America by any other name
"You know," a dear but occasionally condescending friend recently informed me, "I enjoy your writing but you shouldn't use the name 'America' when referring to the United States." "Gee ... really?" I sarcastically queried, anticipating the next shot and allowing the drama to unfold ...
"That's right," he lectured on. "There are many other nations to be found in 'America' than just the United States, you know!" implying that clearly I didn't know, and as if he was the only person alive able to decipher this particularly enigmatic geopolitical anomaly.
My dear friend, whom we'll call Sandy, is very intelligent and like a brother to me — we've shared much joy and much sadness over the decades — but he often finds himself trapped in an ego-driven position from which there is no escape. Sandy sometimes assumes that everyone thinks as he does or, alternatively, that no one possesses an intellect keen enough to follow his tortured brilliance. Either way, he ejaculates statements that are occasionally technically correct but more often than not, crash and burn when subjected to the harsh scrutiny of reality.
From whence it stems
Before continuing, it is important to distinguish from where Sandy's views emanate. Since the insanity that was the Vietnam War which adversely affected too many of our generation, Sandy has harbored anathema for the country of his birth. He recently applied for and was granted permission to become a foreign national, and for the last several years has gadded about, flitting from one country to the next, interacting with others who have no love for nor true understanding of the miracle that is America. Ultimately, their envy, misguided disdain, and outright ignorance may have influenced his thought processes more than he would care to publicly admit, or perhaps even realizes.
But in my friend Sandy's defense, let us now acknowledge Amerigo Vespucci, the 15th Century Florentine explorer for whom North and South America were named. In time, these honorifics were expanded to include Central America, then Latin America. Unfortunately, that is as far as I am prepared to go to defend Sandy's preposterous statement.
Because in reality, and because of my own immigrant heritage, historical studies, and worldly travels, I know without a doubt that Sandy is parroting the doctrine of a small, jaundiced, disgruntled minority of the world's denizens.
Who said what and when
Since before the Colonies sacrificed their best and brightest to fight, bleed, and die for self-government, the world knew their citizens as Americans — and that included their British overlords. French nobleman Alexis de Toqueville, in his remarkable and internationally-renowned Democracy In America published in 1835, repeatedly and unapologetically referred to the United States as America and her citizenry as Americans. He did so not due to oversight, but because in the vernacular of his world, "America" was synonymous with the United States. From a time long before de Toqueville to today, it remains so.
During World Wars I and II, our national identity, citizenry, and military men and women were universally known as "America" or "Americans." Rest assured that the French populace didn't joyfully cry out "The soldiers of the United States of America are coming!" No indeed; they shouted "Les Americains arrivent!" Likewise, our Germanic foes: "Die Amerikaner kommen!" and Italians: "Gli Americani sono qui!" The Brits? We were and always shall be known as Yanks, but our nation is known as "America" or "The States."
I don't know Japanese but I'd wager that your average soldier of Nippon waiting to be attacked and hiding under an island bush did not commonly refer to our Marines with any phrase containing "United States" — but I do know that their soldiers called our USMC Leathernecks "American Devils." And throughout the nearly 50 years of the grossly misnamed Cold War, the American nation and people were known to the evil empire that was the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact lap dogs as simply "Amerikanski."
And let's not forget the scores of millions of emigrees in this century alone who often literally faced death to reach what every one of them, hailing from the far-flung corners of the globe, called "America" so that they and their families could someday become "Americans." I know this from historical records and because I was raised with the stories of my own familial salvation in the Land of Opportunity, "America."
Nope. Other than Sandy, America's own limousine liberal elites, snotty Eurotrash, a few Canadians suffering from low self-esteem and inferiority complexes, and a polyglot of miscreants who are either envious, misguided, or hate-filled, when you speak the word "America" there is no doubt in any thinking person's mind that you are emphatically referring to the United States. Not Venezuela. Not Trinidad and Tobago. Not Canada. Not Tierra del Fuego, Not Greenland. Not even the Cayman Islands, Sandy.
America. There is only one and when people speak the "A" word, you know exactly what they mean.