What is an American?

      What is an American? How would we describe them? If we were to answer this question in the simplest of terms, we would define an American as anyone being a resident and living in the United States. Although being an American consists of living in North America, it also consists of those that live in South America. Due to our modern society though, we do not consider anyone who does not live in the United States as an American, for example, someone living in Brazil would not classify themselves as an American, they would say Brazilian. So that leads us to answer the question, what is an American?

      Now, if we were to try and answer this question with more complex thinking, we would find that answering this question is much more difficult than it seems. America is not made up by just one group of people, but by multiple groups, each with their own unique cultures and societies. Would we classify all of them as American, yes, we can do that, but if you were to ask what they considered themselves, most people would not say they were American, but would state where they are from, or where there ancestors hail from. Do these people still consider themselves American? Why yes, they all came here for the same reason most people come to America, in search of new lives and great opportunities. With all these different people pouring into the United States, the country begins to become more and more diverse. With all this diversity, we can not clearly justify our identity as a country. We are just too diverse to come to a conclusion, sure we can go with the simple definition, but, that would defeat the purpose of trying to describe ourselves as Americans. Maybe, we can't describe Americans by their ethnicity, but by what everyone in the country came for. We can describe an American by the set goals that they had when they first arrived in this country, they are all in search of the American dream, for the freedom. What is an American? In the end, if I were to answer this question, I would put it as someone who has come to this country in search of a better life, better opportunities and for the freedom that is promised in America, not generally someone who lives or was born in the United States.