In skimming through TL´s Portuguese Blog I came across Christopher O’Donnell’s excellent article on the word “America” and the controversy it can spark when used incorrectly in a foreign language. This is an important point for our Spanish-speaking audience as well, and a problem I personally faced on my first study abroad experience in Mexico.
Talking one day with my host father, I referred to my home country as “América” His brow began to furrow, his face coloring, and asked “America? Mexico is America, too!” I quickly realized that I had fallen into an ethnocentric language trap. Despite what we in the US might think, for Spanish-speakers, “América” refers to the land mass of North and South America and encompasses all territory from the northern tip of Canada to the southern-most point of Patagonia. Likewise, all inhabitants of the land mass are referred to as “americanos”.
