Have you ever referred to the USA as ‘America’ in front of a Brazilian?<\/b><\/p>\n
If you have, then you have also undoubtedly heard something like this: “Voc\u00ea acha que na America s\u00f3 cabe um pais?”<\/b> (you think the United States is the only country in America?<\/em>)<\/p>\n As a citizen of the United States, I made this ‘mistake’ many times. In fact I haven’t quite gotten in the habit of avoiding the word when speaking with Brazilians.<\/p>\n Outside of the United States, it is commonly considered a mark of our country’s arrogance that we refer to ourselves as ‘Americans’ and our country as ‘America.’ I think much of the problem is that the same word, America\/n, has two very different meanings. Outside of the US, it is used as a geographical term; someone born in North or South America is an American, America is the entire landmass. For US citizens, the term has a different literal meaning that has to do with assimilating into the culture of the US.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Have you ever referred to the USA as ‘America’ in front of a Brazilian? If you have, then you have also undoubtedly heard something like this: “Voc\u00ea acha que na America s\u00f3 cabe um pais?” (you think the United States is the only country in America?) As a citizen of the United States, I made…<\/p>\n