Just catching up to this post from Ivy: Do southeast Asian-Australian writers write partly to challenge the Anglo-Celtic mainstream by bringing to life their personal renditions of their Australian identity?
(Question from a dumb American: What is this "Anglo-Celtic mainstream" of which you speak?)
Okay, I asked the dude and he writes:
ReplyDelete"anglo-celtic is similar to anglo-saxon. in other words, the largely white, english mainstream world the [sic] continues to dominate australian politics, culture and society in spite of oz's 'multiculturalism'..."
Hope that's clear now. :-)
Thanks, Ivy. I think it's the "Celtic" part that threw me--I suppose it must be a nod to the Irish heritage of many white Australians.
ReplyDeleteSo is "mainstream" Australian culture understood to have a significant "Celtic" component to it, i.e. influenced by the culture of Ireland as opposed to a more narrowly "English" character?
I think in this regard of the way Canadians will speak of "English Canada," which is both a linguistic distinction (vs. "French Canada") and an ethnic one (as a stand-in for "white Canada," identified with the descendants of English settlers).
In the U.S. "Anglo-Saxon" has even a slightly different valence, I think; a few decades ago it would have been used to describe a particular group defined not just by descent but by class and religion and region (as in "White Anglo-Saxon Protestant"), but now the term "Anglo" has (largely following Texas usage, I guess) become a synonym for "white" in many parts of the country. I don't hear Americans, though, talking about the "Anglo-Saxon mainstream," perhaps since "whiteness" in the U.S. has long since ceased to be identified with British descent.