April 19, 2007
Memo From Mexico,
By
Allan Wall
Is It Wrong For Us To Call Ourselves
Americans?
"Although we realize
that the term American is commonly used to refer to the
U.S. population, we view American as including other
North and South Americans as well. Therefore we have
tried to limit the use of this term when referring to
the United States."
These words of wisdom are from the introduction to Multicultural Education in a Pluralistic Society
,
a book that VDARE.COM columnist
Athena Kerry has
informed us was foisted upon education majors in
her university.
So is it wrong for us citizens of the U.S.A. to call
ourselves Americans?
Last year, there was a proposal in the Michigan
Department of Education to prohibit the use of the
term "Americans" from referring to U.S. citizens and
Karen Todorov, the
Social Studies advisor to the Michigan
Department of Education, went so far as to
assert that "It is ethnocentric for the
United States to claim the entire hemisphere."
Mrs. Todorov’s [send
her mail] point of view did not carry the day at the
Michigan Department of Education—not yet anyway. After
the outcry over her proposal last year, Michigan
Superintendent Mike Flanagan released a statement to
reassure Michiganders that:
"We are not seeking
to do away with the terms ‘America’ or ‘American’ from
classroom instruction, it’s not going to happen. I
consider myself an American. We live in the United
States of America. We are citizens of the United States
of America…we’re Americans."
State is not Removing "America" from Classroom
Instruction in Michigan ,
May 24, 2006
Good for Superintendent Flanagan. But, given what kinds
of
crazy ideas are taken seriously in education
departments, Mrs. Todorov
may yet be triumphant.
That "U.S. citizens are not the only Americans"
is a stock argument in Mexico. It has led Mexicans to
utilize different names to refer to a U.S. citizen: "estadounidense",
"norteamericano"
and "gringo."
"Estadounidense"
is Spanish for "United Statesian". It
sounds ugly in both languages. That’s the term I
have on my FM3—the Mexican residency/work permit issued
me by the Mexican government.
However, the term "Estadounidense" doesn’t solve
the problem. The official name of Mexico is LOS ESTADOS
UNIDOS MEXICANOS (The United States of Mexico). So
technically, you could also call a Mexican an "Estadounidense"
too.
Another common term for American is "norteamericano",
which refers to a U.S. citizen, in contrast to "América
del Norte", which is what we would call “North
America”. The problem is, Canada is farther north
than the U.S. So why are we "norteamericanos" and
they aren’t?
"Gringo"
is a common term
used to refer to Americans. It has an interesting
history. It derives from Spanish griego which
means "Greek".
Remember the English saying "It’s all Greek to me?"
It’s apparently based on a line in Shakespeare’s
"Julius Caesar" Act I, Scene 2
"But, for my own part, it was Greek to me".
The Bard’s Spanish contemporary Cervantes expressed a
similar thought in his classic Don Quixote.
In one passage, two laborers are at the receiving end of
one of Don Quixote’s discourses. As a result "Todo
esto para los labradores era hablarles en griego o en
jerigonza." [Volume II, Chapter 19] ("All this
was
Greek or gibberish to the laborers.")
Thus, the basic idea of "gringo" is that of a
foreigner, whose native tongue sounds like gibberish.
Spanish-speakers certainly understand the link between
language and culture.
Being called a "gringo" doesn’t offend me, since
the term can be positive or negative depending on the
context. Actually, I prefer it to artificially-concocted
terms such as "estadounidense" or "norteamericano".
But even in Latin America, the use of "gringo" is
elastic. In Mexico it refers to an American, or
sometimes a
Canadian. But farther south, "gringo" can
refer to any white foreigner. In
Argentina, a "gringo" is any
white foreigner except a Spaniard. Thus Italian
immigrants were referred to as gringos.
So this brings us back to Square One. Even for Latin
Americans, these substitutes for "American" don’t
really solve the problem. And many ordinary Mexicans
aren’t offended by all this and call us "Americanos"
anyway. But the chattering classes and intellectuals
insist on pressing the point.
In the U.S. schoolchildren are taught that there are 7
continents: Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, Antarctica,
North America and South America.
In Mexico, the schoolchildren are taught that there are
five continents: Europa, Asia, Africa,
Oceanía and América (meaning North America
and South America).
For Mexicans, the term "América" refers to the
entire hemisphere. So technically "Americano"
refers to any inhabitant of that hemisphere.
OK, we can live with that. We have
our language and
they have theirs. We have our culture and
they have theirs.
But the problem arises when influential Americans
(meaning,
U.S. citizens) buy into the same argument—such as the
educrats I cited at the beginning of this article.
And what was
President Bill Clinton thinking when, on a visit to
Honduras in 1999, he proclaimed that "Todos somos
Americanos" (we are all Americans)? [Clinton
Hails U.S. Efforts in Storm Zone, By Charles
Babington, Washington Post, March 10, 1999]
I’d like to point out some reasons why we, as
English-speaking citizens of the United States of
America, should not hesitate from
nor apologize for calling ourselves Americans.
Mature people understand that the same word can have
different connotations in different contexts. When we
say "Columbus
discovered America" we are talking about the
Western Hemisphere, when we sing
"God Bless America" we are singing about the
U.S.A.
In Mexico there a number of cities and states with the
same name. For example, Chihuahua (the city) is capital
of
Chihuahua (the state). But the residents of either
the city or state are called chihuahenses (The
dog breed we call a
Chihuahua is a chihuahueño, don’t confuse
that with chihuahense).
Is that confusing? It can be, but Mexicans usually infer
what a speaker means from the context.
In South America there is a nation known as
Ecuador. In Spanish, the word "ecuador "
means "equator". Now, is Ecuador the only nation
located on the equator? No, it most certainly is not.
Does that mean every other single nation on the equator
should be offended by the name? Frankly, I’ve never
heard anybody gripe about it.
Is
Iceland the only country with ice? Is
Costa Rica the only nation with a "rich coast?"
Many national names have meanings which could apply to
numerous countries. They don’t abandon their national
name in fear of offending people.
Aside from Spanish-speakers (and to a lesser extent
Portuguese-speakers), few people in the world complain
about us calling ourselves Americans. The Arabs, a
number of whom aren’t exactly fond of the U.S.A., have
no objection to calling us the Arabic equivalent of
"American". In Iraq, where
I recently did a tour of duty, they call us "Amrikan"
(Americans). When I served as a
liaison NCO with the Italian Army, I was an "Americano",
the Italians didn’t have a problem with that.
Basically, it’s only a vocal and influential contingent
of Spanish-speakers who have a problem with it.
It’s important to point out, though, that we U.S.
citizens are the only people in the Western Hemisphere
who call ourselves Americans as a nationality. Nobody
else does—they’re Mexicans, Costa Ricans etc.
Not only that, but we have been referred to as
"Americans" since before U.S. Independence. (Samuel
Johnson, for example,
called us Americans in 1774.)
The linguistic ramifications of "America" and
"América" are interesting. They could make
for a lively and good-natured after-dinner conversation
with a Latin American friend. A language, after all, has
its own world view. To provide a trivial example: while
in English cats are
said to have nine lives, in Spanish they are only
said to have seven lives. Will
Spanish cats sue us for discrimination?
But there’s more at work here. In today’s environment,
there is something else going on, that makes this more
than simply a linguistic oddity.
In today’s environment, the bellyaching about the term
"American" is being used, consciously or
unconsciously, to strip us of our identity, to
de-nationalize us.
Consider for example, some of the signs brandished by
protestors last May 1st, during the illegal
alien protests.
One sign declared "America is a continent and not a
country." (It's the
ninth photo on Michelle Malkin's
The Pictures You Won't See.) This sign is not
making a geographical statement, but a sociopolitical
one. It’s a form of culture war. The message is that the U.S. has no right to control its own borders
and prevent anybody from
Latin America from entering.
If everybody in the hemisphere is an "American"
in the exclusive sense, then there’s nothing special
about U.S. citizenship. Some who forbid us from calling
ourselves Americans have an agenda—the
Latinization of the United States, our
transformation into an appendage of Latin America.
If everybody in the hemisphere is an "American",
and if we are forbidden to call ourselves Americans in a
nationalistic sense, then
everybody in the hemisphere has the right to live in
the U.S.A. and
transform the country.
Will the U.S. remain a
sovereign nation, or will it become an appendage of
Latin America? Will it be subsumed into
some kind of continental or hemispheric union?
Maybe—if we lose the psychological battle first and are
intimidated out of our own identity.
President
George Washington exhorted his countrymen in his
Farewell Address that
"The name of
American, which belongs to you, in your national
capacity, must always exalt the just pride of
Patriotism, more than any appellation derived from local
discriminations."
Others can call us what they will. But we ourselves
should unabashedly call ourselves Americans.
American
citizen Allan Wall (email
him) resides in Mexico, with a
legal permit issued him by the Mexican government. Allan
recently returned from a tour of duty in Iraq with the
Texas Army National Guard. His VDARE.COM articles are
archived
here; his FRONTPAGEMAG.COM
articles are archived
here his "Dispatches from
Iraq" are archived
here his website is
here.
