I love a lot of things about America: the history, the go get em' attitude, Target, etc. but like with all things there are some things that I dislike: the arrogance that somehow we are better than other countries, the politics, Wal-Mart etc. However, I have always referred to myself as American and truly never thought twice about it.
One day as my "American" history class was having a discussion about the Declaration of Independence one of my students said,
"Miss, why is it that you guys call yourself Americans cause you know if you think about it all the people in North and South America are actually Americans." to which the rest of the class(Europeans, Brazilians, and Asians)all got up on their soap boxes and explained their opinions on this as well. I kind of wanted to stop them but in my classroom, I don't believe in sweeping things under the rug. I believe in honesty, utter honesty, even if it is brutal and it hurts. The kids still know I love them but in truth no one ever got anywhere by hiding their beliefs and perspectives. So, I was glad they felt they could share their feelings about this with me.
However, when I finally had top stop the discussion a few minutes later, I really didn't really know what to say, I had never thought about it like that. I was then surprised when the rest of the class kind of chimed in and I found out that this is an issue that many people in South America have. It is the idea that people in the United States just stole the title of Americans. Now, is this my fault or yours? Of course not, and I would not dream of changing the countries name. However, it has made me a little bit more culturally sensitive. So in lieu of upsetting my current neighbors, students, or friends, I have started replacing "I'm American" with "I'm from the United States" or "I'm from the states." I also have quit saying things like "In America" and have started replacing it with "In the US or In the states." Do I have to do this? No. Would people hate me if I said I was American? Of course not. But I do believe in cultural sensitivity and if I can just re-word something to appear less arrogant and break the cultural norms, I ask, why not?
so interesting! i never thought of it like that!!
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me History and Geography classes back in the school, Katie! Yes, Brazilians (and I would say many other people) beleive that they are as Americans as people born in the U.S. (South Americans, but Americans, anyway). I remember exactly what happened at your job, with some of my classmates joking that if you are North American you were born also in Mexico or Canada, not just the U.S. Some people even prefer use the word estadunidense instead of americano or norte-americano.
ReplyDeleteI'm not 100% sure where all this started, but part of this misunderstandment grow due to the fact of many History teachers had a curious background during college: a lot of their teachers and professors were aligned with marxism and socialism even during military dictatorship running the country (1964 - 1985). This is one point, but it doesn't explain everything. Another curiosity is Brazil's official name was "Estados Unidos do Brasil" from 1889 until 1967.
Therein lies the rub. Any country, organized into states and located in the Americas, could've claimed to be the "United States of America" but of course only the US did so. It's not the same for Mexico (or Brasil, as Marcelo pointed out) because no one else has a claim to the name "Mexico".
ReplyDeleteIt would be a bit like the British renaming themselves the "United Kingdom of Europe" and referring to themselves exclusively as "Europeans". I'm guessing the other Europeans wouldn't be too happy.