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Are you an American? Do you live in America?

According to demographic data provided by Google Analytics and Facebook Insights, most readers of the Costa Rica Star live somewhere in the Western Hemisphere between the Arctic and Antarctic regions, and thus there is a strong chance that you, dear reader, are an American. But, does this mean that you were born in the United States? If you were born in Costa Rica, do you object to being referred to as an American?

When German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller paid homage to Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci by naming the New World “America” in the 16^th century, he could not even fathom to guess the colossal can of worms he accidentally opened. Five centuries later, the debate over the use of the word American in the cultural, political sociological, and even scientific context appears to be reaching critical mass. Use of the words America or American, at least as it applies to the English language in the 21^st century, is bound to cause animosity among those who feel its use is incorrect, exclusionary and downright imperialistic.

The Costa Rica Star mostly follows the Associated Press Stylebook and the Princeton WordNet lexical database when creating online content. To this end, you may have already come across the following disclaimer in some articles:

Author’s Note: The use of the noun and adjective “American” in this article conforms to the definition in Princeton’s WordNet: (A native or inhabitant of the United States), and the recommendation by the Associated Press Stylebook: (An acceptable description for a citizen of the United States). Natives and inhabitants of North, Central and South America are also Americans.

With the above in mind, we can say woman born in El Paso, Texas is both an American and a citizen of the United States. If her parents have Mexican ancestry, then she is a Mexican American and a Hispanic American and also -in the modern vernacular- a Latina. If this woman moves to Playas del Coco in Guanacaste, the Costa Rica Star has the choice of referring to her as an American or U.S. expat. Since the expat population in Playas del Coco consists of many nationalities, the Costa Rica Star will more than likely stress the distinction of her being a U.S. expat.

Matters of Continental Divide

Guess what? Our El Paso native is not only American, she is also North American. In the cultural, demographic and sociopolitical context, she was born in a place that is north of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Mexico. Many geologists contend that the land north of this isthmus is the true southern boundary of what is known as the North American continent, but this view clashes with that of geographers who think that the Isthmus of Panama is the true divider of North and South America.

If we support the latter argument, could we safely imply that citizens of Costa Rica are North American? Ask your average Tico if he is North American and he will respectfully remind you that he is Central American. What about the people of the Caribbean islands? Let’s take a look at Hollywood actress Zoe Saldana, who is better known as Neytiri from Avatar. She is a native of Passaic, New Jersey, which makes her American, North American and a U.S. citizen. She has Dominican and Puerto Rican blood and inherited the genes responsible for her lovely skin tone and great looks, so we can say safely that Ms. Saldana is a beautiful Afro Caribbean Latina actress.

Going back to Herr Waldseemüller’s projection of the world, we should able to say -at least in English- that Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada, and Laura Chinchilla, President of Costa Rica, are both Americans. The problem with this is that Prime Minister Harper would probably prefer to be called Canadian before he is referred to as an American. This is because the Canadian Oxford Dictionary (CanOD) defines the American noun as:

1 – a native or citizen of the United States.

a native or inhabitant of any of the countries of North, South, or Central America.

Right away we can see that the CanOD subscribes to the seven-continent worldview rather than the classic Waldseemüller projection of five inhabited continents plus Antarctica. This continental divide has become semantically problematic in the post-Word War II educational climate. In the 20^th century, Geography and Social Studies teachers in Costa Rica taught the six-continent convention of a single American continental mass connected by the Central American isthmian region between the Isthmus of Panama to the South and of Tehuantepec to the north. Meanwhile, school teachers in the U.S. taught the North America and South American convention, which bundles most of Central America and the Caribbean into a subcontinent.

To add fuel to the eternal fire of educational dissimilarities, we have the cultural and political yearnings of people who want to be distinctly identified as Caribbean, Central American and South American. There is nothing wrong with this, except when we come to the political map of North America. It so happens that in many European educational systems, Mexico is left out of the North American political map. The Costa Rica Star style guide considers the nations of Canada, Mexico and the United States of America as being part of the geopolitical North America, and in doing so we also respect the Caribbean and Central American regions.

Finding American Meaning in Costa Rica

As the number of English speakers (both native and as a foreign language) grows in Costa Rica, the debate over the use of the word American intensifies and becomes linguistically conflated. Spanish is the official language of Costa Rica, which means that adherence to the Royal Spanish Academy is, to borrow from the lovely French language, de rigueur. The Academy looks down upon the use of the word “americano” as either a noun or adjective that makes reference to the United States (of America, let’s not forget that Mexico is officially known as Estados Unidos de Mexico, United Mexican States).

Centuries before globalization took hold, the word gringo was used as a noun to describe all foreigners -particularly those who did not master the Spanish language. This corresponded with its usage in the region of Malaga in Spain. By the 19^th century, so great was the influx of visitors and settlers from the U.S. in Costa Rica that the use of the word gringo and its adjective derivatives shifted exclusively to describe people and matters from that North American country; at this point, Canadians stopped being called gringos, a name that also previously applied to people from European nations other than France, Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain.

In Costa Rica, using “americano” or “americana” to refer to people and matters pertaining to the U.S. is a relatively new phenomenon that can be attributed to two distinct aspects:

1. Respect: At some point the word gringo and its derivatives took on a pejorative meaning in Costa Rica. In communities with a great number of U.S. expats, such as Jaco Beach and Playas del Coco, being called a gringo in a crowded bar could provoke a fight. This is, however, open to personal interpretation. Older Ticos and those who live in rural areas do not see the offensive aspect of the word gringo, and they have not been exposed to English too much to understand the nuances of “American.” In fact, gringo can be a term of endearment that may be difficult to understand for non-Latin Americans. To this effect, consider the fact that Ticas may affectionately call the men in their lives “gordito” (fatty), and Ticos may call their romantic interests “negrita” (black woman), even if their skin is not entirely dark.
2. Code-switching: Learning about the use of the word American while learning English has caused the transliteration of “americano” to enter the vernacular in Costa Rica. This is almost a case of an Anglicism, although the word previously existed in the Royal Spanish Academy dictionary with a different meaning. Let’s face it: For Spanish speakers in Costa Rica is easier to say “ella es americana” rather than “ella es ciudadana u oriunda de los Estados Unidos.”

There is greater debate among the growing English-speaking population of Costa Rica about the proper use of the word American. It is not a matter of syntax but of cultural identity. As previously discussed in this article, there is some resentment with regard to exclusionary feelings created by a single lexical unit that serves as both noun and article. U.S. citizens do not mind being called American or North American; why should they? There are many others who probably don’t mind the use of the word American as defined above by the CanOD; they can be found all over the Commonwealth of Nations.

In the end, those in Costa Rica and elsewhere who find the use of the word American exclusionary should consider the use of the words such as “Christian.” Are the Roman Catholic faithful not Christian? Are all words in English destined to have but a single meaning? This is clearly not the case, but if we want to see a paradigm shift in this regard we must appeal to those at the center of the debate: The people of the United States of America. The problem with this appeal is that there is already ample debate in that country over the use of certain words such as “redskins,” “illegal immigrant,” “African American,” “natural born citizen,” etc. In the past, the world has looked up to the U.S. for guidance in various situations, but this is a matter that they currently cannot help us with.