{"id":2731,"date":"2012-11-27T19:45:27","date_gmt":"2012-11-28T00:45:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/?p=2731"},"modified":"2012-11-27T19:45:27","modified_gmt":"2012-11-28T00:45:27","slug":"usamerica-usmexico-and-additional-confusion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/2012\/11\/27\/usamerica-usmexico-and-additional-confusion\/","title":{"rendered":"USAmerica, USMexico, USColombia and additional confusions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Often in my posts I refer to myself as a USAmerican<\/em>, rather than just an American<\/em>. Here’s why. I consider America to be the New World\u00a0<\/em> which Christopher Columbus unwittingly encountered, and which Amerigo Vespucci attempted to explore and chart. In fact it was another map-maker (cartographer Martin Waldseem\u00fcller) who ascribed the term America <\/em>to what we would call Brazil, the area of Vespucci’s exploration.<\/p>\n

What we call North America, Central America and the western part of South America had not yet been explored by Europeans. In time other cartographers extended the term America<\/em> to the other parts of the Continent. So, out of respect for this history and consideration for my South and Central American friends, I do not invoke the term “American” exclusively for one part of one continent.<\/p>\n

Although Mexicans often refer to us as North Americans<\/em> (norteamericanos) or just Americans (americanos)<\/em>, they do so knowing that they are actually both. Interestingly, another term has appeared —\u00a0 estadounidenses<\/em> or “United States People”.\u00a0 Thus, my English term USAmericans<\/em>.<\/p>\n

However, the situation is even more complicated. A Mexican friend once told me, “Larry, this country needs a name. “United States of America”<\/em> is not really a name, it is an ambiguous description.” Then he explained that the name of Mexico is actually “The United Mexican States. ” Suddenly I saw his point. To him and all south of our border, America is a single continent including Canada and Argentina — the continent <\/em>of America.<\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n

The “United States of Mexico”<\/em> (so to speak) is\u00a0far more precise than the “American United States<\/em>“, which is what he hears when we say United States of America<\/em>. So unless outgoing Mexican President Calder\u00f3n<\/a> gets his wish and changes his country’s name to simply Mexico<\/em>, North America will continue to have two collections of United States.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

“Lady Columbia” The original personification of the USA<\/center><\/p><\/div>\n

The name Columbia <\/em> would have been a good choice for us. Our capital city actually is,\u00a0 the District of Columbia<\/em>. For years we poetically referred to our land as Columbia<\/em><\/em>, as seen in the unofficial national anthems — Columbia,the Gem of the Ocean<\/em> and Hail, Columbia<\/em> — each a historical reference to Christopher Columbus.<\/p>\n

We did not have an official anthem until The Star Spangled Banner<\/em> was officially adopted in 1931, and even now Hail, Columbia<\/em> is the official anthem for the Vice-President.<\/p>\n

Of course, Colombia ( from Cristoforo Colomb<\/i>o<\/a>\u00a0—<\/em> the Italian\u00a0spelling of the explorer’s name) became the name of the South American Republic of Colombia<\/em> in 1886.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ironically the country previously had been called the United States of Colombia<\/em>\u00a0 — another American “United States”.<\/p>\n

So my friend was right. With a shared history we are not the only United States, and not the only country in the American continent.<\/p>\n

When my Latin American friends become United States citizens\u00a0 they are often congratulated for becoming an American<\/em>.\u00a0 At this I cringe, but my friends are thrilled to be a citizen of this great land, even if poorly named.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Often in my posts I refer to myself as a USAmerican, rather than just an American. Here’s why. I consider America to be the New World\u00a0 which Christopher Columbus unwittingly encountered, and which Amerigo Vespucci attempted to explore and chart. …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n Continue reading →<\/span><\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2774,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}