"American" or "United States American"
How do you call yourself? Do you refer to yourself as an "American", or do you refer to yourself as a "United States American"? This may seem strange to you good folks as it seems very strange to me. I have always thought of myself as being an "American". You ask, "Why do you ask such a strange question?"
The following may seem strange to most of you, else I'm awfully out of step with the times in which we live.
As you know from my previous post I was the Chairman of the Resolutions Committee for the Republican Party Convention of Washington County, Texas, last Saturday. Presenting the proposed resolutions to the convention floor for discussion and/or amendment everything went fine for the first four resolutions. They were more or less vanilla commendations for various party officials. The very first resolution of substance naturally had the word "American" in it, as in "The American taxpayers are. . .etc." When the resolution was presented to the convention floor and opened for discussion, this man asks to be recognized for discussion. He objected to the use of the word "America" to describe the "United States of America", and he objected to the word "American" to describe citizens of the "United States of America." His contention was everyone living in the Western Hemisphere (North America and South America) are all "Americans" and we in the "United States of America" should not use that term specifically to us. He proposed an amendment to substitute "United States of America" for "America" and "United States American" for the word "American".
Duh! I could hardly believe what I had just heard. I protested the amendment saying the word "American" was widely accepted all over the world to mean citizens of the United States of America. I also protested that even in our own culture we typically refer to ourselves as "Americans" and many of our social, cultural, and financial institutions refer to us as "Americans". I also protested there were songs like "America The Beautiful" and "I'm Proud to be an American". In the opening of the convention a man sang "God Bless America". I also protested there were many instances in the remaining proposed resolutions where the words, "America" and "American" were used throughout the text. Nevertheless, the amendment was brought to a floor vote.
Duh! I could hardly believe what just occurred. The amendment passed with a substantial vote. I thought, "This is going to be a nightmare making all the substitutions in all instances throughout the text of the remaining 15 proposed resolutions." This situation was mollified by another delegate that proposed a declaratory statement that in all instances where the words "America" or "American" occurred in the text they were to mean "The United States of America" and/or "United States American". It passed.
But, I can't get over so many of the people at the convention were in agreement that we are not "Americans", rather we are "United States Americans". I wonder if Canadians, Brazilians, Costa Ricans, or Cubans consider themselves to be Americans?
What do you think? Someone needs to explain the meaning of this to me, and the reasons for this trend in our culture. I'm at a total loss.
.
The following may seem strange to most of you, else I'm awfully out of step with the times in which we live.
As you know from my previous post I was the Chairman of the Resolutions Committee for the Republican Party Convention of Washington County, Texas, last Saturday. Presenting the proposed resolutions to the convention floor for discussion and/or amendment everything went fine for the first four resolutions. They were more or less vanilla commendations for various party officials. The very first resolution of substance naturally had the word "American" in it, as in "The American taxpayers are. . .etc." When the resolution was presented to the convention floor and opened for discussion, this man asks to be recognized for discussion. He objected to the use of the word "America" to describe the "United States of America", and he objected to the word "American" to describe citizens of the "United States of America." His contention was everyone living in the Western Hemisphere (North America and South America) are all "Americans" and we in the "United States of America" should not use that term specifically to us. He proposed an amendment to substitute "United States of America" for "America" and "United States American" for the word "American".
Duh! I could hardly believe what I had just heard. I protested the amendment saying the word "American" was widely accepted all over the world to mean citizens of the United States of America. I also protested that even in our own culture we typically refer to ourselves as "Americans" and many of our social, cultural, and financial institutions refer to us as "Americans". I also protested there were songs like "America The Beautiful" and "I'm Proud to be an American". In the opening of the convention a man sang "God Bless America". I also protested there were many instances in the remaining proposed resolutions where the words, "America" and "American" were used throughout the text. Nevertheless, the amendment was brought to a floor vote.
Duh! I could hardly believe what just occurred. The amendment passed with a substantial vote. I thought, "This is going to be a nightmare making all the substitutions in all instances throughout the text of the remaining 15 proposed resolutions." This situation was mollified by another delegate that proposed a declaratory statement that in all instances where the words "America" or "American" occurred in the text they were to mean "The United States of America" and/or "United States American". It passed.
But, I can't get over so many of the people at the convention were in agreement that we are not "Americans", rather we are "United States Americans". I wonder if Canadians, Brazilians, Costa Ricans, or Cubans consider themselves to be Americans?
What do you think? Someone needs to explain the meaning of this to me, and the reasons for this trend in our culture. I'm at a total loss.
.
posted by Donald G Davidson at 1:44 AM
1 Comments:
Well, Don, one answer might be logic or, rather, lack of logic. Remember a question in "The Chronicles of Narnia": "Why don't they teach logic at these schools?" The context of using the word "American" logically indicates whether one refers to the U.S.A. or to the continent of America. "United States American" in all your convention resolutions sounds clumsily to me. Oddly enough, it was the Republican Party convention...
The other explanation would be political correctness claiming that Americans pretend they are the only representatives of American continent. What an absurd.
Don't worry that you are out of step with the current times. The times are not normal, I'm afraid.
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