As of the year 2016, there are an estimated 324,118,787 people living in America. 324,118,787 people consider themselves to be Americans and 324,118,787 people have decided that America really is worthy enough to be called home. These people, whether they were born within the country or emigrated from another country, comingle in this melting pot of a nation, sharing grocery stores and hospitals and neighborhoods and all the ideologies that make up American society, and each of these people have their own lives and opinions and personal beliefs. All of these people, all (roughly) 324,118,787 of them, fall under the definition of an American – a person who lives in America, because there is simply no other way to define what an American is when
First of all, an American is someone who serves our country. For example, In the essay, “Veteran’s Day: Never Forget Your Duty” by John McCain he defines America by talking about being prisoner of war and serving our country. To McCain to be an American is “Duty, honor, country …. Never forget those thousands of Americans who, with their courage, with their sacrifice and with their lives, made those words live for all of
In my opinion being American means not only living here, but following the law and respecting your elders, but it also means doing the traditions and and my family that is going to one of my family member 's house for Easter this year we went to my cousin Melissa’s and that is an Easter I will never forget.
For a long time, Rais’s main focus was to build the organization, World Without Hate (WWH). He also invested some of his own money to develop the website for WWH. Day after day, the goals of his efforts were becoming very clear. He also made some criteria on what the organizations will do once it has enough fund to support his ideas on a sustainable, ongoing basis. WWH would undertake a number of events: to host speeches by Rais and other anti-hate crime campaigners, to develop anti-hate curriculum for school-age children in the form of workshops, to stage annual essay and art competitions for high school and college students, to develop a vigorous online and social media sites, to provide scholarship to
What it means to be an American is that you have the freedom to vote freedom of speech. You have the liberty to be what you want in America no one chooses for you. Also have the liberty to work wherever you want not be someone 's slave. Being American means you don 't have to hide your religion, the color of your skin or your sex. You have the ability to speak what you want. There are so many good things about being American but there are some downsigns.
The question, “What is an American?”, can be defined differently by different people. What makes up an American can be looked at in different ways. However, an American in my opinion comes from textual evidence, defined through many different readings, such as the “Letters from Columbus”, the story of “Olaudah Equiano”, and from “Of Plymouth Plantation”. As it is defined, Americans come from slavery, but at the same time, they also come from freedom. With points from Equiano and Columbus, and also William Bradford, a Puritan, as well as with the constant changes between exploitative colonialism, violence, and the strive for freedom, America is based around both forms of Slavery and the determination for Freedom.
Being an American means a few things. Freedom, protecting the weak, loving your country, and being active in political affairs. The most important and also the most defining is freedom. Americans are free in both mind and body; able to think freely and, for the most part, act accordingly. Being an American means that almost anyone can run for government positions. Being an American means that if you don’t like the laws, you work to change them through politics. Being an American means dreaming bigger than reason, and working to fulfill that dream. Being an American also means that while you are free to disagree with America’s government and political figures, you realize that America is trying it’s best, and you respect that.
When you ask a non American “What does America mean to you?”, they will more often than not answer with hamburgers, obesity, NFL and Reality TV. That is okay because who doesn 't love hamburgers and football filled Sundays, who doesn 't love watching silly reality TV shows and who doesn 't love a cheat day every once in awhile? Those people are judging a book by its cover and fortunately for me… well my thoughts about America are quite different. When an individual asks me “What does America mean to you?”, I immediately think of three words, freedom, love and family. The most important right someone can have in this world is freedom and luckily for americans we have the luxury of freedom all the time. America has the freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly and petition, the freedoms I just listed are only a few that America are known for. Sadly for other countries, most of them do
In some of the pieces of literature like “I, Too, Sing America,” “America and I,” “The Bill of Rights,” and “Veterans Day: Never Forget Their Duty” the authors have different ideas of what it means to be American. They also express their ideas using different strategies: negation, classification, and function. With these ideas and strategies a more complex definition on what it means to be American was developed. Being an American means being patriotic, having freedoms, and believing in a dream of something amazing.
Being an American is simply having equal rights, equal opportunities, freedom, and a safer, better life. There are countries that are so strict that if you are seen doing something you are not supposed to, you will be arrested and killed. That’s why we are so privileged to live in a country that allows us to do what we want to.
Finally, people still alive like my grandma may say different. When I asked her this question, she left me with this answer “It means you’re free to make your own choices”(Mary Eaton). This comes across as the same type of answer I gave. This is because she still is alive now to realize what is going on to this day, which results in an opinion like others. If she had remembered what an American identity was like back then, then her opinion could have been different. As things settle down as well there hasn’t really been much to tweak the opinion of others.
How does one generation define what it means to be an American? Our lives are filled with chaotic events. Some are good, some are bad. Some events inspire us while others discourage us. My generation defines what it means to be American when we work as hard as we can. We show our American Identity when we are thankful for the countless sacrifices our parents have made.
What does it mean to be an American? To be an American can mean many different things, it could mean that you have American parents and that you were born in America. You could have American parents and be born in a different country and still be considered American. To me it means that you live in America, you could be from places like Turkey, Spain, Germany, Puerto Rico or anywhere and live in America and be considered an American.
In a nation filled with so man diverse people how can you determine what makes an American truly American? In the writings "response to executive order 9066" by Dwight Okita and "Mericans" by Sandra Cisneros we get an inside look on the perspective from two different cultures and opinions from two different writers. However both stories contain the same purpose to show the defining characteristics among Americans although, they differ in a few ways. The views, cultural differences, and upbringings are all points in which have both similarities and differences.
What is the definition of an American? Being American does not mean being a part of a specific race or religion. Although being born in the United States or taking the citizenship test and passing it does make you an American physically, but does it give you the American mentality? Regardless of the language and ethnic diversity that has thrived in America, it is the mutual principle of freedom, equality, and the aspiration of prosperity that makes a true American.