Would you consider someone to be English if they are born outside of England?

>ethnicity >/ɛθˈnɪsɪti/ >noun >the quality or fact of belonging to a population group or subgroup made up of people who share a common cultural background or descent. I'd say that since ethnicity can (according to Google's definition) refer to EITHER your cultural background OR your line of descent, it absolutely can be to do with where you were raised, or who you were born from, but not really _where_ you were born. So yes, English/British is an ethnicity (and Scottish or Irish or Welsh are too), it's just not a very useful concept any more, at least not to people who live in the UK. I can explain... Anecdotally, the culture people are most comfortable with seems to carry the most weight when they describe themselves. E.g. strongly Westernised people from immigrant families would likely say they're English, but 1st or 2nd generation immigrants who hold their homeland culture dearest are less likely to think of themselves as English first, even if they've lived here for decades. Further, for me it seems weird to think of someone as "ethnically English" if they were born in England, to English parents, but soon after birth were raised entirely in, say, Russia, although technically that would be correct to say. Myself, I'd consider them to be a Russian of English descent, but ultimately it's kind of up to them how strongly they feel they've embraced Russian culture. According to Google's definition, such a person's "ethnicity" is completely up for debate, as the reasons for and against being considered "ethnically English" and "ethnically Russian" would be equally valid. The very concept of ethnicity diminishes in usefulness the more international our lives become. I think it's more useful to think of people as being "culturally English/British", as it makes the distinction clearly, where ethnicity has one foot in the concepts of both culture and lineage. Try asking "Are African-Americans ethnically African or ethnically American?" Because they have an American culture and are of African descent, Google's definition actually doesn't answer that question, it just kind of shrugs and says "...both? ...Kinda... I dunno, is it important?" I think in the UK we mostly take pretty much the same attitude. In the case of your husband, if he calls himself Vietnamese, he's not wrong. But he wouldn't be wrong to call himself Australian either.

>ethnicity >/ɛθˈnɪsɪti/ >noun >the quality or fact of belonging to a population group or subgroup made up of people who share a common cultural background or descent. I'd say that since ethnicity can (according to Google's definition) refer to EITHER your cultural background OR your line of descent, it absolutely can be to do with where you were raised, or who you were born from, but not really _where_ you were born. So yes, English/British is an ethnicity (and Scottish or Irish or Welsh are too), it's just not a very useful concept any more, at least not to people who live in the UK. I can explain... Anecdotally, the culture people are most comfortable with seems to carry the most weight when they describe themselves. E.g. strongly Westernised people from immigrant families would likely say they're English, but 1st or 2nd generation immigrants who hold their homeland culture dearest are less likely to think of themselves as English first, even if they've lived here for decades. Further, for me it seems weird to think of someone as "ethnically English" if they were born in England, to English parents, but soon after birth were raised entirely in, say, Russia, although technically that would be correct to say. Myself, I'd consider them to be a Russian of English descent, but ultimately it's kind of up to them how strongly they feel they've embraced Russian culture. According to Google's definition, such a person's "ethnicity" is completely up for debate, as the reasons for and against being considered "ethnically English" and "ethnically Russian" would be equally valid. The very concept of ethnicity diminishes in usefulness the more international our lives become. I think it's more useful to think of people as being "culturally English/British", as it makes the distinction clearly, where ethnicity has one foot in the concepts of both culture and lineage. Try asking "Are African-Americans ethnically African or ethnically American?" Because they have an American culture and are of African descent, Google's definition actually doesn't answer that question, it just kind of shrugs and says "...both? ...Kinda... I dunno, is it important?" I think in the UK we mostly take pretty much the same attitude. In the case of your husband, if he calls himself Vietnamese, he's not wrong. But he wouldn't be wrong to call himself Australian either.