There's a word for people like us

One day about ten years ago I was sitting on an old school bus in Guatemala with this French-Canadian girl I had met in my homestay.  I remember the bus was nearly empty (that was unusual in a country whose primary mode of transportation is buses) when during the course of the conversation my new friend said something to me about why I use the term "American" when referring only to people from the United States.  I was a little dumbfounded.  "What do you mean," I asked her, unsure of what she could possibly be getting at.  What else would I call them but 'Americans'? 

"America is the whole continent," she explained in her accented English.  "There's North America, Central America and South America.  It's odd that for you an American is someone from the US but for us and others an American is someone from any of the countries that make up the Americas". 

Wow.  Really?  I thought about it for a minute and realized it was true.  It was a silly term.  "Americans" can't just mean folks in the U.S.!  We're all "Americans".  But then what do I call us then?  Ah, there's the rub! 

That was my introduction to how enthnocentric even our language can be and how blind we who grow up within the ranks of the privileged can be to such enthnocentricity.  At first I thought my friend was being over-sensitive --after all she was Quebequois!  But as I spent more time in Latin America it began to make more sense to me.  How rude --and how typical-- for us to not even notice (linguistically) all the other non-US people living in the Americas.  I spent a lot of time as a "guest" in various Latin American countries.  Of course I didn't want to offend my hosts.  After awhile, it became more natural for me to refer to "the Americas" and to use the term "American" more inclusively.

In Spanish there's a word for people from this country (and I don't mean "gringo"!).  The word is estadounidense.  It's precise and it rolls off the tongue as easily as canadiense or japones.  In English, however, it's trickier.  United-Statesian sounds incredibly awkward until you get used to it and for awhile I played around with using "USian" (pronounced like the pronoun "us" with "-ian").  Mostly, however, I just tried to avoid using the word at all.  "People from this country" I would say.  Or "folks in the United States".  I was definitely in the minority and usually no one noticed I had abandoned the term (but I was thrilled when I once had a class taught by a professor from Cuba who did the same thing.)

So that's why I was pleasantly surprised to read this op-ed in yesterday's NY Times. Surprised because it just hasn't been all that often that I've encountered other English speakers who have thought about this, much less tried to change the way they use the word "American".   Then I looked again and saw the article was not written by English speakers at all but by two French journalists from the newspaper Le Monde. 

How much does language reflect our social reality and vice versa?  As I mentioned in this post, I really don't know, which is maybe why I haven't been more vocal about the matter.  But I know I do like precision in language and if nothing else, USians, estado-unidenses or just plain "people from the US" gives us that.  In the scheme of things, though, what does it matter?  Borders are fiction.  It's true, there is a word for people like us.  That word is "Americans".

Comments

[Alison]

Yep. On the other hand, it's not just us: the French word for people from the US is américain. Then there are canadiens and méxicains. And so on. (Also, the French don't differentiate between North and South America, but that's another story...)

Off to read the NYT article.

[Alison]

Oh, duh! The first paragraphs of the article said the same thing I did! :-)

[HumanityCritic]

I never thought of it like that before - that will hit me every time I refer to anyone as an "american". Peace.

Humanity F Critic

[Camel Light]

That's true. Being an american commonly in the U.S.refers to people with U.S. citizenship, but not necessary that each individual identifies her/himself as anything. A way the mainstream media or patriotic politicians use has sense of nationalism, manupulating peoples' mind based on notion of a nation-state. Even this dividing force of people by nationality is something that needs to be overcome over separation. sometimes hard to be aware of myself about language I use when breaking my streotypes of images and what I see objects in actuality. If I with Korean ethnicity were born in Italy,sharing Italian and manners and rhetorical differences other Italians with Cacasian background share , then come to the U.S., Would I be an Italian or categorized as Asian or Korean? your realization brings up more question in ways we live in "society" and how the mainstream media presents and shapes ways people think and rationalize daily political and economic issues. Thanks!

[Daniel]

Next time people of United States of America should choose a REAL original name for their country. I hate use "american" word for people of USA. This, and the Imperial unit system, are main reasons for not move to Gringoland. But, maybe, someday.. who knows ;-) -- Daniel from Perú. PS. must be "estadounidenses", together, without hyphen.

[prof black woman]

I was reading this and laughing b/c I do the same thing, ie always marking the U.S. as N. America and its citizens as N. Americans. (One of my students finally picked up on it one term and did her best to trip me up.) Then I realized, it is because I speak Spanish an spend less and less time in the states with every passing year.

I wonder how someone who only speaks N. American English, has never left the country, and never spoken to people from other parts of the Americas who are quick to point this failing out, would think about this conversation . . .

[D]

It's interesting to note that this is also the way it is in Russian. (That is, the word for people from the U.S. is Americans.)

[Vergingwriter]

Language usage can often point to our cultural/political "blindspots" because the "correctness" of terminology, after and while, is taken for granted. This encounter of yours with this young woman points to an imperialist use of a term I am guilty of not having thought through, i.e. I took it for granted. Guilty as charged.

[Summer]

I had the same topic come up in Barcelona during a conversation with a wonderfully animated girl from Peru. She had a very well reasoned rant against the term American in reference to those from the U.S. I'd never thought of it before either, but it made perfect sense.

I agree whole-heartedly with your conclusion.