The Americans
What do you call people from the United States? This question has come up for me ever since I started traveling abroad 15 years ago. When I studied in Costa Rica, I had a class in intercultural communication with students from both the U.S. and Costa Rica. Seems like everyone south of Mexico, including the Costa Ricans, calls us North Americans. I pointed out to them that North America includes Mexico and Canada and even Central America on the maps I've seen. At least in Spanish, they have a specific word for people from the U.S. that they could use - Estadounidense. I think the direct translation would be a "United Statesan."
When I was traveling in Portugal, I met these two Canadian women on one of the bus excursions. I told them how we said we were Canadian when we were in Morocco due to our fear of the negative perception of Americans in Arab countries nowadays. One of them asked me, "When you say Americans, do you mean North Americans?" I said yes, but in reality, I was only speaking about people from the U.S.
In Spain, and most other parts of the world (the non-Americas), it seems like the most common term for us is Americans. In light of the sometimes overbearing behavior of the U.S. on the world political stage (ahem, ALWAYS in the past six years), I can understand the perspective that for us to call ourselves Americans is egotistical. Although, I would argue that in English, it's really the best and most commonly used option. You can call someone from Canada a Canadian, someone from Mexico a Mexican. If you don't call us Americans, you'd have to say "U.S. citizen" or "person from the U.S." Besides, I think that if you say American, very few people are going to think you're talking about someone from Mexico or Canada, but maybe I'm just being an egotistical American :)
What do you call people from the United States? This question has come up for me ever since I started traveling abroad 15 years ago. When I studied in Costa Rica, I had a class in intercultural communication with students from both the U.S. and Costa Rica. Seems like everyone south of Mexico, including the Costa Ricans, calls us North Americans. I pointed out to them that North America includes Mexico and Canada and even Central America on the maps I've seen. At least in Spanish, they have a specific word for people from the U.S. that they could use - Estadounidense. I think the direct translation would be a "United Statesan."
When I was traveling in Portugal, I met these two Canadian women on one of the bus excursions. I told them how we said we were Canadian when we were in Morocco due to our fear of the negative perception of Americans in Arab countries nowadays. One of them asked me, "When you say Americans, do you mean North Americans?" I said yes, but in reality, I was only speaking about people from the U.S.
In Spain, and most other parts of the world (the non-Americas), it seems like the most common term for us is Americans. In light of the sometimes overbearing behavior of the U.S. on the world political stage (ahem, ALWAYS in the past six years), I can understand the perspective that for us to call ourselves Americans is egotistical. Although, I would argue that in English, it's really the best and most commonly used option. You can call someone from Canada a Canadian, someone from Mexico a Mexican. If you don't call us Americans, you'd have to say "U.S. citizen" or "person from the U.S." Besides, I think that if you say American, very few people are going to think you're talking about someone from Mexico or Canada, but maybe I'm just being an egotistical American :)
posted by Chromest*r at 3:27 PM
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