Saturday, September 7, 2013  Who Is an "American?" What's In a
Name?  Recently, in the online magazine Slate, author Chris Kirk
published a rant about the propriety of United States citizens
calling their country “America.” In particular, he called out
South Americans for complaining that those of us in the US too
readily appropriate a term that, in their opinion, applies to
the entire Western Hemisphere.  That may sound xenophobic on his
part, but I can see the point. Words can have multiple
definitions and, while using “America” as a synonym for the
United States may sound myopic, there’s no alternative that
rolls as easily off the tongue. Prestigious international
journals, such as The Economist, readily use it as a synonym for
the United States. Much depends on context. Still, “America” is
a loaded term, a Europeanism that derives from the Italian
navigator Amerigo Vespucci. To Spanish speakers, “América”
comprises both North and South America, as the album cover of
the late Argentine rock singer Sandro m