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Enviado el: jueves, 28 de marzo de 2002 03:21 I have followed this discussion with interest, as my just-completed dissertation deals with US views of Latin America in the period 1800-1830. One of the things that shaped US observers' enthusiasm for the Spanish American patriots was the conviction that their southern neighbors were fellow "Americans." US Geography texts of the period most commonly referred to "America" as a unitary continent, though US speakers and writers could often move back and forth between national and continental meanings of the word within the same speech or document. I also observed numerous uses of the term "United States of North America" by US writers. Naturally, I had to deal with the naming conundrum myself, and decided that I could not write about what Americans thought of Americans from different parts of America. I called US citizens "North Americans" whenever I could not dodge the term or substitute "US." One of my readers quite rightly objected to the implicit inclusion of Mexicans and Canadians, but I stood fast on what I regarded as the least of evils. BTW, a Taiwanese friend of mine - neither a PC estadounidense nor a resentful Latin American - also objects to the term "American" and suggests the term "Usanian." Best, Mark Jaede SUNY at Buffalo and Buffalo State College
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