Are there any American Americans?

1. 71

   jainismusposted 13 years ago

   
   When most of the Americans are known by their country or region of origin, i.e. African Americans, Asian Americans, British Americans, Chinese American etc, I wonder are American Americans are in minority in America?

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      couturepopcafeposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      About as many as there are native in any country. Almost all countries are mixed with some other nationality. The U.S. is one of the younger countries so I guess it shows up more. Even what we call Native Americans came from another land before they came here.
      
      I think when it gets to the second generation, they stop associating with their grandparents' country.

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   2. 59

      feenixposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      I am an "America-American."
      
      If fact, whenever someone calls me "African-American," I set that person straight right away.
      
      I firmly let that person know that I am an American, period.
      
      No, no hyphenations for me.

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   3. 58

      S Leretsehposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      The recognized  Americans the world over Prior to 1964,  were white and Christian (non-religious included).  Others living in America were members of subordinate male groups. The compulsory integration act (July 2, 1964) changed the "American" into a political  expression.  The Americans who built America's political and economic arenas are, for good or bad, reduced to white people.  Romans went thru this very same evolution to destruction.

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      Wesman Todd Shawposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      What would you think were I to tell you that I am a TEXAN?

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         feenixposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         A TEXAN.
         
         That works for me.

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         couturepopcafeposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Hey Wes, I get you. Texas always was considered their own country. Kind of like California.

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   5. 61

      KFlippinposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Interesting topic question...... Given the current state of the USA, maybe it is time we all had DNA done to determine what sort of 'American' we can lay claim to being in this new benefit driven society.  Our blood work should be critical to our financial future as retirees for sure, and I say throw out the Dawe's List and bring in DNA for establishing 'Native American' status, and any other beneficial minority status.  Sad that the day is gone when most were proud to be simply called American with their prior nationality an adjunct, once they arrived in this once great country.  My forebears were Irish, Scotch Irish, English, and Native American, and who knows what else - but foremost they were grateful Americans.......... accept maybe my Choctaw Great Grandmother, I suspect she was rather ticked off at her treatment and the really crappy treatment of her half breed kids, not to mention being called 'squaw' in a derogatory manner even by her eldest grandson - but did my Mom get any special benefits? Nope, not one thing, and it could have really helped her before she died, maybe she'd even still be alive.  Just what made her forebears' multi-generational persecution unworthy of recompense? She had the cheekbones and chin and deep dark hair of the Indian, among other clear inherited traits from her Grandmother, just not a skin color or confirmed pedigree designation of race.  She wasn't on the Dawe's List because her Grandmother was shamed into not signing up. Where's the American Indian in this brave new world of income redistribution and economic retribution and modern day DNA profiling?

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2. 96

   PaulGoodman67posted 13 years ago

   Well I live in the USA, but I am not an American citizen, I am a "resident alien"!  So I am not a British American, just British.  :-)

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3. 60

   Druid Dudeposted 13 years ago

   Native Americans. You know...redskins.

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4. 61

   mrshadyside1posted 13 years ago

   I applaud feenix for his response,for it is one of a true American. When the politically correct response is given then there is at least some small amount of dissent or animosity involved.If you are American it makes no difference what race or from what region,religion or country you or your ancestors originated from.As with being anything else being American is a belief and a patriotic upholding of a dream and right of all men to be equal and free and a willingness to fight and protect that system of values.I fear though,that that belief system is in dire jeopardy and if more Americans don't see what is happening and speak out in the near future it will be a dream and way of life that will be taken from one and all.

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      TLMinutposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      I like this.

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5. 59

   feenixposted 13 years ago

   Why, thank you very much, Mr. Shadyside.
   
   Now, I am even more glad that our paths crossed than I was before.

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6. 66

   maxoxam41posted 13 years ago

   To be American is a concept! To be American is a kaleidoscope of races therefore not a race. To be American can be bought by money. But the real ones are the ones traceable with their blood and being related to the soil! The Americans are the native Indians and nobody else!

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   1. 59

      feenixposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      "The Americans are the native Indians and nobody else?"
      
      So, what you're saying is the distant ancestors of today's American Indians did not migrate to the Western Hemisphere from other regions of the planet.
      
      In other words, you evidently believe that thousands of years ago, the ancestors of today's American Indians just sprout up from out of the ground in such regions as the ones that are presently known as Alaska, the Yukon, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean islands, Peru and Equador.

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         maxoxam41posted 13 years agoin reply to this

         The American continent has only one root, Indian, from north to south!

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            feenixposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            I have no idea what you're talking about. Absolutely no idea at all.
            
            And by the way, there are two American continents -- América del Norte y América del Sur.

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               maxoxam41posted 13 years agoin reply to this

               There is only one continent America (north and south is secondary). According to your logic, what about Asia?

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                  feenixposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  Well, this is Friday night.

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                     maxoxam41posted 13 years agoin reply to this

                     What must we understand? That we have to forgive your ignorance because it's friday night? Sorry, I can't do that! Sure, you'll find someone at your rescue!

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                        feenixposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                        Yes, I'm ignorant, and what do you expect? I am a product of the leftist-dominated public-school system.

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                           couturepopcafeposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                           

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                           maxoxam41posted 13 years agoin reply to this

                           I am too and fortunately we are opposite! It means that we definitely are not its product otherwise we would be similar!

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                           1. 60

                              couturepopcafeposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                              I am not a product of liberal schooling. So where does that put me?

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                           2. 59

                              feenixposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                              Is it just me?
                              
                              So far, I have been unable to understand what you are saying.

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                              1. 66

                                 maxoxam41posted 13 years agoin reply to this

                                 Perfectly understandable! But let me tell you something, maybe as an "American", you should read more historical and geographical books! But let me guess, your leftist school did not have any books! Let me reassure you, many of the rightist schools did not have them neither otherwise our knowledge in those two subjects would be better!

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               2. 60

                  couturepopcafeposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  In the traditional 7 continent model, S.A. is viewed as a separate continent. Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Europe, Antarctica, Australia. Some models view all the Americas and Canada as one continent.

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                     maxoxam41posted 13 years agoin reply to this

                     Thank you but I know, it doesn't make it an unique continent because "pundits" decided otherwise! As I referred to it we could separate Asia as well!

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      couturepopcafeposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      With all respect, what we call Native Americans are not Americans at all. They call themselves Cherokee, Navajo, etc., not American and they have their own nations within the borders of the U.S.

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         maxoxam41posted 13 years agoin reply to this

         I agree with them since America was not called America by the native Indians. If we have to stick to history America should not be called America, logically!

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7. 60

   TLMinutposted 13 years ago

   The whole African-American thing annoys me because people seem to assume anyone black is one. In a novel I read, the author referred to a Jamaican man as an African-American.
   I don't hyphenate either but that may be because I'm German, French, Cherokee and probably more as well. I was born in the USA by parents born in the USA to grandparents born in the USA. I'm American.
   Someone very invested and interested in their ancestry may have a different take on it. If someone knows and maintains relationships with relatives in another country, it might be different.

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      Cre8torposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      As much as I love many of the responses here. I hope someday we can just be human. I'm not trying to sing "kumbaya" and "world peace". I just hope someday we can lose the tags.
      
      "I'm black." "I'm white." "I'm Asian." "I'm Mexican."...funny, I rarely hear anyone say "I'm flesh and blood."
      
      Maybe I've been reading the wrong books but I'm pretty sure there was a group that separated in different directions a long, long time ago.
      
      No offense intended for anyone here. I just think a change in our world today will come with the recognition of this thought.

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         couturepopcafeposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         I'm native. Native to the planet.

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            maxoxam41posted 13 years agoin reply to this

            I have nothing against it!

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8. 70

   Jed Fisherposted 13 years ago

   Yeah, whatever, I guess the USA might look like a country full of hyphenated idiots from the outside. But anyway, one of my ancestors, after serving in the Continental Army during the Revolution, was paid for his years of service to a broke-ass country with title deed to a square mile of land in what is now West Virginia. When he got there to claim the land, there were Cherokee all over the place. He shot a couple of them, married one, and let the rest hang out and hired a few from time to time to help out with the farm work.
   Political Correctness has been a very successful scheme aimed at eliminating free speech and re-installing segregation through racial pride, providing a firm foundation for the state-sponsored racism we struggle with today. That nonsense has to go.

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      couturepopcafeposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      +1 and great story by the way.

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9. 61

   pedrogposted 13 years ago

   Well, a very small minority, only 1.37% of the U.S. population, according to:
   
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Ame … ted_States

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10. 0

    Deb Welchposted 13 years ago

    LOL!

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       Deb Welchposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       Something made me laugh out loud - I am not apologizing.  I'm half & half - Scilian and German - Grandpa came from Scily, went to NYC and he changed his last name because people of Italian descent were treated badly back-in-the-day.  I am American with a made-up name - even so - I was born in NY - served in the military service and have held several government jobs - small - but nonetheless - they counted.  Maybe they figure American is something else - more straight forward - one religion - one Nationality - one color and one attitude.

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          couturepopcafeposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          Hey paisano, you had me up until the one religion, one color bit. Are you saying we should be or that's what people think we should be?

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             Deb Welchposted 13 years agoin reply to this

             couture - Years, and years ago - many people may have thought we were one way as an American and found out something else.  No one is the same in any Nation.  We are a culmination of all and that is good.  The American Indian began Our American History with the cheap purchase of their land and the friendship of the'Thanksgiving feast'.

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11. 82

    Doc Snowposted 13 years ago

    My perception is that most citizens of the US simply refer to themselves as "American."
    
    So I'd have to disagree, respectfully, with the premise of the question.

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12. 61

    Evan G Rogersposted 13 years ago

    We're all africans. All of us.

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       couturepopcafeposted 13 years agoin reply to this

       I guess that's the latest finding but if, as they believe, we evolved from Australopithecus or Pithecanthropus during the Pleistocene Epoch, then we have to go back even further and say we evolved from what or who? Whatever came before that. And who knows where that came from? Riiiiight? The findings in Africa and what evolved into Peking Man were only the oldest findings of erect ape like men. Since the first glacial period pushed them southward, I wonder what and where they were for thousands of years before that.

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          KFlippinposted 13 years agoin reply to this

          And all that merely points to the fact of the desirability of simply an American society that has out shone any other on this Earth, with all its pimples and warts, it is better than any other, and only those who hope to gain riches or merely gifted subsistence by thwarting it or bastardizing its inception and growth and economic basis can hope to make a livelihood by trashing IT, our Country, our Homeland if you like.  Enough time has passed for that moniker, 'Homeland', to be attributed to the great United States of America.
          
          We all came from somewhere.......and to think that today that 'somewhere' has to be tracked in order to determine one's future is absurd.  In the grand scheme of time, ultimately we are all part of the same - which is what America 'was' becoming about historically, but now that seems to be in reverse gear, and the future of our people and our country in grievous question.

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    Lisa HWposted 13 years ago

    My kids' father and I came several mixed generations down the line from whoever came here from somewhere else By the time my kids came along and had their own mix (3 or 4 nationalities from their father; and 3, I think, from my side); and then with one adopted one who has his own genetic ancestry...     I told my three kids they're "quintessential melting-pot" Americans.  I told them, "You are exactly what America is all about."
    
    (In a time and a society with so much emphasis being placed on people's nationalities and origins, I had to give them something that I hoped would let them feel they had their own "identity" as Americans.  It was all I had, and I really wanted, too, to make sure my son (with his own extra set of genetic ancestry lines) would feel he "belonged" as equally as his siblings.

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14. 81

    lovemychrisposted 13 years ago

    I think the problem is those who think they have the "god given" right to rule are finding out.....uh uh...not so fast.
    
    WhoEVER said we have to put money over people is sadly mistaken.
    
    Yes, people come her to make money and make a better life....but the balance between money-makers and money-takers is way way way over balanced. Way way way over-indulgent of a certain leisure class.
    
    I'm 3rd generation. In my lifetime, I have seen it go from made in America, to made in China.
    Good jobs with good wages, to poverty-level wage is to be grateful for!
    
    I love that we are diverse.
    
    But the underlying glue of all for one and one for all is gone. I feel it coming back, but it is so precarious, and so easliy dashed on the rocks.
    
    I want it back! I wish for my kids to know it...feel it, and so far...they have been shown: dog eat dog....get all you can get, the heck with your fellow man.

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