bear the name Forrester and from whom theoretically all Forrester/Foster variants have descended through the years. From Scotland. I will chase back his progenitors in Flanders, and someday go visit the remnants of their lives and abodes thereof. I have also visited Germany and a couple places that a line of my mother's family has supposedly come from, but documentation is by no means as full and complete or as interesting as that of the patrilineal line, which fortunately or unfortunately leads right to SCOTLAND.

So for me, that is my "Why Scotland?" and at least one of the reasons I have started wearing the kilt, not daily but occasionally and for events, etc..., and why I have visited and will continue to visit Scotland, as well as other places in search of and attempt to link up with pieces of my family history and heritage. And to tell you the truth I like it.

Sorry, long run for what now seems kinda like a short slide. JF

[BCAC]

I really tried to keep out of this thread, honestly. This is the 8th time I've typed out a reply only to hestitate in sending it for fear of upsetting people through my misunderstanding. There is soooo much to say. I will try to keep it short. On the whole, I agree with Jock's views.

Being en Ex-pat myself, that side of things I understand very well. One thing about Ex-pats I don't understand is how they can take another Nationality. That is one thing that I just couldn't do.

THE thing that I just don't get is that there are some people who were born in the USA with Scottish connections a few generations away, and they spend pots (and pots) of money to buy (only) bespoke highland garments (kilts, jackets etc(and are a bit "snobbish" about this)), some even spend more and more pots of money to get official documents signed to make them "someone" in their clan (to which they are legitimately entitled). These people give the impression that, from the bottom of their heart (and their wallet) they desperately want to be Scottish. Do these people know that no matter how much money they spend or how many documents they pay for they will NEVER be a Scotsman?

I don't want to upset anyone (which is why I tried to stay out of this thread) but a lot of these people seem to be looking for an excuse for wearing their bespoke kilts, kinda like my gggggggggggggrandfather came over from the Isle of Muckle, and he was someone in the clan MacFudge, so I'm wearing this and getting the right documents signed to be someone also in the clan MacFudge to honor him.

If you want to wear the kilt, then wear it! You don't need an excuse. Jock will always tell you how it's done in the Highlands.

I don't see the need to delve deeply into my ancestry, either. I'm Scottish, my parents are Scottish, my grandparents are Scottish. This I know because I lived among them. I don't need to know any further. Maybe there are some strange "roots" in the family tree somewhere long ago, but I just don't feel the need to know (much less the need to "honor" these possible long lost ancestors).

Another thing that comes to mind. You're all Scottish-American, or Scots-Irish-American or something-American. There don't seem to be many Americans around (but then again, if there are any, they probably don't come on this site).

Maybe you have to be in this situation (as explained by Rocky) to understand that part of it.

I'm sorry if I upset or angered anyone, this is simply my few words on a difficult subject hard to understand. Maybe we'll all have to agree to disagree and perhaps it would be better for everyone if we stopped trying to understand!

[Sir William]

THE thing that I just don't get is that there are some people who were born in the USA with Scottish connections a few generations away, and they spend pots (and pots) of money to buy (only) bespoke highland garments (kilts, jackets etc(and are a bit "snobbish" about this)), some even spend more and more pots of money to get official documents signed to make them "someone" in their clan (to which they are legitimately entitled). These people give the impression that, from the bottom of their heart (and their wallet) they desperately want to be Scottish. Do these people know that no matter how much money they spend or how many documents they pay for they will NEVER be a Scotsman?

Short answer...no!

Long answer: In their minds they are Scottish-American, which is the best of both worlds. They are annoying to us as well. The only thing worse are those among them who aspire to the nobility. For a country that parted ways with Britain in a rather nasty way, we have this unfathomable interest in the Royal family.

[Brett]

Jock, I would imagine few answered "fun" to the question of why we "play at being scots"? early on because it was simply the first and most obvious reason.

Harley riders dress up like pirates because it's fun, my kid wears his power ranger costume to the mall because it's fun, I wore a davey crocket coon skin cap and buckskin jacket as a child because it was fun.

Let's be clear non-scots and native scots alike wear the kilt first and foremost because it's fun. It makes going to a dress-up occasion or even to the pub a little more festive. I admire those who wear the kilt daily as it would seem to inject a little fun into everyday life.

If a native Scot tells me he wears a kilt for any other reason other than "it's fun" I might question his sanity. That would include pipers as well, as I can't imagine anyone deciding to learn the pipes and wear a kilt for any other reason than fun.

[SlackerDrummer]

I really tried to keep out of this thread, honestly. This is the 8th time I've typed out a reply only to hestitate in sending it for fear of upsetting people through my misunderstanding.

I for one found nothing the slightest bit offensive in your post.

Another thing that comes to mind. You're all Scottish-American, or Scots-Irish-American or something-American. There don't seem to be many Americans around (but then again, if there are any, they probably don't come on this site).

I think this perspective is one of the most difficult bridges we try to cross on this forum. Would you say that the culture is significantly different in the South of France, where you are now, from that of the Highlands of Scotland? I note the distance from Nimes to Inverness to be just over 1000 miles. How many cultural differences in that span? Highland Scot? Lowland Scot? English? Parisian? From where I grew up in North Carolina that same distance would get me up to the northeast corner of the United States or, heading west, about halfway across the country.

This sheer size difference makes,..., well, a difference. Scotland will fit into the United States more than 125 times. It will fit nearly twice into my home state of North Carolina, which has nearly twice the population. If you accept that there are differences between Highland and Lowland Scots, surely it must be more than evident that there are probably differences between Eastern North Carolinians (by the beautiful coastline) and Western North Carolinians (in the beautiful mountains), and then it must be really, really evident that there must be cultural differences between those same North Carolinians and the rest of the United States. We share a national identity, but the very idea that Americans could share a cultural identity is downright silly.

Additionally, much of North American is not populated by families who have been here for many generations. Sure there are parts of the country where this is true, but there are a great number of people who's immigrant ancestors came just last century. And the way the country was settled, even from the beginning, there were pockets of people from the same country living together. They lived in the same neighborhoods in cities or started churches in more remote, rural areas, continuing parts of their cultural heritage. Just because by the time our ancestors arrived, the people living in Scotland no longer thought of themselves as Picts, Normans, etc., doesn't mean that those who left Scotland no longer thought of themselves as Scottish. You yourself say you couldn't do it. So they saw themselves as Germans, Irishmen, Italians. And their children then though of themselves as German-Americans (i.e. Americans of German descent) and so on.

[creagdhubh]

I for one found nothing the slightest bit offensive in your post.



I think this perspective is one of the most difficult bridges we try to cross on this forum. Would you say that the culture is significantly different in the South of France, where you are now, from that of the Highlands of Scotland? I note the distance from Nimes to Inverness to be just over 1000 miles. How many cultural differences in that span? Highland Scot? Lowland Scot? English? Parisian? From where I grew up in North Carolina that same distance would get me up to the northeast corner of the United States or, heading west, about halfway across the country.

This sheer size difference makes,..., well, a difference. Scotland will fit into the United States more than 125 times. It will fit nearly twice into my home state of North Carolina, which has nearly twice the population. If you accept that there are differences between Highland and Lowland Scots, surely it must be more than evident that there are probably differences between Eastern North Carolinians (by the beautiful coastline) and Western North Carolinians (in the beautiful mountains), and then it must be really, really evident that there must be cultural differences between those same North Carolinians and the rest of the United States. We share a national identity, but the very idea that Americans could share a cultural identity is downright silly.

Additionally, much of North American is not populated by families who have been here for many generations. Sure there are parts of the country where this is true, but there are a great number of people who's immigrant ancestors came just last century. And the way the country was settled, even from the beginning, there were pockets of people from the same country living together. They lived in the same neighborhoods in cities or started churches in more remote, rural areas, continuing parts of their cultural heritage. Just because by the time our ancestors arrived, the people living in Scotland no longer thought of themselves as Picts, Normans, etc., doesn't mean that those who left Scotland no longer thought of themselves as Scottish. You yourself say you couldn't do it. So they saw themselves as Germans, Irishmen, Italians. And their children then though of themselves as German-Americans (i.e. Americans of German descent) and so on.

Very well put, Kenneth. Hope you are well mate, as well as your adorable wee laddie!

Kind regards,