Neil Young first introduced me to appellative “American” chauvinism. Someone (probably a Lynyrd Skynyrd fan) had accused the Canadian guitar god of not being American — as part of the flack Young took for writing and recording the song, “Southern Man.” Neil’s response was quick, pointed and apt: “I’m plenty American: North American.”
Bad Bunny made the identical point during the Super Bowl LX halftime show. His messaging — that “America” is a far broader, older, more inclusive label that many U.S. citizens wish to contemplate — also happens to be a stone-cold fact, one that animates the sibling soccer rivalry between the USA and Mexico, the prevailing politics north and south of both U.S. borders, and the World Cup all three siblings will co-host this summer.
While Bunny’s elaborate performance proved a clever, gauzy ode to how many different types of Americans can peaceably live within U.S. borders, the linguistic history remains clear and unsentimental. The word “America” was first coined in reference to an Italian, Amerigo Vespucci. It was originally used to identify the northeast coast of Brazil — a reality codified, come 1507, by German mapmaker Martin Waldseemüller. Until 1776, the term had absolutely nothing to do with the United States.
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