Well, of course they are, and for a while I was all too active to participate in this. But since I speak to my own parents in English (even though they speak Welsh among themselves), yet with pretty much everyone else in Welsh, and I got several accusations of not being proud of my country for relatively minor things, I started to think about it. Then I came to my conclusions, which you can see above, and realised I think more about my own qualities than the qualities of the country which I was just assimilating for reasons I don't even remember anymore. Possibly to fit in?
In Ireland, so long as you feel Irish, you might as well BE Irish. Not so in Wales. You have to speak Welsh, read Welsh, and watch S4C 24/7 even though some of the programming is actually quite poor before you even have a shot at being considered Welsh.
Not to say I think with a more "Wales has been conquered" mindset, which I don't, but I don't hold favour with either the English or the Welsh. I think it's a sad day when neighbouring countries refuse to get along. I mean even I joke about "my" nation when it comes to rugby (because we all know that rugby is the national sport, and Wales are awesome at it
), but I know a girl who, while not being horribly nationalistic, hates English people on sight, and sometimes even refuses to speak English on that basis. She also wears her Welsh Rugby shirt all day every day which is a bit odd.
So, if you're Welsh how come you have an American flag eh? You may be in America but what happened to Cymru Am Byth?