Hyphenated american?

Ok so i have a question. sometimes people get on me when i say i am german, or german-american. i am an american citizen, but my parents are both from germany. the thing is, they dont even speak german anymore, i learned hardly any (mostly from my grandparents). i think the case with most americans of european descent is they call themselves americans because they're scotch-irish-italian-american or pretty much a 'mutt', and their families have been here for several generations. is it tacky because i'm not really german in that im not from there or have lived there to say i'm german?