Gus Hall is my favorite. Most (older) Americans recognize his name, at least those who vote.

I wish folks would refrain from adding facts about famous people’s distant Finnish relatives on their Wikipedia pages. The world really does not need to know that Pamela Anderson’s paternal grandfather was Hermanni Hyytiäinen from Saarijärvi or that Matt Damon’s maternal great grandmother was Impi Nieminen. In fact, it’s kind of embarrassing that someone felt the need to add such pointless facts on their pages out of a woefully misguided sense of patriotic boosterism.

I thought Matt Damon was like hardcore Irish-American …

There is also more embarrassing cases, like Aileen Wuornos or George W. Bush.

And in Sweden Pamela Anderson is called “Swedish-American” because she also has Swedish roots.

Excellent post, lamb. I quite agree, it is rather pathetic, and only Kaukonen and maybe Saarinen are worth having anyway.

Could Finns be as addicted to the cult of personality as the Americans?

How about Finnish-Americans VS American-Finns in perhaps mud wrestling or snooker?

How about Finnish-Americans VS American-Finns in perhaps mud wrestling or snooker?

Ok. Round 1, me vs. Pamela Anderson.

Danish Americans have a much more appetizing stock. Scarlett Johansson, Jessica Alba, Eliza Dushku, Olsen twins…

How come Al Aho is not included?

Could D.Lynch be the long lost American cousin of A. Kaurismäki?

Hey, Maila Nurmi aka Vampira is missing too…

Oops, Maila was on the Wikipedia list. How about Willian Niska of the CATO institute.

Tom of Finland, anyone? Looks like he’s not been invited to the party.

Could D.Lynch be the long lost American cousin of A. Kaurismäki?

I seem to remember David Lynch said in an interview that his ancestors were Finlandswedes.

#13

I don’t think ToF ever lived in the US.

He spent quite some time there in the 1980s. “Still, throughout the Eighties, the trips to America continued to increase until Tom was spending six months in L.A. with Durk Dehner for every six he spent back in Helsinki.”

But I’ll grant you it was a surprise to me to realise he never emigrated. I’d somehow imagined he was there for decades.

Thanks Phil for the documentary link. It was very interesting.

Also; this is the worst example of streaming I have ever witnessed. Not only can you not download it to your hard drive, the stream is so high quality that my bandwidth (100 kb/s in) was not good enough to roll it without some very heavy grade lagging.

I watched it, but it was very annoying how it skipped now and then and the picture would vanish and what not.

Very poorly executed.

But the document itself was very interesting. I wonder how the community in Michigan fares this day. Back at lukio we had a exchange student from there, and she understood Finnish well enough to attend classes – but was she expection or regular case…

Danish Americans have a much more appetizing stock. Scarlett Johansson, Jessica Alba, Eliza Dushku, Olsen twins…

Not to mention Viggo Mortensen.

Add MIKE MARKKULA one of the founders and later
CEO of APPLE in late 1970′s and early 1980′s.

Wikipedia left out Christine Lahti.

I find most of these genealogy “studies” amusing. I once took a weekend off my other hobbies and trawled the net for genealogy pages and family trees. It seems about 50% of all the people in USA and Europe are direct descendants of the ancient Finnish king Fornjotur. (Vanha Jotuni)

Maybe I’m one of those too. My father is from Karelia and my mother from Bothnia, so the odds are in my favor.

Finnish ancestry by city

http://www.epodunk.com/ancestry/Finnish.html

The Delaware Finns

http://www.genealogia.fi/emi/art/article298fe.htm

Hollywood make a movie about Lauri Törni!

“Hollywood make a movie about Lauri Törni!”

But they already made one with John Wayne playing Törni. Surely it would make a great movie, if they also covered his life before Vietnam, but I guess Törni’s brief adventure with waffen-SS would probably be too much for the American audiences.

Of course, the Hollywood version would begin with a scene of a ship approaching New York and Lauri jumping off and swimming to the shore. If I remember, he spent his first years as an illegal immigrant.

If Renny Harlin ever makes his Mannerheim movie I’m sure Törni will make an appearance. (I have no idea if they ever met in the real world,though).

“If Renny Harlin ever makes his Mannerheim movie I’m sure Törni will make an appearance.”

Oh barf. Can we have another Renny and Geena gala?

Excellent post, lamb. I quite agree, it is rather pathetic, and only Kaukonen and maybe Saarinen are worth having anyway.

Kaukonen is actually half Finnish, although his website – http://www.jormakaukonen.com – shows him to look one hundred percent.

But his mother was of Russian Jewish stock and he’s embraced that a lot more in recent years, as this recent post on his site attests.

Yesterday a rare choice was made. I did not even turn on the computer once. Holy cow! Was I sick or something? I guess it had a lot to do with the New Year, *5767* which came in yesterday along with the first day of Fall, so I’ll take this moment to wish all a peaceful and fulfilling new year in which your dreams come true. This weekend has afforded me some serene moments. These are rare in such troubled times so they are muchly appreciated.

lamb, #2: maybe it’s not appropriate on wikipedia, but it’s interesting for finnish-americans. (for me, it’s about heritage, history, and diaspora. patriotism-schmatriotism — it’s just interesting.)

phil: nice post in linking to the folkstreams documentary. i’ve actually seen that before, while studying a ‘music in the multi-cultural u.s.’ course.

True finn is always shamed about his/hers nationality

^^ My comment was longer?!?! Well I just pointed out that finn tryes not to do remarkable achievement work of art, science etc. because that might reveal their true self (as being finn).

check out http://www.charleswuorinen.com
Charles Wuorinen is one of the great finnish american modern composers.

Hello! Good Site! Thanks you! emqepckzkwqv

What about Warren Casey/

I recall reading many years ago the U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt had some Finnish ancestors. Can anyone help me find the source of this information?

um, What about Warren Casey?

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