Nationally-mixed People and their Relationship to their Foreign Country of Origin
Studying the identity of children “nationally” mixed couples helps shed light on contemporary debates on the control of immigration and integration of immigrant populations. Such an endeavor helps clarify the factors that can shape national identity. This article analyzes the “practical’or “symbolic” character of national identity with respect to the country of origin of the migrant parent, based on the identity discourse of about one hundred children mixed couples interviewed in France, Germany and the United Kingdom. The identification that children mixed couples have with their foreign country of origin seems to be symbolic, i.e., elective rather than because of community pressure. It is based above all on emotional connections and the child-parent relationship. While in the United Kingdom this symbolic identity is aggregated with numerous other identities, in Germany it enriches the feeling of belonging to the existing foreign country of origin. In France, it compensates for the absence of identifications other than those that refer to French nationhood.