Saturday, 2 November 2013

How Finnish do you have to be to be considered Finnish?

A Somali who grew up in Finland was on a television talk show panel this week talking about Islam. No I am not about to blog on Islam or any religion for that matter. But she made an off topic comment that got me thinking. She said although she was originally from Somalia she had moved here at the age of two. Consequently she spent all her life in Finland, grew up in Finland, speaks Finnish and identifies with Finland. She also said she and her family had adapted and assimilated to the Finnish lifestyle and culture yet she was always considered an immigrant. She said it seems that if you don't look like the stereotypical "ethnic Finn", white with blond hair and blue eyes, you are not considered Finnish. Her comment made me ask "How Finnish do you have to be, to be considered Finnish?" Will my daughter ever be considered Finnish?

There is a sort of mindset in Europe, but especially in mono-cultural Finland, that if your forefathers aren't from here and you don't look ethnically Finnish then you are not Finnish. It is a mindset foreign to us from the western hemisphere. A Brazilian friend and I once had this discussion. In our countries it didn't matter what someone looked like or where their ancestors were from, they were seen first and foremost as a Trinidadian or a Brazilian. It comes from being from a country where everyone's heritage is from somewhere else. We naturally assume someone is a Trinidadian or Brazilian until they say otherwise. Here it is the opposite.

Even my husband who is white with dirty blond hair, but his father is Hungarian, is sometimes introduced as "Robert who is half Hungarian". Or "This is Robert, his father is from Hungary". The first time I heard someone introduce him like this I was bewildered. I didn't understand the need for the explanation/qualification of where his father was from. To me he looks Finnish, sounds Finnish, thinks Finnish acts Finnish therefore he is Finnish and should just be introduced as Robert.

And these stories of Finns assumed to be immigrants because they look Latino or Asian or Middle Eastern are quite common. I was on the bus one day and a lady I had met at the local perhetalo came on the bus with her child and the stroller. Her child didn't want to sit in the stroller so they both sat on a bus seat while the stroller stood in it's designated space. When they were getting off the bus an elderly woman said " You foreigners should do like everyone else and ride the bus with your child sitting in the stroller!" She assumed my friend was a foreigner because she looks Latina as her mother is Colombian and she has dark hair and brown eyes. But the lady was born and grown in Finland! At work I have a co-worker who was adopted from Vietnam and she said she gets the assumption that she is a mamu (Finnish slang/derogatory word for immigrant) all the time. Even my open minded husband has made the mistaken assumption that someone is foreign based on how they look and I have to correct him. I guess this way of thinking is the consequence of still being such a mono-cultural country with very little immigration.

So my question is how Finnish will my daughter need to be to be considered Finnish? If she is born here, raised here, speaks Finnish without an accent, thinks like a Finn and acts like a Finn will that be enough for her to ever be considered Finnish? Or will Finns always assume she is an immigrant based on how she looks? Hopefully in the future mindsets will have changed.


  1. With all respects, this matter is something that nearly all countries share - an ethnic Chinese or Japanese in South America will NEVER be considered anything else. Even in Trinidad or in Jamaica, people does speak of "chinee", "spanish" or "syrian" - and the treatment one gets from others is LARGELY based on ethnicity. My wife has Trini roots going well beyond that "400 years" many often refer to as a point of origin and roots, being partly a Carib/Arawak. She also has much European in her bloodline, so she is "fair-skin". When she went to markets in POS, the prices quoted to her by vendors (of other ethnicity) were on average DOUBLE that what her afro-Trinidadian friend (who would buy the goods for her as a favour) received. A tru fact that.

    I know many Finns with partly African origin, and many of these friends are widely accepted as "Finns" by those who know them. For the Joe Public on the street, they are and always will be "foreign"due to their looks. Ignorance is often based on judging the book by its covers.

    It gets even more tricky when culture enters the picture: Our daughter will never be 100% Finnish - culturally. Our home culture, by its core nature, IS a mixture - not purely Finnish. As is, her ways, manners, likes of food, music etc - will never be purely Finnish (however this concept is understood, since much of any country's culture is actually based on imports..!). All the better for her, her world will be that much richer.

    1. I see what you are getting at. Yes in Trinidad we do distinguish people based on ethnicity/race and call them "Chinee", "Indian", "Syrian" and "French Creole" but no one ever assumes they are immigrants. They are all viewed as Trinis. Even white people aren't assumed to be a foreigner unless they are unusually pale, like my Finnish husband, to be a Trini white. Therein lies the subtle difference. In discussion with my Brazilian friends about this post they also agreed with me. There all types of races in Brazil and yes people see themselves and others as ethnically Italian or Japanese or black but they all consider themselves Brazilian and would not assume that an unusually blond person was an immigrant upon sight like people in Finland do when they see someone who looks non-blond/blue eyed. And when I visited Costa Rica they did distinguish the black people (who were descendants of Jamaican railroad workers from a generation or 2 back) but they considered them Costa Ricans not immigrants. The treatment of blacks in South America or the big prices they like to buss on your "fair skinned" wife and my "Syrian" friend in the market is a different matter unrelated to them being "South American or Trinidadian enough".

  2. I do not actually agree with this, I think you are simplifying the issue. In Trinidad, people distinguish other people based on ethnicity - but these people themselves feel they are Trini, regardless of their ethnic origin - YES.

    However, the other Trinis do not always share this view of "united Trinidadianess" at all, unfortunately - that I feel is a bit of a lovely myth, which simply is not true. Come any disagreement, political negativity, or such - and people are quick to resort to race or ethnicity in the most unpleasant way. It all starts already from childhood. "Chinee chinee neva die, flat nose an' chinky eye" I heard a group of black children taunting some ethnic Chinese after school. My wife's kid brother was severely beaten in a boy scout camp - his leg was broken. The attackers, when questioned why they did what they did, made it clear that "he ent black, he ent coolie, he doh belong here". The case went all the way to politics, as his mother was working in the ministry, and the president is the head of boy scouts. Adults too resort easily to racial slurs in a conflict situation. "Every creed and race, find an equal space" gets a rather hollow echo quickly.

    I had a good friend from Peru in university in London, and a friend from Trinidad too. They shared the fact that they are ethnic Asian - one was Japanese, one Chinese. Both felt that in their country, the majorities were prejudice and racist against them, whenever it suit the purpose. "We may work as one, but we don't play as one" was told to me by Singaporeans, when I lived there. Each of the ethnic majority feels the other does not belong there as much as they do.

    As soon as an individual drops the rose-red glasses, and actually LOOKS around, one may see things that aren't all that pleasant - in every country. Finland is, unfortunately, no exection in this. I suspect it will take a fair long time before some people accept less fair-skinned Finns as Finns. My point is, this in my experience is sadly in no way different to other places - regardless of what one may wish to believe. Had you represented a minority in Trinidad, you might feel very differently about this matter.

    1. I was not trying to say there is no racism or predjudice in Trinidad or Latin America. There is everywhere. My point is that in countries of the Western Hemisphere you don't have to look a certain way to BELONG to that country or be considered a fellow national.

      Yes I also witnessed children in my primary school children taunting the first Trini white to attend our school by surounding him and calling him honky. I had no idea at the time (I think we were somewhere around 8 - 10 years old) what the word meant. He later came to be accepted but no one ever ASSUMED from the get go that he was not Trini.

      My point in this post is that no matter if you were born here in Finland, spent your formative years here, speak fluid Finnish but do not look like and ethnic Finn you will never quite be considered Finnish or always upon sight be assumed to be an immigrant. Because Finland has traditionally been pretty much monocultural there is the concept of the ethnic Finn who looks blond and blue eyed. So it is assumed that if you do not look like that you must be an immigrant. I have noticed simmilar sentiments in some other European countries too. And I think this is because many European nations have been created along distinct lines of ethnic groups, races and cultures so there is this strong sense of recognizing who looks like "us" as oposed to who looks like "other". Which a nation based on immigration of various ethnic groups, races and cultures cannot by it's very nature have a distint identity or look.

      In countries of the Western Hemisphere, because of the nature of our history, being so mixed as countries of immigrants, that idea of the ethnic original inhabitant (though there are of course native inhabitants, which have been displaced and marginalized in most of these countries) as the only one who could possibly belong to the nation is a concept foreign to us. The Latin American may treat black people in their countries badly but they still consider them Venezuelans or Costa Ricans or Brazillians etc. They do not assume they must be from somewhere else upon sight. A black Trini may make racist predjudiced comments toward a Chinee or Indian or white person but they do not believe thay are not Trinidadian or assume upon sight that they cannot be a Trini. And THAT is my point. We all originally come from somewhere else so we do not make this assumption that those who do not look like the majority are not nationals.

      Whether we live in perfect harmony or not was not my point and unfortunately is not the reality in any country where there are different groups of people.

  3. Just to comment further - you say " The treatment of blacks in South America or the big prices they like to buss on your "fair skinned" wife and my "Syrian" friend in the market is a different matter unrelated to them being "South American or Trinidadian enough."

    It may not be about not being South American or Trini enough, but - it is PURELY race-based prejudice. Racism. It does not get much uglier than that. I sincerely hope that you, or anyone else who is not Finnish - or white - does not have to put up with such antics - especially in their own country! Just think how this makes one feel: Your family has roots going back 10,000 years in the country, and your "fellow citizens" ask you to pay double prices - becuse of the way you does look.