As many Latinos say, “The US is a country without a name.” Sí claro/Yes, of course. And how arrogant of the US to call itself the name of the entire hemisphere (América) it’s located on.

Hola. This topic came up in comments recently in another thread. I and the people I know are so tired of reading and hearing the US referred to as “America.” I know that’s what is taught in schools to children who don’t yet possess critical thinking skills, but how fucking arrogant for one country on a bullying power trip to call itself the name of the entire hemisphere/continent it’s located on. I know that many people and their corporate parasitic bourgeois politicians (such as messiah
Obama) use the term “America” constantly, often without thinking. So I have no illusions that this article will change too many people’s minds and make them more mindful of the language they use. The wsws.org site is bad about this. One would think they would know better, considering their site is especially internationally-based. But that’s one of my complaints about them. They do refer to the “US” but also frequently use the word “America.” And like sheeple, many of their commenters — who pretend to be “socialists” while using sexist and outdated language, as well as the hateful “i” word for undocumented immigrants — use “America” all the time as well. I don’t understand why someone would use the word “America” (unless that’s what one was taught in school, because of conditioning, or one has just given no thought to it), when US is so much shorter; it’s only 2 letters to speak or type. I never refer to the US as “América” because the US is only part of one of the Americas: norte América/North America. On pink barrio, I use US, The Cesspool, The Imperialistic Empire, Los Estados Unidos and EEUU. And I refer to people from the US as USans.

Mi amigo alerted me to a conversation he read about this on a political site recently and suggested I check it out. Here’s what they said (with my slight edits for copyright purposes) that I thought I’d pass along:

“I have been using the descriptor “USAins” and “USAns” interchangeably for years, at every chance I find to distinguish these exceptional, clueless, egocentric, prodigal, anti-ethnic, thieving, ill-informed, intellectually-lazy, self-indulgent, amoral middle class (increasingly diminishing) and wealthy corporate and professional upper classes (ever growing) from the inhabitants of the rest of America which includes Los peruanos, Los mexicanos, Los hondureños, Los brasileños, Los venezolanos, los cubanos, Los canadienses/Canadians, et al. It’s gotten so bad that even Europeans from all walks of life are using the words “América” and “Americans” referring to the people of United States, a nation of the North American part of the Continents of the Americas.

A response to that was:

And also if you travel to América Latina, understandably they get quite miffed (more than they will politely let on) at the way visitors from the US called “Estado Unidese” (literally “United Statesian”) describe themselves as “Américano”. At a minimum they will correct you with a “Queres decir Norteaméricano?”
(México and Canada notwithstanding, “North American” is also typically used to mean someone from the US). Even the pope from Argentina brought this up in his speech to the US Congress. [Editorial: I would imagine that went way over their heads.]

Another response:

Also, you won’t spend much time in any América Del Sur country before you hear the comment about the USA being “el pais sin nombre” (The country without a name) because there are a number of other countries whose full name is “United States of _____” One example of that is “Los Estados Unidos de México.” And “The United States of America” does not fix this problem, because “America” refers to a whole hemisphere.

For USAns who continue to be confused with this, I ask: “What if one day Germany declared that it will henceforth be called “Bundesrepublik Europa” (“Federal Republic of Europe, instead of Federal Republic of Germany) and everyone else will be called “French”, “Belgian”, “Italian”, etc…Don’t you think its neighbors would be pissed off?

I like “Estado Unidese” but “United Statesian” is awkward in English so I prefer “USAn”, which I propose pronouncing “yoo-s-a-n”

Another response:

As an expat from the U.S. living in South America, I can tell you that your comment is exactly correct. Because of this, many of my Latino friends and neighbors here consider most people from Los Estados Unidos as arrogant, disrespectful, and ignorant … especially regarding the history of los Américas.

The city I live in was founded in 1557, 239 years longer than the US has been a country. By the way, some of the buildings from that time are still functioning today with family businesses on the first and second floors and apartments on the third floor and higher.

The city I live in has the largest number of people from the US (5,000+) in the country. Frankly, I wish most of them would go back home to the US as I get tired of their constant negative attitude and arrogance. The locals have a name for those people … feo americanos (ugly Americans).

One of my commenters in the other thread wrote:

“I went to Perú years ago with a friend and he told me before we left NYC to make sure not to refer to myself as “an American” because Peruanos consider themselves “Americans” (Americanos) too and to them it comes across as if you think your country the USA is superior and has priority over the word “American” and America. When talking with the locals who were lovely people we told them we were from los Estados Unidos (translation: the United States), and some Peruanos said, “Ah, the country without a name” (translated). Very true. Thought I’d pass that along.”

And another comment from that thread:

“I cannot stand hearing or reading the U.S. referred to as “America,” nor can my relatives. When the pope did his tour recently, Univisión and Telemundo used the caption, “El Papa en América” and he stopped in Cuba before he came to the U.S. Yes, everyone, Cuba is part of América.”

Yes it is, Alejandro. Muchas gracias for that.

This will get the Alex Jones’s rednecks stirred up. Unfortunately, un amigo/my friend tells me that Alex Jones uses the term “America” all the time to refer to the US, and he is probably partly responsible for things going backwards very quickly here in The Cesspool, and that’s because of the hate being spewed by him on a regular basis. Un amigo tells me: “Alex Jones hates everybody. He’s currently on an anti-Transgender ‘campaign.'” Alex is very anti-gay ( we both think Alex is the classic closet case because people who are secure with themselves and their sexuality don’t hate gay people…go get the dick, Alex!). He also despises mexicanos and he can’t stand what he calls “political correctness.” Well, I don’t consider what I’ve written about here so-called “political correctness” at all. To me it’s just basic sense. And using basic sense and critical thinking skills, I find it very odd to read comments on the wsws, for example, from a female who refers to “mankind” or “known to man.” What the fuck? I would think that a female would use the word “humankind,” no? Or “known to people” or “known to society.” No, not in these backward days! Why would a female write, “known to man?” Doesn’t this woman realise she just excluded every female out there by her use of the word, “man?” Loca. I would expect that language from a sexist guy. These days I guess I should expect that from females too. Sigh. (You know, I think I’ll go watch/listen to the Lully Te Deum about now to get away from this shit). As I’ve said many times before, feminism is dead and all one has to do to confirm that is to look around, look at the extreme chauvinism displayed by these young white “straight” couples taking over San Francisco’s Castro barrio like a malignant cancer. And that’s just one example of many examples I could give of how things are going backwards to the 1950s, if not before, very quickly especially here in los Estados Unidos. And the pseudo-left and pseudo-liberals who are nothing but Establishment Democrats (basura!) are complicit in this. They are some of the people writing this outdated shit and they’re the very people referring to the US as “América,” and standing around singing that obnoxious, tacky, nationalistic propaganda song, “god bless america.” Ugh. I always ask: Which América are you asking for your Floating Cloud Being^TM to bless? And you are aware that the other countries of América are in need of and deserve blessings far more than the extremely selfish, self-absorbed, self-entitled and greed-based US, which is constantly begging some Floating Cloud Being^TM for blessings?) But if one tried to explain all of this to the pseudo-left/pseudo-liberals, they wouldn’t begin to get it. D and R partisans are not the brightest people out there, otherwise they wouldn’t be D and R partisans. Chau.—el barrio rosa