Race Card: American or United Statesian?

This is a topic I often bring up with folks who get tripped up on the "awkwardness" of having to find another term to describe people living in the country called the "United States of America."

I have taken to calling myself a "gringa" and describing the things that I used to describe as "American" with the adjective "gringo." I'm an anarchist. :: shrugs :: Whatcha gonna do?

I do have to point out that (while not everyone would find my personal choice to call myself a gringa to be a palatable one to use themselves, and maybe we need to think up some other options) there is more than one United States in the Americas. Someone pointed this out to me in Guanajuato, Mexico in 2002 when I was studying there and had initiated a conversation with someone about this very topic.

Los Estados Unidos Mexicanos is, last I heard, the "official" name of Mexico. A friend down there reminded me of this when I very determinedly stated that I would no longer refer to myself as American, but as "estadounidense". He said it to me jovially, kind of poking fun at my seriousness... but I did take it seriously, and that's pretty much when I started referring to myself as "gringa."

I think you guys are confusing nationalistic arrogance with imperialism. The two may go hand-in-hand, but they are far from the same. Throwing around the term imperialist to refer to a designation about one's country of origin is basically politicized thinking. You see what you want to see, and then drag it another ten miles to whatever side you lean towards. It's not imperialistic for anyone to call themselves American. Argue for nationalistic arrogance, and I'd disagree with you but find your argument sound. Furthermore, in America at least, we tend to refer to the whole as "the Americas," which rather nicely implies we know we ain't the only one.

I'm also with Becky Sharper on the issue of passports, In fact, your own link talks about the causes for relative low passport holdings and comes to a completely different conclusion: "the United States' own rich cultural and geographic diversity, an American skepticism and/or ignorance about international destinations, a work culture that prevents Americans from taking long vacations abroad and the prohibitive cost and logistics of going overseas." I have no passport, but I'm learning one language and will learn another when I transfer to uni. I am not insular. I simply have neither the money, the time nor the skills/connections necessary to travel abroad. Which is pretty much what the CNN piece suggested.

@Sam - Asking someone with a heavy accent if they're an American is specifically asking about citizenship. [We do have legal non-citizens in this country with foreign accents.] The split over whether American can refer to everyone or only those from the U.S. is no different, IMO, than a split about whether a movie belongs in one genre or the other, or both. It inflames passions more, and means more, but it's still a linguistic disagreement over what the term encompasses. Though I am more inclined to believe someone who'd argue that a Panamanian can't also be an American was simply being an ass. Probably an anti-immigration ass, at that. But it's irrelevant to the word's meaning. Stupid people exist the whole world over, the U.S. doesn't have them all. Yet. X)

I find the term American to be just one more drop in the bucket of cultural and linguistic differences, not a sign of imperialism. Imperialism would be saying that not only do non-U.S. citizens not have the right to call themselves American, but that we will back it up with lawsuits or bullets. I understand that there are a lot of Americans who'd object to a non-citizen within the U.S. calling themselves American instead of Mexican or Brazilian, but this is still a cultural/linguistic issue. It's not that they object to the use of the word itself, it's that they object to a non-citizen using a term that designates you as a citizen. (Frankly, I could care less what you call yourself.) Now, if the same person objects when they're outside of the U.S., just punch them in the face for being asinine.

I remember finding this extremely absurd at the age of 12 - as a Canadian I found it extremely arrogant of Americans to assume that they had a monopoly on the term "American." However, the issue is not really a simple matter of syntax or location. We call Europeans "European" because they live in Europe. Canadians live in the continent of North America. Therefore, I certainly refer to myself as a North American, but never an American (we get confused with each other often enough due to most people's inability to differentiate our accents). This is actually a huge insult to most of us that are north of the border (people always had huge apologies for calling me American when I lived in Europe), but this Canadian anti-Americanism is an entirely different topic. There is also the issue of "Native American" and "African American" that people for some reason think applies to Indigenous Canadians or Black Canadians. This is NOT the case, and calling aboriginal Canadians "Indians" is usually seen as a tremendous insult coming from non-aboriginal people. For whatever reason, American authors (in particular) seem to think that the terms cross the border(s), but they don't. Essentially, the terms we use are largely a historical production.

Therefore, America is called America based on a certain history, and changing the name is not the way to undo the damage that has been done. For people who say that there is nothing imperialistic about Americans calling themselves American, you're wrong: it is imperialistic, regardless of intent. The word "America" was assigned to two continents by Europeans, and that is imperialistic. This does not mean that you shouldn't be able to call yourselves American if that is how you choose to identify, but you do need to be aware of how arrogant it can make you sound (whether or not you care is obviously up to you) in certain contexts (not all). It really depends on your audience - unlike my twelve-year-old self, I'm no longer bothered by it, but if you know that Latin American people are likely to take offense, I would suggest treading more lightly. Semantics may not matter to you, but they are of great importance to others. That Canada is called Canada has certainly bothered many people for many years and it's something that you have to navigate carefully in some contexts.

In any case, I find myself confused by some of the responses here as America is not a continent, it's the greater name for two continents (who gets called a "Eurasian," and does anybody care?), nor is it the name that was used here prior to European exploration. Perhaps America as a country shaped by colonialism should keep the word and the North and South continents should be renamed to something more authentic.

Perhaps Miss Teen USA--South Carolina has more wisdom than we give her credit for. Granted, she still doesn't know where maps are, so...

A little late but if I may...
I am a native Spanish speaker from South America. I have witnessed this "American vs American" discussion about a gazillion times. The thing is, different languages and continet models lead to different mindsets.

Most of Latin America is taught a different continent model than the English-speaking world. In Spanish there is no "Americas", that is, there is not two continents called "North America" and "South America" but a single continent called "América" comprising three regions: North America -Canada and the US-, Central America -from Mexico to Panama- and South America -from Colombia to Argentina (BTW and AFAIK from some Mexican acquaintances, Mexicans are not very happy with that model because they consider themselves North American -which is totally respectable- so when you start messing up with continents you can upset not only Americans, just saying.) As you can see, in the Spanish model we are all "americanos" and the Americans are "estadounidenses", but in the English model there are "North Americans" and "South Americans" and "Americans". I see nothing political in this but a matter of linguistics. The fact is "American" is the proper English demonym for people from the US, while "estadounidense" is the proper Spanish demonym. People can't just jump from one language to try to "correct" what they perceive is wrong in another language. That is ignorant, arrogant and self-centered. Plus every people is entitled to call themselves as they feel like. Plus those made-up alternatives around are so effing ugly, even for my non-native ears: USian? USer? United Statesian? US Citizen? C'mon...!

The awful truth is most people in our countries who b**ch about this "American" issue are leftist radicals who dream of the glorious communist paradise we could be if the US didn't exist and blame America for every bad thing that happens here: poverty, corruption, delinquency, illiteracy, backwardness, intolerance, inequality, violence, even natural disasters. They complain not because of a logical realization but out of a visceral hate, and no argument can discuss with that.

I think people are taking things way too far. Seriously, who cares what anyone is called?

A lot of people seem to be spending way too much time trying to figure out a classification system in order to describe something without stepping on people's toes. We've got how many racial descriptions because people get upset? The last I spoke with a few people from Africa, there are a lot of people pissed at the term African-American because they're so far removed.

How is it so difficult to simply state the country you're from, or if you insist on using a continent as a descriptor, you might try throwing in a cardinal direction. For example, North American. South American. Eastern European. Strange, seems like I've read terms like those somewhere before.

People should just get over having to have the best term for themselves. I don't care what you call me. The term I'm labeled by isn't who I am, and a label really isn't enough to make any sort of judgement about someone else. In all my time abroad I've never had any trouble conveying where I'm from. If people could realize that it really isn't all that important to begin with then maybe we could actually make progress on REAL issues instead of bickering like school children.

Last I checked poverty and crime in a lot of South American countries seems to be a much bigger problem than who gets confused about their Americaness.