exactly the same in the Aveyron, my OH is aveyronnaise, as are my kids but from another part of the aveyron donc des étrangers !
Here in the Auvergne it doesn't really matter from which country you are: if you, your parents and grandparents haven't been born in the village, you're an 'étranger'! (even if you come from a neighbour village)
When asked, I usually have mind in neutral and automatically answer "English" - however I've just put little brain in gear and perhaps I should say "British"; but actually it's "GB and NI" isn't it ? But if you just say "British" you're excluding NI from the equation (which is proably OK if you're a republican!); and to say "GB and NI" in full is a bit of a mouthful. If you say "UK" and therefore include NI in the equation that doesn't sound right either! I think I'll just go back to mind in neutral.
Great article Gary! I say right off the bat that I am Dutch or American originally so have an accent and will look for words from time to time. The French usually help me then or seem to be more patient or funny enough compliment me on my good french!
One of Michael's daughters if I remember rightly. I vaguely remember him pointing to a 'Julie' (my sister's name, so easy to remember) in the family picture at their house in Harare. Ironically, I was there with several dozen academics as part of a conference on childhood organised by Sally Mugabe that got lots of international attention - just before Zimbo went really rotten.
il faut toujours se faire pistonner si on peut...! Bonne chance Nola ;-)
Brian, I went to school with a Juliet Bourdillion.
I am in the same boat - born post UDI and pre-independence. I went from British subject, and stamps and stickers all over my passport, to British citizen overnight when Maggie (à la Carrington and his lurve for Bob Mugabe) changed the rules.
Have decided to be Very French about it all and come in through the back door. I know someone who works at Matignon. .....
I feel for you and although my 'roots' (if I have any that is - more l'homme sans racine according to Gerard Depalmas...) are easier to trace, I get fed up with the the same questions, especially as I run a tabac! locals first asked if I was belge, alsacien, swiss, those from out of the area hear the local accent but with a germanic influence and can't work it out either. Makes things more confused when people know/hear that we're from the Aveyron...! Was talking to a regular customer the other day who started telling me about going to see his brother in Switzerland and being proud of being Franco-swiss, threw into the conversation "...eh vous êtes franco-...?", "franco-anglais" I jokingly replied !
Once, a friend of Mayotte (A department of France) origin, born and raised in mainland France with French passport was telling me how she often gets asked where she is from- "I'm French"" and the oft reaction of the person, making a hand gesture (!) to her physical appearance/colour (she is black with beautiful afro hair) "No, where are you from originally?" (!) at which point she explains her origins etc, I was rather bemused and sympathetic, thinking it an isolated incident and the very next day (I swear) I saw the same scene played out between a French (white) teenager "Where are you from?" and a (black) girl "I'm from New York". The boy, doing exactly the same hand gesture with upturned open palms "No, where are you from?" I dunno, maybe Mao was right that it takes a thousand years to change some people!
Years ago when I had the suddenly had the chance to go on a holiday to the then Yugoslavia and I did not have a passport, I travelled to Liverpool to get one. I was refused because I had a shortened form birth certificate, as I was adopted. I said this is because I was adopted and they said yes they knew that, but I could also have been smuggled in from the Irish republic.
I was given a temporary passport which had the rider "waiting for further proof of British citizenship".
I was the only "white" in the office!
Nola, I have a friend in Zimbo, Michael Bourdillon, he is an anthropologist who studied children, like yours truly, until he retired. He has spent his whole life there and will probably stay. His parents were French. One of his children, a son, now in his late 30s came to France a couple of years ago with all the correct documentation showing he is of French origin, except that his father was born in Zimbo and married somebody born in England. He was unable to get permission to stay and could not apply for French citizenship by any route. The UK took him like that. He is now a UK citizen but still wanted to come here. The fact that he too was born in Rhodesia before 1979 on the basis that pre-Zimbabwe Rhodesia was in fact only Southern Rhodesia and part of a hitherto not recognised country internationally is in the refusal he received. In short, he was told too that he does not exist but that if he stays in France as a British national, as he is now, that will be fine. So much for wanting to return to his grandparents' country and become as they were!
Where am I from? born in Michigan…raised in Geneva and Paris,lived for some years in Saigon and stayed with my parents when they lived in Lebanon etc…French education,so I know how you feel.The French,mostly unable to speak a foreign language really well love to detect the slightest accent.I have French Nationality as well.and when they act superior I just say That I am French ,yes,and by the way you have an accent …could it be Marseille or Lille?..or maybe Swiss?
Nationality is a sore point in this household. It has taken me a year to recoup all the necessary documentation to have French Nationality which would make my life so much easier. Alors, I have just been refused French Nationality as I am unable to contact the Embassy of the land of my birth to have my documents stamped . I was born in Rhodesia, which no longer exists, thus, according to the bossy woman wedged firmly behind her counter in the Prefecture, neither officially do I...... Neither the British Consulate ('nous n'acceptons JAMAIS ça!") nor the Zimbabwean High Commission (ça non plus!) will do.
Ironically, when I go back to Zim I have to pay $50 USD under the counter for a visa. If I travel on a French passport, tis free!
Oh and when I reply to the question here, 'What Nationality' and I say 'Zimbabwe', the response is always, always the same - ' But you are white!'
I laugh. Then I say "Guess". Then I have a real laugh.