Now, before everyone starts freaking out and sending me hate, I want to say something: I think the United States is a great country. It’s definitely very powerful and a massive influence in today’s world and home to many people I love. However, that doesn’t mean I don’t have a few issues with it.
Besides every obvious problem like racism, the patriarchy, white supremacy, etc. (which are incredibly important issues we have to act upon), I have a slight problem with the U.S. calling itself “America” and its people “Americans.” Yes, I know it comes from “United States of America”, but that’s exactly it. The United States of America, as in, the United States of the continent America. As in, the United States which is part of the continent America but is not all of it.
You guessed it! America is, in fact, a continent! Not North America, Central America, and South America separately; not Anglo-Saxon America and Latin America each on its own. Those are just divisions for the same continent, divisions made for convenience because the continent is too large and too diverse, but it’s all one continent nonetheless.
As a Latina myself, I don’t appreciate anyone from the U.S. — or other countries — telling me that the term American is exclusively for those born in the United States because I, too, am an American.
It’s not cool to just appropriate an entire continent or sub-continent (in the case of “North America” since Canada and Mexico are also part of that division). I’m not surprised, though, because the U.S. doesn’t seem to mind appropriating cultures and societies at all. Imagine if the French exclusively claimed the term “Europeans.” Y’all would be hella pressed. Even worse: if Canadians claimed Americans or North Americans, the U.S. would be extremely pissed and would probably throw arguments at them about community and togetherness.
I know it’s not quite the same, and that finding a gerund for U.S. people is hard and saying “people from the U.S.” gets tiring and redundant. You might be thinking I’m just being extra, but I’m not. Please, let’s make an effort. Whether you’re from Colombia, or Haiti, or Argentina, or Brazil, or the United States you are American; be proud. Just think about it.
