Talk:Americans in the United Kingdom

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[edit] Name change

Like COP663 i'm noit a huge fan of the original name 'American-British' as I've never really seen or heard it used. Not sure that 'American Migration to Britain' covers it either - the article is actually about people with American descent, rather than a population movement per se. How about 'Britons with American Ancestory'. Lets discuss it a little before making a move. Indisciplined (talk) 19:26, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

"Britons" are people who are actually British. Is Madonna a "Briton" if she owns a house here? The article says "London is home to many Americans, mostly workers in the City of London. This population is anecdotally thought to be fairly mobile, coming for a few years or just perhaps a few months before departing again." Are such people "Britons with American ancestry?" Of course not. If you want to call this article "Britons with American ancestry" you'll need to delete a lot of unrelated material. The title "American migration to Britain" covers everything this article is about: immigrants, the children of immigrants, migrant workers, and temporary residents. So it depends what you think the article should be about. Cop 663 (talk) 20:12, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm. And therein might lay the bigger problem. Lots of these articles were created in a very short space of time without a particularly clear theme. This is one of them. Americans aren't an Ethnic group, like say Greek Britons. Whether there is an 'American community' in Britain is questionable. Not all the people cited are US citizens or US born. Some people listed were born to British parents who happened to be living in the states at the time. But the article isn't about a 'migration'. What is the article for? As more and more information has been added, it seems the article's focus has become a lot more blurred. (BTW, doesn't Madonna probably holds UK citizenship by right of her British husband?)Indisciplined (talk) 22:23, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, quite. If we don't know what the article is for, it makes sense to have a title as broad as possible. There is an "American community" in Britain, but it's mostly students and temporary workers hanging out together, nothing like the long-standing Greek-British community. Using the word 'migration' doesn't mean a migration, it just means the act of migration in general (Madonna has migrated to Britain). But maybe something even broader like "Americans in Britain" would be better. Incidentally, I don't think citizenship is automatically conferred by marriage. Cop 663 (talk) 00:29, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

'Americans in Britain'. Perfect! (Phew! The Wikipedia concept does work after all). Lets go with that. (And ditto 'Canadians in Britain') Indisciplined (talk) 23:56, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Of course, if Winston Churchill is going to stay, the title will have to be interpreted loosely as including the 'effect' of Americans in Britain (i.e. the existence of jowly prime ministers of part-American ancestry on our native soil). But I don't suppose that's a big problem. Cop 663 (talk) 02:59, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Ethnicity

Erm....what exactly is the point of stating the ethnicity of the notable people. It's crept in somewhere, and I can't see why. Indisciplined (talk) 12:06, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Just to say...

I moved the Union Flag to infront of the USA flag as it should come first. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.69.200.23 (talk) 19:22, 23 May 2008 (UTC)