What is an American?
Well, I'd say an American is someone who lives in one of the continents that end in "America". That's pretty much anyone of the Western Hemisphere of the Earth. In these Americas, there are many identities that are drastically different. An "American" can speak Portuguese and worship a God that controls everything. An "American" can speak modern English and worship the Son of God, but still be so sensitized to the everyday things that it doesn't even matter who they worship. An "American" can be brown skinned* from people of brown skin; or be flesh-toned with flesh-toned parents that, at some point or another, came from brown skinned people.
The "American" that is probably the most recognizable is the one that lives in the country called "America", such as yourself. By now, you've probably noticed that I put "American" in quotation marks whenever I use it. That is because nobody is 100% from America. Everybody has blood from another nation, even if it is 0.00000000000000000000000001%, it is still something.
The only true Americans that history can acknowledge are Native Americans, many of which are still around. However, when Englishmen arrived, they redefined the word "American". They made Americans seem like colonial patriots who are very proud of "The Land of the Free". Yeah, we're "free", with a few limitations called "The Constitution". But hey, thats America for you.
*DISCLAIMER: by "brown skinned", I do not always mean African American.
While your opinion is agreed upon, the term "American" has been used by those that live in the United States for the majority of the time. Maybe it's because other people in North and South America have other terms they call themselves, like "Canadian" or "Brazilian". We'd probably be called "United Statesians", which is odd to say in the least.
ReplyDeleteI agree in saying that all Americans are different and not eveyone has to worhsip the same God or have the same skintone. Yep, the only "real" Americans are the Natives that are native to this country.
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