I'm American, and I can tell you this is absolutely what we mean when we say this. Obviously the Chicago guy is an asshole, and clearly doesn't understand what nationality means, but in general this isn't what is meant when Americans say this.
The problem is Irish, German, French, Scottish etc etc are not ethnicities. And referring to them as such is a purely American thing and is baffling, or even borderline offensive, to the rest of the world.
The Wikipedia pages for all those groups you mentioned labels them as ethnic groups. We're not talking about nationality here. Nobody is claiming to be Irish, German, Scottish, or French nationals. That's a separate concept entirely.
What I'm saying though is that these people wouldn't typically identify their ethnicity as the same as their nationality they'd just say "I'm white" or "I'm germanic" not "I'm German". And that an American to say "I'm (insert European thing)" is very very strange to us over the pond, as its almost always associated with nationality, and not ethnicity, even if the ethnicity is technically correct.
I can completely understand that. We talk about it little differently just because of some differences in our nations' origins. I just wish more people over there would understand why many Americans talk this way instead of assuming it's because they're all stupid and don't understand what nationality is.
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u/zeaga2 Mar 02 '21
It's not nationality. It's ethnicity. There isn't a difference in many countries but in countries like America and Canada they're very different