Using the Word "American"

[Stalydan]

Snip

It's a common misconception that many people have about their countries. Though you don't expect the whole world to know your history, you expect the continent you live on to at least know of it. It's a real shame as well because every country has some really interesting historical facts that are unknown to a lot of the world. For example, I'm English and know of some really awesome things that happened both nationally and locally but can guarantee that a lot of people don't know about.

 

[JoesshittyOs]

I keep getting ready to get involved in the argument here, and then backing out, only to cautiously look back at it.

For the people arguing about the Mexican-US relations, neither of us have any moral superiority. We're all pieces of shit.

And us being pieces of shit is what unites us as Humans.

What else are you supposed to call people from the U.S?
I feel confused and ignorant.

United Statatians.

Or fatties. I don't care which.

 

[MetalMagpie]

Why do so many people on the internet get upset at that word?

People get upset about that? I have genuinely never come across this!

 

[Tanakh]

I'm saying that if Mexico can turn away illegal Cubans, then the US has a right to turn away illegal Mexicans(or any other illegal immigrants, whether they are from Central/South America, Europe, Asia, or Africa).

But I guess using Guatemalans works just as well. Point remains that Mexico is a hypocrite about this issue.

Sigh... you don't seem to even be aware of the big difference with Cubans, and you will be hard pressed to find where i said US didn't had the right of turning away illegal immigrants.

I had two points:

- It wasn't either the people in Mexico or the (usually terrible) mexican goverment that seeked the current mexican/american border situation. It was US that worked towards that, and in the books i have linked you can find the actual internal official roadmap of the US goverment to try to lead Mexico to such position. So, it comes as... naive at best that americans complain about that ignoring the history and that they worked hard towards it; granted, the average texan wasn't in the loop of the situation it's goverment tried to create, and still isn't i guess.

- Even ignoring that, and assuming it was "all Mexico's fault", the current immiration policies don't work; sure, you can keep turing away immigrants, you can also keep shooting them (even if there few incidents, that also happens), that won't help. America needs an immigration reform to have an ordered and controlled supply of cheap labor force that does jobs that gringos won't do, it will improve the immigrant conditions, it will improve the local security, the only things that it would hurt are the GOP pride/paranoia and the assholes like walmart that contract illegal immigrants knowing they are illegal and then deport them on the payday.

 

[Helmholtz Watson]

I'm saying that if Mexico can turn away illegal Cubans, then the US has a right to turn away illegal Mexicans(or any other illegal immigrants, whether they are from Central/South America, Europe, Asia, or Africa).

But I guess using Guatemalans works just as well. Point remains that Mexico is a hypocrite about this issue.

Sigh... you don't seem to even be aware of the big difference with Cubans, and you will be hard pressed to find where i said US didn't had the right of turning away illegal immigrants.

I had two points:

- It wasn't either the people in Mexico or the (usually terrible) mexican goverment that seeked the current mexican/american border situation. It was US that worked towards that, and in the books i have linked you can find the actual internal official roadmap of the US goverment to try to lead Mexico to such position. So, it comes as... naive at best that americans complain about that ignoring the history and that they worked hard towards it; granted, the average texan wasn't in the loop of the situation it's goverment tried to create, and still isn't i guess.

- Even ignoring that, and assuming it was "all Mexico's fault", the current immiration policies don't work; sure, you can keep turing away immigrants, you can also keep shooting them (even if there few incidents, that also happens), that won't help. America needs an immigration reform to have an ordered and controlled supply of cheap labor force that does jobs that gringos won't do, it will improve the immigrant conditions, it will improve the local security, the only things that it would hurt are the GOP pride/paranoia and the assholes like walmart that contract illegal immigrants knowing they are illegal and then deport them on the payday.

America might need to reform the immigration policy, but it doesn't mean that most immigrants should be Mexican(or central/south American). It should be a balance from people around the world. For example, I'm sure there are plenty of Polish immigrants that would love to come to the US(because the Polish seem to be eager to go to places like the UK in large numbers).

I blame Mexico for having people that illegally enter my country.

 

[Tanakh]

America might need to reform the immigration policy, but it doesn't mean that most immigrants should be Mexican(or central/south American). It should be a balance from people around the world. For example, I'm sure there are plenty of Polish immigrants that would love to come to the US(because the Polish seem to be eager to go to places like the UK in large numbers).

I blame Mexico for having people that illegally enter my country.

Hehe, if you are a true american then your socialist idea of a balance of people from around the world should be unacceptable! It should be the free market applaied to immigrants the one who decides whom get to wash america dishes, and i would contest that the current situation is indeed dictated by the free market.

Also i digress, if you really belive "I blame Mexico for having people that illegally enter my country." is ture, then we have too little shared ground to continue discussing, still strongly reccomend the books i listed earlier, might at least help you understand my perspective.

 

[Helmholtz Watson]

America might need to reform the immigration policy, but it doesn't mean that most immigrants should be Mexican(or central/south American). It should be a balance from people around the world. For example, I'm sure there are plenty of Polish immigrants that would love to come to the US(because the Polish seem to be eager to go to places like the UK in large numbers).

I blame Mexico for having people that illegally enter my country.

Hehe, if you are a true american then your socialist idea of a balance of people from around the world should be unacceptable! It should be the free market applaied to immigrants the one who decides whom get to wash america dishes, and i would contest that the current situation is indeed dictated by the free market.

Also i digress, if you really belive "I blame Mexico for having people that illegally enter my country." is ture, then we have too little shared ground to continue discussing, still strongly reccomend the books i listed earlier, might at least help you understand my perspective.

haha,sshhh! Don't reveal my "true identity". ( _> If for some reason a US federal official is reading this, I'm not a socialist)

I'm not saying the US didn't contribute to the problem, just that Mexico seems to be a major source of the problem.

 

[artanis_neravar]

America might need to reform the immigration policy, but it doesn't mean that most immigrants should be Mexican(or central/south American). It should be a balance from people around the world. For example, I'm sure there are plenty of Polish immigrants that would love to come to the US(because the Polish seem to be eager to go to places like the UK in large numbers).

I blame Mexico for having people that illegally enter my country.

Hehe, if you are a true american then your socialist idea of a balance of people from around the world should be unacceptable! It should be the free market applaied to immigrants the one who decides whom get to wash america dishes, and i would contest that the current situation is indeed dictated by the free market.

Also i digress, if you really belive "I blame Mexico for having people that illegally enter my country." is ture, then we have too little shared ground to continue discussing, still strongly reccomend the books i listed earlier, might at least help you understand my perspective.

It's not so much that they are here illegally, or anything like that, it's that since the government has no record of them being here, they can't enforce any form of fair pay and since the people who come here illegally are generally desperate for money they are willing to work for under min wage making it impossible for other people to try for that same job.

Oh and the fact that I am expected to learn Spanish because it's the language a large portion of the immigrants speak. And for the record I don't have a problem with this for any racist reason, I have a problem with it because if I were to move to another country (France, Spain, Mexico, etc) I would be expected to learn their language and if I didn't then I would earn disdain for being a "typical American"

 

[Saltyk]

I'm an American. Call me an American. It's true. If you get upset about it (regardless of where you're from) you must live a pretty good life. Most of the responses in this thread take it way too seriously. More than a few are completely ignorant. And that includes non-Americans, just in case people didn't realize that was possible.

Not like there are other really important things going on to be concerned about in the world, right?

 

[Xangba]

I have never heard problems with that. It's always been my experience that there isn't a problem with the other American countries because "American" is for people from the U.S. Mexican is for Mexico and Canadian is for Canada. I was not aware it was considered different elsewhere. Also, yeah let's all avoid the Mexico/U.S. crap, it will only end in flames. I have to somewhat agree with Artanis though, I'm not a fan of the belief that I'm expected to learn Spanish in a primarily English-speaking country, though it also wouldn't be as much of a problem if schools offered foreign language classes earlier, like 4th grade, as opposed to high school or 8th grade in my area and a nearby one. The younger you are the easier you learn. I was actually required to learn Spanish in college for my Criminal Justice degree. I can kind of see the reasoning for making me take the classes, but come on really?

 

[Tanakh]

It's not so much that they are here illegally, or anything like that, it's that since the government has no record of them being here, they can't enforce any form of fair pay and since the people who come here illegally are generally desperate for money they are willing to work for under min wage making it impossible for other people to try for that same job.

I don't think the under min wage issue is relevant, do you think the farmers across all the border would get enough americans to pick the crops if they were to pay the minimum wage for 8 hours of work under the sun? The few interviews i have seen to farmers seem to indicate that they barely get enough americans offering minimum wage (when mexicans are unaviliable) and that most quit a couple of days in. I know i would quit, 8 hours of doing sittups in the middle of a field while scavenging the dirt for crops? for minimum wage? no way.

And yeah, they are desperate for dollars, hence you can pretty much dicate any set of rules you want for those poor souls with an immigration reform and they will still go and work. As long as there are no more jobs for the illegal ones, the illegal immigration would just tank to near zero. If anything the challenge of an immigration reform is to make it convinieng and flexible enough that the americans stop using illegal immigrants and just employ legal ones; and that my firend is where i don't see a solution, how are you going to offer the american employee something that is more convenient than an illegal mexican?

 

[Al-Bundy-da-G]

Stop calling us all Europeans and we'll stop calling you all American

To be fair I would only call you a European if I couldn't place your accent or tongue which is usually easy for me (unless it's a eastern Europe country since they all sound like watered down Russian), and if you decided to be an ass not tell me where you're from or if you were French.

 

[Lono Shrugged]

Stop calling us all Europeans and we'll stop calling you all American

To be fair I would only call you a European if I couldn't place your accent or tongue which is usually easy for me (unless it's a eastern Europe country since they all sound like watered down Russian), and if you decided to be an ass not tell me where you're from or if you were French.

That is the totally reasonable way to refer to a European in my opinion. But the way it is in the OP that it's a sweeping generalisation of a continent is kinda the same. I am from Ireland and even though we are pretty up in the E.U. A lot of people I know consider Ireland the red headed stepchild of Europe in a lot of ways. There is also a bit of a thing here about folks being from Northern Ireland being called Irish but in my opinion it's not a big deal. Yes they are not Republic Of Ireland citizens but they live in Northern Ireland. Some of them call themselves English or British apparently. Makes little sense to me (except the British part) but it's not my place to judge.

I can relate to a Canadian getting annoyed at being called an American The same way I get mistaken for being a Brit when I am holiday. I don't think anyone should lose any sleep over it though.

 

[Sandytimeman]

this thread was a good read, I feel a little more educated on Mexico. Also I really admire some of the Hispanic ladies that I've worked with at my job. I remember at work we had this team building exercise where we were supposed to write down the biggest fear we had or something like that and I'll always remember this lady writing down "Leaving everything I know and love to try and make a life for me and my family"

She was a legal immigrant and I had much respect for her, she even taught me a bit of work related Spanish for when I was working the line with them. It was an enjoyable experience.

 

[Queen Michael]

Problem is, the word "America" is both the name of a continent and a nation. It's called The United States of America, after all, kind of like China is called The People's Republic of China. The words before the last one is padding to make it seem fancier.

 

[DoPo]

Yes, it doesn't make sense. Do Mexicans/Canadians/Brazilians/etc. want to be called "Americans"? I wouldn't like it if I was called "Eurapean" because 1. it sounds stupid 2. completely obliterates all the differences between Eurapean countries. Calling me "Eurapean" would be a (very) minor insult. It sounds like the other party thinks I have the Eiffel Tower in my back yard, Big Ben down the street, the Coliseum next to it and I'm happily chatting in German, French, Italian, Romanian, Hungarian and Norwegian with all my neighbours on my daily basis. For the same reason, I cannot understand how somebody could refer to all people in two continents as "American". It makes way more sense to use the word to refer to the people who live in the same country and that country has "America" in its name.

 

[StarCecil]

Why do so many people on the internet get upset at that word?

People get upset about that? I have genuinely never come across this!

I was watching movie trailers on Youtube (what else is it for?) and while watching two documentary trailers for movies having to do with the Iraq/Afghan wars I see the usual political debate in the comments coupled with someone bitching about how the USA takes the word "American" when there are two continents and multiple countries in the Americas.

I've also seen, on this site and elsewhere, people insist on using the phrase "USican" or "USian" and even "USAers".

 

[MetalMagpie]

Why do so many people on the internet get upset at that word?

People get upset about that? I have genuinely never come across this!

I was watching movie trailers on Youtube (what else is it for?) and while watching two documentary trailers for movies having to do with the Iraq/Afghan wars I see the usual political debate in the comments coupled with someone bitching about how the USA takes the word "American" when there are two continents and multiple countries in the Americas.

I've also seen, on this site and elsewhere, people insist on using the phrase "USican" or "USian" and even "USAers".

How weird.

I confess, in real life I tend to use "yanks" for people from the USA and "North Americans" for people from the entire continent. Online I stick to "Americans" and "people from North America" respectively to avoid offence. I didn't realise there was a more "Politically Correct" term than that!

 

[StarCecil]

Why do so many people on the internet get upset at that word?

People get upset about that? I have genuinely never come across this!

I was watching movie trailers on Youtube (what else is it for?) and while watching two documentary trailers for movies having to do with the Iraq/Afghan wars I see the usual political debate in the comments coupled with someone bitching about how the USA takes the word "American" when there are two continents and multiple countries in the Americas.

I've also seen, on this site and elsewhere, people insist on using the phrase "USican" or "USian" and even "USAers".

How weird.

I confess, in real life I tend to use "yanks" for people from the USA and "North Americans" for people from the entire continent. Online I stick to "Americans" and "people from North America" respectively to avoid offence. I didn't realise there was a more "Politically Correct" term than that!

I don't think there's anyone that would mind the word "Yanks" (that's a lie, even in the US people argue over which part of the US is really "Yankee"), and I even use shorthand for other countries' citizens; Russkies, Brits, Canooks, Aussies, etc.

 

[Griffolion]

Why do so many people on the internet get upset at that word? "American" has referred to the people living in the US since its formation. In fact, the word referred to those people for over a century before the country was founded. Why do people get so worked up over it?

I personally have never gotten upset, and neither have I ever met anyone who has. I'm a little confused as to the context of what you're saying.