Like New Brunswick, place names in Minnesota including the state itself originate with first nations. Cree and other first people are mostly disappeared but their names remain.
The plains of the mid-west USA retain a number of first Nations, or indians as a some prefer to call them, on and off reservation. We passed a reserve marked by a casino billboard where on the highway travelling west of Minneopolis they meet the Minnesota River .
To call them first peoples would seem to be too much of an admission for many I meet and talk with on the subject. Or may be it's just an unfamiliar term. And we here know the common reaction to things unfamiliar.
These are the people who call themselves Americans with whom I've been amoungst for the past 4 dayd. But it was residents of the USA that pointed out to me while visiting the NB Canada café I work in that we are all Americans. Clearly so in the geographic sense.
I don't want to push the envelope on the question and it's desire for an answer - How best to refer to people of the United States of America, but what do we call them if not Americans? It's important it's something appropriate we/they decide upon ourselves..
If people from the USA epitomize what is America, Joan Armatrading is a cynic when in her song she uses the words "U. S. and A", as if the United States and America are distinct.
It's quite clear to me that we are all American. The Halifax, NS band Caledonia in their WE are America album title track possibly sing it best.
"We are America. We are everything she does.."
