Last week my fiance and I were having a conversation about American's identifying with different cultures. (This was largely concerning how "Irish" American's celebrate St. Patrick's day). She looked at me and said, "How long do you think before American's are so intermingled that American is a nationality?" It struck me as odd because I view myself as American, not German or Irish or whatnot.
For me it's odd because my name was at one point Irish (it's been altered throughout time) but my Father was adopted by his step-father to take his name so my father's "real" heritage was largely English, I believe. My mother's family was largely German, but both families have been in America for so long that no one remembers when we came over. I was born in Texas and raised in Iowa. The only time I've left the country was on a Carribean Cruise. I am American, it's as simple as that.
America is a melting pot. Native American culture is, sadly, a very small part of American culture now. (Yes, that is due to violence and treachery which was awful, but that is not the conversation we're supposed to be having here and can be discussed elsewhere). Everything else has been appropriated by the people who moved here largely to get away from their former cultures, or at least parts of them. I don't believe that things belong to a specific culture, I believe that they originate from them. I also believe that we should be respectful of that.
We should understand where everything comes from, but I'm not going to tell my friend he can't like Chinese food because his last name is Hernandez. Just like I'm not going to tell my friend who is probably very German in heritage that she can't draw in manga/anime style because it's Japanese and she's not. What sense would that make?
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