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Originally Posted by davenotdead

because people in South America dont say "Im South American" when you ask where theyre from....Theyll say 'Brazlian' or 'Peruvian' or 'columbian' ....natch...because they're diff countries...

sort of yeah, but not exactly.

AMERICA is a continent. which is what your answer is not addressing.

so people from south america say they are AMERICAN like the french say they are EUROPEAN.

problem is, when the USA was created all the rest of the continent ws european colonies, so they got first dibs on the name united states of AMERICA-- other countries followed such as estados unidos MEXICANOS and estados unidos DO BRASIL.

this creates a situation as if germany was called "federal republic of europe" and called themselves "the europeans" thus excluding all other "europeans". but it wasn't done on purpose or something.

it was thomas jefferson's plan to colonize the whole continent though. it might stll happen-- a few decades from now, borders melting, etc.

of course "americans" have ignored anything that's happened "south of the border" since forever... but that's another story.