A complicated issue

This will not be something light and entertaining. I will talk about an issue that has dark and terrible connotations to some and is to others almost as important as the air they breath.

In my local newspaper there is an article in the cultural section of the paper ”Kosmopoliter skriver om ursprungsfixerad värld” (Cosmopolitans write about origin fixated world). In Sweden we have a nationalistic party and they sometimes quote out of context what one leader in the green party said; that if you ride the subway in Stockholm you are Swedish. To be a member of the SS you had to prove that you were of Germanic descent from the 18th century. There are a lot of people in the US that describe themselves as Italian or Irish without having been to any of these countries or maybe even knowing the language.

Origins are a very important issue to a lot of people but it is all a matter of opinion and there is very little respect for the fact that people may have different (very different) opinions.

There are two important parts when you discuss something like origin. How deep does it have to go and what implications should it have. The two parts are very different and should be held separate. Two other concepts that are important to keep apart are nationality and citizenship. Here citizenship is far less complicated it doesn't matter where you were born or by which parents, when you are a citizen you are on equal footing with all other citizen.
The last part is not entirely true. Try to become president of the United States and people might question your origins since only someone born American can become president.

To some people belonging in a place is easy, wherever you hang your hat is your home. To these people origin is not very important, what is important is the individual. To others the feeling of belonging requires history.

I was born in Svärdsjö a small village outside of Falun in Dalecarlia a province of Sweden. I feel very much at home in Svärdsjö since I grew up there. But I am not a Svärdsjöbo (native of Svärdsjö). My parents didn't come from Svärdsjö so I don't have that connection to the place, and believe me that the people living in Svärdsjö do know things like this. But it does not matter, I am treated in the same way as everyone else in Svärdsjö and if someone told me that I am not a real Svärdsjöbo I would agree. Though I do consider myself a mas (male from Dalecarlia) because one of my parents are from Dalecarlia and I have family ties going back as far as the 16th century. My other parent is from the province of Småland but I have never lived there.
I also consider myself Swedish since this is the country I live in, was born in, and that all my known ancestors was born and lived in. Frankly I don't consider someone with both parents from outside Sweden to be Swedish and this might upset some people. I would not be terrible upset if someone considered me to be a Svärdsjöbo as I guess quite a few people might do, Svärdsjö is my home and if people ask me were I am from that is the place. But I know that I don't have deep roots in Svärdsjö.

The important part here is that I realise that all of the above are my opinions. There is nothing true or false, nothing testable. Yet this is very important on an emotional level to many people. Since we are individuals we probably have varying needs of feeling that we belong in a place and we also have varying definitions of what it means to belong in a place.
It is worrying that many people talking about this issue don't acknowledge that it is both complicated and individual. With migration we will have people growing up in places there they will not feel that they belong even if they are born there, and we will have people that feel right at home just by riding the subway. No one is more right than the other.

Are these individual differences in how we feel that we belong in a place cultural or biological? Probably a mix of both. But we should be careful not to try to force one point of view on everyone else. You can't force people to feel Swedish just by claiming that nationality and citizenship should be the same thing some people might not agree.
What you should do is to treat people as individuals with varying needs to belong and recognise that some people find this complicated and important and others don't care at all. And above all you should not categorise people as good or bad because of where you feel they should belong.