Well, it seems that at least in the English speaking-world and in its
sphere of influence, America is a country. This means that America is
a country according to pretty much almost everyone in the world. But
America certainly didn't start out being a country, and there are
parts of America, such as the rest of America (meaning, mostly, Latin
America, occasionally Canada too) who contest this view and hold that
America is a continent, and not just one country. Being fully
bicultural myself, it always hurts me when my two cultures interact
without understanding each other. In this case, the misunderstanding
is superficially about nomenclature, and we could just agree to call
a spade a fucking shovel, and get it over with. Unfortunately, it all
goes much deeper than this.
Let's review our history lessons. The Europeans stumbled upon this
chunk of land which they confused at first for India. Eventually, it
became clear that they had found a completely new world, and that's
what they called it for quite some time, the New World. At some point,
a German cartographer whose name nobody remembers
spread the word that a new world had been found, and he used the name
of another cartographer whose name everybody remembers, Amerigo
Vespucci, to name the new land. He used Vespucci's Latin name,
Americus, and thus the new world had a name: America. Certainly no
country there yet. The New World was too new for countries.
At first the fine distinctions were not important either. There wasn't
a South America yet, much less a Latin America or a Central
America. In the beginning, there was only one America. America was
broad, and she was alluring. She was a land full of promise, a
new world to be explored, settled, and in many cases,
conquered. America was a chance to start with a clean slate. Now, this
clean slate meant different things to different Europeans. To the
weakened Spaniards and Portuguese, it meant an opportunity to increase
the wealth of their nations impoverished under centuries of Moorish
rule. The pope drew a line of demarcation, and there you go: west
for Spain, East for Portugal. That's how America was to be divvied
up. With papal approval, the Spaniards and the Portuguese set out to
build an empire of fire, blood, gold, and silver at the expense of
America.
But not all Europeans were quite this savage. For some, the Old World
just didn't suit them anymore. The tired, the poor, the huddled masses
of the richer countries, the oppressed, the persecuted, just wanted a quiet place to do their own business. They
wanted opportunity and a clean slate too. They wanted America, but
they certainly wouldn't go to the lands owned by the relatively savage
Spanish and Portuguese, a savageness that survives to this day in
their bullfights, some believe. Worse yet, many of these huddled
masses wanted freedom from religius persecution, and the Catholic
lands of the Spanish and Portuguese would not give them that. They
would hence not go there. That's not what America meant to these
immigrants. They would find their own America north of the Spanish and
Portuguese.
So it happened, and French, Dutch, and Irish people went to their
America, and cut their own piece of the pie out of the native's
lands, sometimes treating the natives better than the Spanish and the
Portuguese had, and sometimes worse. But at any rate, they had come to
America and they had largely found the freedom they had been looking
for. America had fulfilled their promises for them.
The English were there too; soon they overcame, and the British empire
was now also in America. And because these new "Americans" as
they called themselves felt that the English were interfering with the
fulfillment of the American dream, they decided to make a country out
of America.
Please observe that even now America was more about promise than about
being a country. Sure, the Americans were now free of British rule,
free of redcoats, free of taxes, but they usually saw themselves first
as one of thirteen, and then as Americans, as the new citizens of a
new world. It would take much more time before America truly could
become a country, even if there were very official-looking documents
proclaiming the existence of the United States of America, of
the New World, of the land they had come to. They belonged to the
land, but wouldn't claim the land for themselves quite yet. Finer divisions amongst them would be necessary later, too, but first they had to become American to the world outside their new borders.
Meanwhile, the rest of America wanted their promises back too. Haiti
was the first, then México, and the spread of the fires of American
freedom to the rest of the continent could not be curbed. And believe
me, they too thought of themselves on the small scale first and then
as American. The fine distinctions of a qualified America, whether north, central, south, or Latin, were still
not too important right now. America was still mostly one, because
nobody had seen much of each other's America yet.
In due time the Americans in the north wanted more land, and this
meant encounters with the other Americans down south, and sometimes those up north too. Now the
distinctions are much more important. How can you down south (and perhaps you up north) also be
American? We are American, you, you... well, you're not
quite American yourself, because the promises of America were
fulfilled for us, because we won, but obviously not for you. You
are... Latin Americans, South Americans,
Central Americans, (and Canadians) but only we are unqualified
Americans.
We've always been Americans; the land we came to was America; the
freedom of America was granted to us. We fought a very bloody war and starved of hunger and cold in the winter in
order to earn the privilege of becoming American. We
established a haven to worship as we saw fit, one nation, under a God
who blesses America. We argued long and hard about how to govern
ourselves so that we could stay American. We claimed and settled with
bitter hardships more of America so that she could not escape
us. Clearly, we're American, and clearly, you're not like us, so you
cannot be American like us. Your names need to change to reflect our
differences.
The victors controlled more than land now. They also controlled the
language.
This ends our remembrance of ancient history lessons. It's usually
convenient to forget all of this, and most people prefer it that
way. Now let's think of where this places us today.
First, these other Americans, Latin, Central, and South, weren't
listening too carefully to what the unqualified Americans were telling
them about the promises that America had fulfilled up north. The other
Americans were still smarting too much from the blows they had
received to pay attention, and they were still waiting for America to
fulfill her promises to them. Herein lies the crux of the matter,
because these other Americans are still waiting to this very
day for America to fulfill her promise. They have never listened
very carefully to the worldview that these meddlesome unqualified
Americans have given them, much less to this spiel about why they
cannot be unqualified Americans too, and why they must wear these
extra adjectives at all times like a star of David in a Polish
ghetto. To these other Americans, "America" still means almost exactly
what it means to the unqualified Americans: opportunity, liberty,
promises, but they are referring to their own land, and to the
unqualified Americans' land too. The New World was for everyone, and
why should the unqualified Americans in their own land be the only
ones eligibile for the American dream?
After all, doesn't this land also belong to the other Americans,
didn't they come to America too, didn't too they have to work very
hard to try to be Americans and remain Americans, even if it was the
unqualified Americans who won in the end? If the unqualified Americans
have managed to drown out the voices of the other Americans and tell
the rest of the world that there is only one America, and the others
are in fact very different kinds of Americas, how much longer will the
other Americans have to wait before their country 'tis of them too?
Sadly, the unqualified Americans don't feel a need to listen to what
the other Americans tell them either. In the end, it's no skin off their nose. Anyways, what's the big deal? It's just a name. And that history
lesson? It's ancient. Forget it. Get over it. It's not important.
I can see their point. It is just a name, and just because we
are using names, doesn't mean that we are using them with all of their
historical meaning, because like I said, we prefer to forget those
uncomfortable passages from history. Usage has come to give a
different meaning to America in English. Even if it didn't start out
being a country, it certainly is now. There are lots of congenial
unqualified Americans who refer to themselves as unqualified Americans
with the best of intentions and because it's just a convenient
name. Language fluctuates, meanings change, and it's not something
over which to get one's knickers in a twist.
Unfortunately, Spanish and Portuguese-speaking Americans have never
felt this semantic drift, and in their language, which undisputedly is
theirs even if perhaps America no longer is, "America" still means
what it meant centuries ago: a land of opportunity and promise, a
place to start freshly anew. Beautiful land of green fields,
snow-capped mountains, lakes as vast as the oceans, a place where
freedom promises to ring. They too came to settle in America, in their
own unqualified America, and in their own language they still live in
an unqualified America.
These other Americans respond, why can't we be all Americans and you be
United-Statesians? In the end, it's just a name, isn't it? You said so
yourself. We are American too for reasons very much like the ones you
gave!
To which the unqualified Americans counter, that America just means
too much to them for them to give it up in name, that words like
"United-Statesian" just doesn't have the same ring in English as it
perhaps does in Spanish, and that the other Americans can be Americans
too, and they always have been Americans, but a few minor adjectives
in front will make it easier for everyone involved to understand what
the differences are.
And I sit between the two cultures and feel saddened by this exchange
in which neither side seems to ever fully understand the other.