The moment I knew I was an American was when… Um… I was lying down on my couch, watching TV, and eating popcorn! Yeah, the typical lazy Americans… Ha! I’m just kidding (maybe…). Honestly, I don’t even know if I consider myself an American. How do you even define who’s an American and who isn’t? Is there a set of rules one is supposed to follow to be an American? How can you relate so many different people as one same thing?
Whenever people ask me if I’m an American, I respond by saying “half”. My other half is Mexican. I consider myself a Mexican-American rather than just American. I’ve always thought that I am an American because I was born and I’ve lived all my life here. I was raised by both Mexican parents with Mexicans values. My first language was Spanish (I learned English by watching Yu-GI-Oh and Dragon Ball Z… Really). So, Am I an American? Under the law, yeah I am. But I think that’s just it. The USA is just so different that I don’t think you can define everyone as one thing. It’s just too many differences. Everyone has different values, different ideas. But that’s what the USA really is about. I just don’t believe one can call them Americans for other than the fact that they are citizens here.
If I had to define what makes a person an American, though, I would say that they were different. That’s really all I can think about to describe an American because there are just too many differences. Now, I’m not saying that being different is bad! I think it’s great! And that is really makes this country what it is!
So, I knew I was an America the moment I knew I was different. (:
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