Our Wonderfully Mongrel New World...

The big question this article raises is whether the U.S. Census needs to change it's out-dated, racist question about whether we are from the Caucus Mountains or not. I remember during a phone survey (I believe from the Census, perhaps a political campaign) telling the surveyor on the other end that, yes, I've been told my ancestors are from the Caucus Mountains of eastern Europe, but I've never been there and I don't know any descendents still living there. She laughed. She got it.

I understand the anti-intellectual politicalization of it all, but more objectively I don't see why the wedding of different European and New World ethnic groups is anything decidedly "new" in Western Civilization, from Columbian contact (I don't think the Vikings mingled in buffalo robes with any of the Newfoundland Natives) until now.

Off hand, I can list my ethnic origins as mostly Swedish, but with plenty of English, Scottish, German, French, Bohemian, Italian, Norwegian, and Lapland stock, not to mention trace amounts of Native American. That's why I often just declare that I'm all Burleigh County, North Dakota.

I know where you fellahs hail from, but I can't imagine your ancestors stayed within the present day geopolitical borders of your respective country or state from generation to generation to generation, since time immemorial. Alright, give me a run down of your ethnic origins as you understand them, from Romania to Portugal to the New World.