{"id":314689,"date":"2026-04-06T12:00:43","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T11:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=314689"},"modified":"2026-04-06T09:16:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T08:16:15","slug":"why-americans-instead-of-north-americans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2026\/04\/why-americans-instead-of-north-americans\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Americans instead of North Americans?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhy only those born in the United States are officially called (named, labeled, known as) Americans<\/strong>\u201d?<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A pertinent question that bothers me for a long time since I am an American, having been born in Brazil 80 years ago.<\/p>\n

The name of the country is United States of America–not America of the United States. Manifestation of a imperialist deep culture allied to a bullying, vain illusion that, We are #1.<\/em><\/p>\n

Facts:<\/h3>\n

There are 35 Sovereign States in the Continent composed of South America, Central America, North America and the Caribbean. These countries are all members of the United Nations and the Organization of American States.<\/p>\n

Break Down of Countries in the Americas<\/h3>\n

Geographically:<\/em><\/h3>\n

South America<\/strong>: 12 countries<\/p>\n

North America<\/strong>: 23 countries (including Central America and the Caribbean)<\/p>\n

35 Total<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Linguistically\/Culturally:<\/em><\/h3>\n

Latin America<\/strong>: 33 countries<\/p>\n

Anglo America<\/strong>: 2 countries<\/p>\n

35 Total<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Population (approx.)<\/em><\/h3>\n

Latin America<\/strong>: 671 million<\/p>\n

Anglo America<\/strong>: 437.5 million<\/p>\n

Population of the Americas: 1.03 billion<\/strong><\/p>\n

Population of the USA: <\/strong>349 million<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

***********<\/p>\n

Any way you look, singling out those born in the USA as \u2018Americans\u2019 is inaccurate and misleading as there are over 1 billion–not just 349 million–Americans.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has always been like this\u201d<\/em> is not a valid argument–actually, a fallacy.<\/p>\n

Only the descendants of Native Americans as a whole [North, Central, South], which inhabited the Continent prior to Christopher Columbus and Pedro \u00c1lvares Cabral’s arrivals in the 1500s, qualify as Americans. The rest of us are descendants of immigrants mostly from Africa, Asia and Europe.<\/p>\n

My ancestry is composed of Native Brazilian, Portuguese and African blood–South American.<\/p>\n

________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Antonio C. S. Rosa (Antonio Carlos da Silva Rosa), born 1946, is founder-editor of the pioneering Peace Journalism website, <\/em>TRANSCEND Media Service-TMS<\/a> (from 2008), an assistant to Prof. Johan Galtung, Secretary of the International Board of the <\/em>TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/a>, and recipient of the <\/strong><\/em>Psychologists for Social Responsibility\u2019s<\/strong> 2017 Anthony J. Marsella <\/strong><\/em>Prize<\/strong><\/a> for the Psychology of Peace and Social Justice<\/em>.<\/strong> He is on the <\/em>Global Advisory Board<\/em><\/a> of <\/em>Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies<\/em><\/a> and completed his B.A., M.A., and graduate Ph.D. work in the fields of Communication-Journalism and Political Science-Peace Studies\/International Relations at the <\/em>University of Hawai\u2019i<\/em><\/a>. Originally from Brazil, he lives presently in Porto, Portugal. Antonio was educated in the USA where he lived for 20 years; in Europe-India since 1994. Books: <\/strong><\/em>Transcender e Transformar: Uma Introdu\u00e7\u00e3o ao Trabalho de Conflitos<\/a> (from Johan Galtung, translation to Portuguese, 2004);<\/em> Peace Journalism: 80 Galtung Editorials on War and Peace<\/a> (2010, editor);<\/em> Cobertura de Conflitos: Jornalismo para a Paz<\/a> (from Johan Galtung, Jake Lynch & Annabel McGoldrick, translation to Portuguese, 2010).<\/em> TMS articles by Antonio<\/em> HERE<\/em><\/a>. Videos<\/em> HERE<\/em><\/a> and<\/em> HERE<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhy only those born in the United States are officially called (named, labeled, known as) Americans\u201d? The name of the country is United States of America–not America of the United States. Manifestation of a imperialist deep culture allied to a bullying, vain illusion that, We are #1. I am also an American–South American.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":297730,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[867,2642,547,2093,541,3324,2137],"class_list":["post-314689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tms-peace-journalism","tag-anglo-america","tag-anti-imperialism","tag-brazil","tag-central-america","tag-latin-america-caribbean","tag-north-america","tag-south-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314689"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":314780,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314689\/revisions\/314780"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}