Many moons ago when I was studying in Germany and someone asked my nationality, I would answer, "Ich bin Amerikanerin." When I visited folks in England in January 2002, my friends expressed their condolences for September 11th by saying, "No one expected an attack on America." And while I am fiercely passionate about my state (you know, the Golden One) I am also "proud to be an American". Despite all this talk from my past travels about "America", in Argentina I tell people, "Soy de los Estados Unidos." (I'm from the United States.) What's caused this change in label? Read on, boludos!
Before I jump into this linguistic war, let's walk down memory lane. Think back to elementary school. "Okay, people! Listen up, people, mkay? Eyes up front! Okay, today we're going to learn about Geography. Can anyone tell me how many continents there are?" Seven. "Good, now what are the names of the continents?" Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, Antarctica, North America, and South America.
Very good, class...unless you're in a Latin American elementary school. Prepare the dunce cap! See, little latinos learn that there are six continents: Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, Antarctica, and the Americas. No gold stars for you! Come back one year!!
Why do Latin American schools teach such junk social science? Well, it's not without cause. Once upon a time, oh, about 1507, a German mapmaker named Martin Waldseemüller first used the term "America" in one of his cartographic endeavors. Waldseemüller was describing that skinny little land mass on the left side of the map below, and he got the name from that swingin' Italian, Amerigo Vespucci (America is the Latin feminine version of Vespucci's first name). I'm going to gloss over the "why" of the etymology of "America" here, because the important bit is that the whole land mass, from Patagonia to the glaciers in the north, was named America.
So, now that we've begun to broaden our world view, you can see how the folks of Latin America consider themselves, well, plain old Americans. Seeing as how all these argentinos that I live with everyday consider themselves Americans too, I try to adjust my speech wherever possible to accommodate them. However, their solutions to this label issue are no better than ours. Most people I talk to here insist on using the term "North American" or "norteamericano" to describe citizens of the U.S.
We run into two problems here though. Point number one, the English-speaking world includes Mexico in North America. Anyone remember NAFTA? The North American Free Trade Agreement? You know, that little pact between Canada, the U.S., and Mexico...the three countries of North America. Now, many of my students don't mean to include Mexico into the fray of the term norteamericano, so I take that at face value, usually due to....Point number two, Canadians are not citizens of the United States of America. Actually, my usual line is, "North American, huh? But that's unfair to Canadians," Now, this gives my students pause. They have no beef with Canada (so far) so they don't know what to say. I like to point out that they are ignoring the second largest country in the world when they use the term "North American" to describe U.S. citizens. (Of course I also seize on this time to explain how Americans sometimes like to make fun of Canadians. It's a cultural teaching moment, to be sure.) Either way, my students don't know what to say next.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to invalidate my students' arguments that they are Americans too. Obviously they are. It's not like Europe had the foresight to name all of the land that would become part of the U.S.A.*, "America". No! They named what is now thought of as two continents (in English), "America." As Bubba Clinton would say, "I feel their pain." Except I mean it.
So at this point, I turn the question back on my students. First I remind them that the full and recognized name of my country is "The United States of America" and then I challenge them to come up with an alternative adjective other than "American". The only English-viable solution I get is "United Statesian". Some students say that would be okay. The others say, "I forgot 'America' was part of your country's name." At this point, I know that they like me because they're being polite and open to the problem.
Now that we've all grasped the dilemma, I also point out in class that people in Europe, the Middle East, and elsewhere refer to the U.S.A. as "America". This is to show my students that it's not just U.S. citizens that think of America as the U.S.A., but also hundreds of millions of others that agree. I mean really. Did your Irish/German/Italian ancestors say that they were going to the United States of America? No. They told their families that they were leaving for America.
So hopefully now, my students understand the gravity of the situation. They are not just arguing against the most powerful nation in the world, but most of the most powerful nations in the world. A good portion of the world's population (at least in terms of wealth). Now, while I can't envision many of us putting bumper stickers on our pick-ups that declare, "Proud to be a United Statesian", I can imagine us using the term "American" only when we're stuck for an alternative. I believe that in English, that's all we can do. Meanwhile, our Spanish-speaking friends can respect Canada just a bit more by using estadounidense when they want to describe a United Statesian, er...uh, a citizen of the U.S.
Of course I'm interested in hearing other salient solutions....if you've got any.
*In Spanish, the abbreviation for U.S.A. is E.E.U.U., as in los Estados Unidos with de América taken out. To be fair, we usually use the abbreviation U.S. in most contexts. And if you're wondering about the doubled letters on the abbreviation, in Spanish, plural words are abbreviated with double letters. Therefore, la Unión Europea is abbreviated U.E. since it's singular, whereas recursos humanos (human resources) is R.R.H.H.
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