One of the things I learned in these readings is that England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are not their own separate countries.  I had always thought that they were, I guess because of how much the English, Scots, Welsh, and Irish distinguish themselves and are themselves distinguished from one another.    

I have discovered that the U.K. is a much more diverse nation than I had before suspected.  I think we as Americans get so caught up in the idea of the U.S. as a melting pot that we don’t realize we are not the only nation to be so.  People are immigrating and emigrating more and more, so that the whole world is becoming one giant melting pot.  In some of my classes this past semester we talked about the difficulties people face when they move to another land.  One of the big issues becomes that of self-identity.  Immigrants must decide for themselves when to assimilate and when to hold onto tradition.  This is an issue facing British minorities, as well as those in the U.S.  I also see some of the same resistance to foreigners in the U.K. that exists in the U.S., as in the “cricket test.”  Some people in Britain believe that immigrants should adopt the British cricket team in the same way that a lot of Americans believe immigrants should adopt the English language.  I think this stems from a fear of losing their own self-identities.  They are afraid that the minorities will eventually become the majority, and they themselves the minority.  Then they will have to choose to assimilate, or maintain their own customs in face of oppression.   

When it comes to regional identity, I think the situation in the U.K. is comparable to that in the U.S.  The English, Scottish, Irish, and Welsh distinguish themselves from one another in the same way that we in America distinguish Southerners from Northerners, the East Coast from the West, and one state from another.  I think we all have our own brand of regional pride.