USA Citizens as Americans or Something Else?

[toicontien]

Before I start, I posted this question here because I know I'll get a good mix of U.S. and non-U.S. opinions. If you react merely on emotion, click the back button now. If you like to ponder difficult questions, well then, :) this is the post for you.

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I was perusing USA Today's breaking news when I happened upon this piece (http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/01/pesosforpizza_c.html). This forum topic has nothing to do with the actual subject of the article, rather it has to do with one of the comments. It's something USA-ians may have heard before: All North and South Americans are called Americans. Not just people from the United States. I've been pondering the quandary for a while. As a citizen of the U.S.A., what should I call myself?

Some things to think about:

1) I can see why "American" would be misleading for everyone else. What if there was a United States of Europe. It certainly wouldn't make sense to call people from the U.S.E. Europeans (the fact U.S.E. spells a word is coincidental). The British are Europeans, as are the Czechs, Poles, etc. The U.S.A. is located in the Americas, so I can see why it doesn't make sense to call ourselves Americans.

2) There is no North Europe and South Europe. There IS North America and South America. Politically, there is no America. Politically, both North America South America are not collectively known as America. Just look at a geopolitical map. There's nothing wrong with calling ourselves "Americans" because Canadians are North Americans. Guatamalans are Central Americans. Brazilians are South Americans.

3) No other word in the name "United States of America" can be turned into a possessive form like other country names.

Britain = British.
France = French.
China = Chinese.
Morocco = Moroccan
United States of America = ... um ... Unitedians, uh. Statesians. Unitedites. Statites. USA-ians, US-ians... "American" makes the most sense, just looking at our country name.

So really we're not calling ourselves Americans in order to claim ownership of the name. Literally, what the heck else can we call ourselves?

4) And then there's South Africa. They call themselves South Africans, right? (Kind of assuming at this point). It certainly makes no sense for South Africans to call themselves Africans. So maybe we should call ourselves "United States of Americans." But that just sounds ... awkward.

So here's the question: What else could "Americans" call themselves? Or, should Americans introduce themselves as such using double finger quotes. "I'm an [quote, unquote] American." :)

Here are some of my suggestions:

* Stater
* Statesman/woman
* Unitarian (which brings a whole bunch of baggage (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/unitarian))
* Unitite (yue-ni-tite)
* Unitish (yue-nie-tish)
* Capitalist Pig -- WAIT -- that term was SOOOO 20th Century!

Or should we just say "I'm from the States?" The object is though, is there a possessive form of "United States of America" that can be used?

[NogDog]

No country other than the USA (at least that I can think of) has the word "America" in it, so in the context of nationality "American" is not ambiguous. If I want to specify what continent I'm from, analogous to someone from France saying s/he is a European, then I am a North American. I frankly don't recall anyone ever claiming that s/he is a "Euro-Afri-Asian" or such to indicate that s/he is from somewhere in that group of continents, and likewise I've never heard anyone claim s/he is an "American" to indicate that s/he lives on the land mass between the Atlantic and Pacific ocean.

As far as I'm concerned (from my completely biased view, I'm sure, as an American citizen from birth), there is no ambiguity in saying, "I am an American." If I say that, everyone knows that it means, "I am a citizen of the United States of America." No Canadian, Mexican, Cuban, Puerto Rican, or Brazilian that I've met has ever claimed to be an American or confused by the common usage of it meaning someone from the USA. (I picked those countries as those I definitely know I've met at least a few citizens of and spoken with more than just briefly and casually.)

I wish this world were much less nationalistic, which might actually cause people to be more concerned about what continent they are from instead of what country; but it isn't. If, in fact, there are fellow New Worldeans (TM) who find it confusing and/or insulting that "American" is commonly used to mean "Citizen of the United States of America," then I would be very interested in knowing what they prefer to call people from our country (officially - not when they're upset about what Dubya is up to now ;) ).

PS: I'm glad that they used Amerigo Vespucci's first name, as I think I prefer being an American rather than being a Vespuccian. :)

[felgall]

Using any derivitive of United States would be more confusing because the USA is only one of many countries which are united states (although they are the only one that always indicates that in their name).

[Charles]

I've always found it a disappointment that the Estados Unidos de Mexico always uses the short form. However, if North America is populated with the United States of Mexico and the United States of America (and a few Canadians) and if some call themselves Mexicans then the others can be forgiven for calling themselves Americans.

[NogDog]

Oh, and shouldn't the British really be called the Kingdomians, since technically they are citizens of the United Kingdom? ;)

[MstrBob]

Honestly, when we come down to it, USA is a pretty bland name. We're in the same boat as the UAE or UK, when you think about it. Only in the UK, they have the benefit of other names, i.e. British - ahem, I'm sorry English, or Scottish, or Welsh.

I'm inclined to use the term American. Why? Well quite simply, we were obviously faced with this question over 200 years ago. It was apparently decided that American was the best they could do, and as a programmer I'm not inclined to reinvent the wheel, especially when perfectly good libraries for it already exist. ;)


You know, I really look forward to finding life in the Galaxy so that we can do what they all do in Sci-Fi's - simply call ourselves humans.

[felgall]

Oh, and shouldn't the British really be called the Kingdomians, since technically they are citizens of the United Kingdom? ;)

Well the English come from England.

"Britain" is England + Wales
"Great Britain" is Britain + Scotland
"The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" - rather obvious from the name.

Since Kingdom comes near the beginning of the name calling people from the UK "kingdomians" would be like calling people from the USA "stans".

[NightShift58]

Almost two years later...

Somewhere above is said that "there is no South Europe". It depends on where you come from... The Germans refer to people with origins in Spain, Italy, parts of the Balkans and Greece as "Südländer" - roughly speaking, "Southerners".

As far as US citizens are concerned, which is how "we" often refer to ourselves, it is also true that we also refer to ourselves as "Americans".

Latin Americans - generally Spanish and Portuguese-speaking, are often referred to as "Latinos".

In Central America, people there refer to themselves as "Centroamericanos".

In Spain, where historically the "Americas" had a different meaning, they refer to South America as both "Iberoamerica" or "America Latina" and to some extent "Sudamerica".

Spanish is also the only language that I know of that has its own adjective for US citizen: "estadounidense".

That word, however, is too much long for the easygoing peoples of Latin America and US citizens are referred to as "gringos". Depending on the country, the word "gringo" can be a simple substitute for "US citizen" or it can be a pejorative, condescending form of the same - depending on the country's historical ties to the US.

"Gringo", as many will know, stems from an old Army/Marine favorite marching song which begins with the words "Green grow the rushes-oh..." - a song introduced to Latin America by Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders...

Over time, though, "gringo" hast lost some of its specificity. Today, in Costa Rica, that word will be used to refer to Canadians as well, who are not to happy about that development...

[toicontien]

Thanks for the great ideas and I'm glad nobody's gotten overly emotional about this. I wanted to pick peoples brains because sometimes we have nothing else better to do :D

... Somewhere above is said that "there is no South Europe". It depends on where you come from...
Very true. People from any region of the world tend to group themselves not only by race, religion or nationality, but also by geographic location. Indentification by geographic location is more a casual method than an official governmental method. While people in Europe may use the term "Southerners," there is no recognized geopolitical area called "South Europe." There is indeed a south Europe, but looking at a map of countries, there's no demarcation point between north and south Europe, as there is with North and South America.


... In Spain, where historically the "Americas" had a different meaning, they refer to South America as both "Iberoamerica" or "America Latina" and to some extent "Sudamerica".
I was not aware of this. I often wondered if "America" had a different geographical meaning to some people. This just shows it does to some extent, where "Americas" is representative of a group of countries or regions.

... US citizens are referred to as "gringos" ... stems from an old Army/Marine favorite marching song which begins with the words "Green grow the rushes-oh..." - a song introduced to Latin America by Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders...
I always wondered where that term came from.

Over time, though, "gringo" hast lost some of its specificity. Today, in Costa Rica, that word will be used to refer to Canadians as well, who are not to happy about that development...
The Canadians are just mad because their subways are clean and their crime rate is low. And American college students keep crossing over to Windsor by Detroit, MI to get hammered on the weekends, take advantage of the drinking age, and generally make a mess of the town.

I've always found it a disappointment that the Estados Unidos de Mexico always uses the short form.
Didn't know that either, that Mexico is the short form. I also just realized I read "Estados Unidos de Mexico" correctly in Spanish (pronouncing the 'x' in Mexico as an 'h') and read Mexico, when by itself later on in your post, using the English pronounciation :D

However, if North America is populated with the United States of Mexico and the United States of America (and a few Canadians) and if some call themselves Mexicans then the others can be forgiven for calling themselves Americans.
That makes sense too. The only difference being the United States of Mexico does not make reference to a continent as United States of America does. We don't refer to the New World as the Mexicos, as we do by referring to it as the Americas. I think if the USA were called something different and Mexico really was called the United States of Mexico, nobody in the world would care if the Mexicans were called Mexicans.

Any opinions from our mates over in the U.K.? I know there's a couple on these forums.

[JPnyc]

I've actually thought about this before. Americans, technically, refers to anyone who lives in The Americas, north, south and central. The world uses the term to refer to US citizens, just as we do, but it's not technically correct as a synonym for USA Citizens.

[rhsunderground]

oftentimes mexicans refer to us (from the USA) as norteamericanos, or 'north americans.'

[toicontien]

... Americans, technically, refers to anyone who lives in The Americas, north, south and central.
That being the crux of the situation.

American == Someone from the Americas.

I've never viewed the New World as the "Americas." Technically too, the term Americas is a synonym for North, Central and South America -- and now we start getting heavy in synonyms. (Of course, even the New World is a synonym to a large land mass that northern Europeans discovered 1,000 years ago, then forgot for 500 years, then rediscovered and subsequently killed most of its existing inhabitants.)

Political rants aside, nowhere on a geopolitical map will you see North, Central and South America collectively called the Americas. Someone thinking an American is from the Americas kind of goes along with the Germans calling people from Spain "Southerners," when referring to south Europe. The Americas is not a continent, though it very well should be. And since the Americas are divided into North, Central (which is really a part of North America) and South America, calling someone from the U.S.A. an American is not confusing.

And yet, though there is no geopolitical division called the Americas, people use that term anyhow. If talking to someone who used that term, I could see how they would think I'm bullish for saying I'm an American, referring to one country in a region of many. I could see how they'd think I was "claiming ownership" over the whole lot. I suppose it all depends on your perspective.

[LeeU]

I've actually thought about this before. Americans, technically, refers to anyone who lives in The Americas, north, south and central. The world uses the term to refer to US citizens, just as we do, but it's not technically correct as a synonym for USA Citizens.

Right on it, Joe! Actually, the illegal Mexican immigrants are still "Americans," they are American citizens. They're just not United States citizens. Technically, there is no such thing as an "American" -- only South Americans, Central Americans, and North Americans. There is no country with just the name "America."

[JPnyc]

Right, our country is named The United States Of America. Kind of long and unwieldly, however.

[bathurst_guy]

I know there is no place called America - but "The United States of America" Kind of says that. I'm from Australia - and the way I see it is that the whole shabang is called America, which is subdivided into North, South and United (central) which then has states within these regions.

[JPnyc]

There is an America. It's a string of 3 connected continents. N. America, housing Canada and the USA, C. America, housing primarily mexico, and south america, with more countries than I intend to type here.

[Stephen Philbin]

Despite being *British, I've also thought about this before too. Though I never actually came up with any kind of satisfactory answer. I just gave up and thought to myself "Meh. They probably just couldn't think of a name... Bless.". Though there's also another very significant dimension to this discussion too.

There's recently been a television program on Channel 4 (http://www.channel4.com/) which found a load of racist morons across England and posed a question to them. As it was, it was rather interesting. Yet when thinking about the same question in respect to people from the United States of America, it now seems an even more interesting question.

The original question was "Are you 100% English?". To start with, they'd ask the participants the seemingly easy question of "Are you 100% English?" to which they'd invariably reply "Yes". Next they would ask the participant "What constitutes being 100% English?". This question yielded quite a wide array of answers (some more comical than others). Then a sample of DNA would be taken from the participant for examination which would inevitably show they actually had ancestry from all over the place. Then they'd take the results of the tests back to the participants, usually provoking rather comical reactions. My favourite of which was probably a woman that later threatened Channel 4 with legal action for trying to imply her ancestry might not be 100% English. That in it's self, I find comical. What makes it even better is her definition of "100% English". Her definition of a person that is 100% English, is someone that has ancestry consisting exclusively of people with no ancestry at all that includes anyone that moved in to the land (including movements into the land by the Angle, Saxon and Jute tribes in the 5th and 6th century).

Now where the hell do you end up when applying that kind of thinking to the United States of America? It rather makes being an "American" quite impossible when you combine the two questions.

* You could call me British, English, Irish, or European. I can't really say I'm arsed to be honest. (I've been called lots of other things too)

[NightShift58]

There is an America. It's a string of 3 connected continents. N. America, housing Canada and the USA, C. America, housing primarily mexico, and south america, with more countries than I intend to type here.Actually, 2 continents... North and South America.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent

EDIT: Central America, though very Latin, is part of North America. In fact, it has to be, since Mexico is squarely North American and all the Central American countries were once provinces of Mexico (until the mid 1850's). Only Panama has never been Mexican, it is a former province of Colombia which declared itself independent just in time to build the Panama Canal and whose independence was recognized the same day by the United States - and that was before the advent of the Internet...

[NightShift58]

Now where the hell do you end up when applying that kind of thinking to the United States of America? It rather makes being an "American" quite impossible when you combine the two questions.We have our "melting pot" that takes care of such nitty gritty details...

To a certain extent, being "American" is more a state of mind than much else. But so is the sense of nationality everywhere. I might be a typical example of what an American can or can't be. My father, American of Irish origin, married my mother, a French girl from Casablanca, Morocco, while in the military. My mother, who in the course of her career went on to become an American diplomat, was born of a French father and a Spanish mother. But my French grandfather never considered himself French; to him it was clear: he was Corsican.

Of my 48 years, in part because of my parents' overseas assignments and, later, my own overseas assignment during my 11 years in the US Army, I haven't spent more that 10 years in the United States.

Still, I am an "American". And never mind the fact that I grew up speaking French at home and that I spoke Spanish before I spoke English. And never mind the fact that my wife is German and that we speak German at home. I am - no doubt to me - an American, just as my children - who have yet to live in the USA - are.

But would anyone else else consider me an American? What's the default? If not that - by choice and birthright - what else could I be?

The Germans we consider typical Germans, you know the guys with the "Lederhosen" and the Oktoberfest, etc., are the ones who consider themselves the least German of the bunch and, in fact, didn't become Germans until the late 1800's. They are Bavarians, first and foremost, but to the rest of the world, Germans. Just don't tell them so...

What we see as Spain, nice and compact as it is on the maps, is really a mixture of cultures vying for autonomy and - to some extent - independence. Tell a Basque that he is Spanish! Tell a Catalan the same... Or better: don't.

We wonder about the Iraqis and the deep fraticidal religious divide threatening their country's very existence.

Yugoslavia was a "worst case" example of the strains between culture and nationality and the ultimate effects it can have on a people.

In time, we will collectively have to re-think the concept of nationality.

Which brings me back to my starting sentence: we have our "melting pot"... Maybe that is the very thing which, for lack of a definable one, in the end does give us our identity as Americans, citizens of a country to which we pledge our allegiance...

[Stephen Philbin]

Hehe. I like your answer. ;)

Sounds pretty much to be exactly how I see things. Although having said that, I'd much rather just ignore the issue of nationality, rather than actually try and identify myself (or indeed see anyone else try to identify themself) as "belonging" to a particular nationality.

[NightShift58]

Nationality is a tricky thing...

I remember one of my Army buddies who was also from an American father and a French mother but born in France. While we were stationed in Korea in the late 70's, he received a draft letter from the French Army. Born in French territory, he was considered French though he'd never had a French passport.

So nationality is not just what you may happen to be but also what others may want to impose upon you. And when it comes to military service and - especially - taxes, governments can be quite "inclusive". Another story, of course, when you seek benefits...

[WebJoel]

dood!, -stop it! :mad: -Everytime I learn something NEW I have to forget something OLD! >opps!<, -Damn, too late! -I just forgot MATH! :o