Who is an American? Who is French? Who is English?

[Ethel mermania]

According to historical records, all those from the US should instead of Americans should be called Gomezians or Vasquezians.

Virginia was mapped as part of the land of Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon in 1529, while Estevao Gomes's name was assigned to New England on the secret master map kept in Spain (Padrón Real) for informing ship captains before they sailed

Esteban Gómez was a Portuguese ship pilot who worked for the Spanish. Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon was a Spanish conqueror and explorer.

Map - https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... 29%29.jpeg

Another map - http://www.agenciasinc.es/var/ezwebin_s ... ge800_.jpg

i could go for that

[Auristania]

There was a John Wayne movie set in 1740ish. Patriots were fighting versus evil Government. The whole message of the movie was that the Rebels were BRIT Patriots demanding their Magna charta Rights as Free-born Brits.

You talking about Allegheny Uprising?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegheny_Uprising
That's the one!

[Luziyca]

I think Americans became Americans when they started to identify themselves as Americans, not just as Brits/Spaniards/French/insert state here.

[Salus Maior]

Which is kind of wrong, considering South and North are on different plates.

Indeed, but we are measuring by continents, not by plates. Because we are measuring from Human point of view and the continents are close enough the same since 150k BC

by that standard Siberia and Greenland should be counted as part of North America too, and California should be removed.

Continents are the land we can see and by that measure the American Continent goes from Nunavut down to Cape Horn

In that case Europe, Asia and Africa are all one continent. (Greenland I always kind of considered to be North America tbh)

[MERIZoC]

Likely whoever has identified as american, and been accepted as such by other people who identify as american, no?

[Neanderthaland]

Likely whoever has identified as american, and been accepted as such by other people who identify as american, no?

Possibly, but that seems to imply that I could make someone not-American simply by spreading the rumor that they were actually born in New Zealand.

I think OP does a very good job of explaining why its own question cannot have a simple answer.

[Platypus Reborn]

So 2/3 of people who are citizens of America are not real Americans because they don't have a passport?

or some kind of official American paper

what do you mean by 2/3 ?

A majority of legal Americans don't have passports.

I don't have one and neither does anyone in my family besides my father, yet I was born in America to a family who has been here for generations.

[Risottia]

In that case Europe, Asia and Africa are all one continent. (Greenland I always kind of considered to be North America tbh)

Afroeurasia has been cut in two by the Suez Canal. And the Americas have been cut by the Panama Canal.

[Herargon]

or some kind of official American paper

what do you mean by 2/3 ?

A majority of legal Americans don't have passports.

I don't have one and neither does anyone in my family besides my father, yet I was born in America to a family who has been here for generations.

And an ID then? Everyone in Europe has one, iirc.

[Risottia]

Likely whoever has identified as american, and been accepted as such by other people who identify as american, no?

Possibly, but that seems to imply that I could make someone not-American simply by spreading the rumor that they were actually born in New Zealand.

Wasn't that the whole point of the Birthers?

[Neanderthaland]

Possibly, but that seems to imply that I could make someone not-American simply by spreading the rumor that they were actually born in New Zealand.

Wasn't that the whole point of the Birthers?

Yes.

But the distinction here is that whether Obama is American or not is currently a matter of factual record.

Under the proposed system, he could literally stop being American if only I can convince enough people.

[Novus America]

I would argue that in order to be considered American, French, English or any-other, one would have to be born within a certain nation. Of course, there are major flaws to this, as of now it is the only thing I can think of off the top of my head.

Ok, so George Washington was not an American?

He wasn't born in the American nation. The American nation didn't exist when he was born.

A nation is not an area of territory. A nation is an identity. While we innthe US often use, nation, state and country interchangeably there are differences. France is a country, as a distinct area of land. The French Republic is a state. The French are a nation.

One is not so much born in a nation but of a nation.

And one can identify as being of a nation even if that nation is not regonized as a fully independent state. One can still be Scottish, Kurdish, etc.

Nations are social constructs, people became Americans when they identified as such.

[Novus America]

Wasn't that the whole point of the Birthers?

Yes.

But the distinction here is that whether Obama is American or not is currently a matter of factual record.

Under the proposed system, he could literally stop being American if only I can convince enough people.

Yes, but that is the case. Nations are social constructs. If nobody recognized him as American (including himself) he would certainly cease to be such.

The factual question was not if he was an American. The question was if he was a native born American. They were claiming he was not born in the US. You can be an American even if not born here.

[Cetacea]

Indeed, but we are measuring by continents, not by plates. Because we are measuring from Human point of view and the continents are close enough the same since 150k BC

by that standard Siberia and Greenland should be counted as part of North America too, and California should be removed.

Continents are the land we can see and by that measure the American Continent goes from Nunavut down to Cape Horn

In that case Europe, Asia and Africa are all one continent. (Greenland I always kind of considered to be North America tbh)

for the record I do consider Eurasia to be single continent, Europe is a peninsula but I'd be generous and give it the same sub-continent status as India (which could also apply to North and South American subcontinents). But yeah you're right about Africa it gets special snowflake status as a continent despite its former connection to Asia

[Novus America]

Indeed, but we are measuring by continents, not by plates. Because we are measuring from Human point of view and the continents are close enough the same since 150k BC

by that standard Siberia and Greenland should be counted as part of North America too, and California should be removed.

Continents are the land we can see and by that measure the American Continent goes from Nunavut down to Cape Horn

Greenland is definitely considered part of North America.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_America

In that case Europe, Asia and Africa are all one continent. (Greenland I always kind of considered to be North America tbh)

[MERIZoC]

Likely whoever has identified as american, and been accepted as such by other people who identify as american, no?

Possibly, but that seems to imply that I could make someone not-American simply by spreading the rumor that they were actually born in New Zealand.

I think OP does a very good job of explaining why its own question cannot have a simple answer.

If quite a lot of Americans dont accept you as such, are you really american? Or rather, are you the same American as them?

At its core a nation is a group of people bound together by them recognizing each other as a member of the group.

[Cetacea]

Greenland is definitely considered part of North America.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_America

In that case Europe, Asia and Africa are all one continent. (Greenland I always kind of considered to be North America tbh)

heh, well interestingly enough that wikipedia page refers to North America as a subcontinent too. However the main point I got was the nobody has actually agreed to what exactly is covered by North America, and it might include Canada, USA, maybe Mexico, maybe Caribbean and maybe Greenland.


but another question my great great great grandfather was a Whaler from Nantucket, USA who got shipwrecked on the NZ coast and was saved by a local woman who he eventually married - does that allow me to claim to be an Ethnic American?

[The Brand New Salvatagard Republic]

I live in America, and some of my anchestors were English and French.

[Impireacht]

There are two dozen meanings for each of these words, and nowadays they're just used to define any person in a nation, but in my opinion, at the lowest level of the words...

Americans are native-born people of the North American and South American continents after they recieved the name Americas.

English people are the people being descended from the angles+saxons of the former kingdoms of Mierce (Mercia), East Engle, and West Seaxe (Wessex) - Cornwall was Briton territory and thus not included in my version of the word "English" though they are certainly English by all modern definitions of the word.

The French are the descendants of the Frankish people...


I guess I really define the words by ethnic groups if we're talking history. Seriously though, nowadays anyone who is a legal citizen of any of those places is that nation's denonym.

[Novus America]

heh, well interestingly enough that wikipedia page refers to North America as a subcontinent too. However the main point I got was the nobody has actually agreed to what exactly is covered by North America, and it might include Canada, USA, maybe Mexico, maybe Caribbean and maybe Greenland.


but another question my great great great grandfather was a Whaler from Nantucket, USA who got shipwrecked on the NZ coast and was saved by a local woman who he eventually married - does that allow me to claim to be an Ethnic American?

North America as a continent, (the term can refer to other things) would include Greenland and the Caribbean, as what other continent could they be part of?

Ethnic American means nothing, as American is not an ethnicity. Unless he was American Indian (Native American, but of the pre European tribes who came from Siberia) it does not mean anything really. American is not an ethnic based nationality, but a one based on civic identity.

[Herargon]

There are two dozen meanings for each of these words, and nowadays they're just used to define any person in a nation, but in my opinion, at the lowest level of the words...

Americans are native-born people of the North American and South American continents after they recieved the name Americas.

English people are the people being descended from the angles+saxons of the former kingdoms of Mierce (Mercia), East Engle, and West Seaxe (Wessex) - Cornwall was Briton territory and thus not included in my version of the word "English" though they are certainly English by all modern definitions of the word.

The French are the descendants of the Frankish people...


I guess I really define the words by ethnic groups if we're talking history. Seriously though, nowadays anyone who is a legal citizen of any of those places is that nation's denonym.

The French aren't the descendants of the Frankish people. That would be the Gallic Celts.
Or more accurately; the Gallic Celts with Frankish rulers back then, which influenced them to become more like the Franks.

The descendants of the Frankish nowadays would be the Dutch, Flemish (and some Wallonians), Luxembourgians, and the north-/middle- part of Germany.

[Volitopia]

Personally, I think we're all humans, so such distinctions are hardly needed, but I won't deny they're useful in travel & such.

But the OP asked for an answer, so here I provide one:

The way I prefer to "classify" peoples by their nationality is firstly by their country of birth, and secondly country of last generation's (e.g. your parents) birth, then the generation before that, and before that, and that, and that, etc…, where each generation gap's "power in your ethnicity" is halved each time. For example, Bob was born in USA, and his mother is entirely Danish and father is entirely Brazilian. Therefore, he is 1/2 American, 1/4 Danish, and 1/4 Brazilian. Cousins and such don't count because they didn't have a part of the double-person chain of birth that leads to you! (from their perspective, of course, you're the nephew and you don't count in this metric)

I like this method of mine because with its halving system, it can accurately display your figures of ethnicity through your parents, giving the most up-to-date data with the most weight in determining ethnicity. It also prevents things like someone with no German ethnicity in their past stating: "my brother was born in Germany, so I'm part German". It sounds a little legit, but isn't for the same reason if your brother sold himself and his children, servitude wouldn't be imposed on you by that metric.

[Yorkers]

Do you want what we think "Americans" should be or what "Americans" legally are? Because those are very different.

[Yorkers]

According to historical records, all those from the US should instead of Americans should be called Gomezians or Vasquezians.

Virginia was mapped as part of the land of Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon in 1529, while Estevao Gomes's name was assigned to New England on the secret master map kept in Spain (Padrón Real) for informing ship captains before they sailed

Esteban Gómez was a Portuguese ship pilot who worked for the Spanish. Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon was a Spanish conqueror and explorer.

Map - https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... 29%29.jpeg

Another map - http://www.agenciasinc.es/var/ezwebin_s ... ge800_.jpg

As much as you fantasize about America being a Latin dominion under a despotic Catholic monarch, it ain't happening.

[Herargon]

Personally, I think we're all humans, so such distinctions are hardly needed, but I won't deny they're useful in travel & such.

But the OP asked for an answer, so here I provide one:

The way I prefer to "classify" peoples by their nationality is firstly by their country of birth, and secondly country of last generation's (e.g. your parents) birth, then the generation before that, and before that, and that, and that, etc…, where each generation gap's "power in your ethnicity" is halved each time. For example, Bob was born in USA, and his mother is entirely Danish and father is entirely Brazilian. Therefore, he is 1/2 American, 1/4 Danish, and 1/4 Brazilian. Cousins and such don't count because they didn't have a part of the double-person chain of birth that leads to you! (from their perspective, of course, you're the nephew and you don't count in this metric)

I like this method of mine because with its halving system, it can accurately display your figures of ethnicity through your parents, giving the most up-to-date data with the most weight in determining ethnicity. It also prevents things like someone with no German ethnicity in their past stating: "my brother was born in Germany, so I'm part German". It sounds a little legit, but isn't for the same reason if your brother sold himself and his children, servitude wouldn't be imposed on you by that metric.

They're as much Brazilian or German as they are grown up. If you don't speak a language natively and have that native culture, you aren't part of that culture in the sense of being there 'from birth'. A man that is 1/4th German from ancestry, yet does not speak German, could be considered German according to your system, which doesn't seem logical to me.