What is an American?

In today’s society there is a lot of debate about what being an American really is and what qualities or characteristics an American would have. My basic thinking is that being American doesn’t only mean that you have to be a born citizen of the United States. An American is someone who has made a life for themselves in America and someone who has seized the opportunities that were presented to him or her. Being an American means that you have taken hard work and success and turned it into a life for yourself. Ever since this country was first founded the fundamentals of being American have been based on hard work, making a life for yourself and the perception of what an American really is through, not only the eyes of our peers but, the eyes of God as well.

Many people come to the conclusion that being an American simply means that you have been born and raised in the United States but if that were truly the case then there are millions of people who aren’t really Americans at all. People from all around the world come to America seeking opportunities that they otherwise couldn’t have in their countries. That is a huge component of being an American. De Crevecoeur summed it up in his “What Is an American?”, when he makes the statement “ ubi panis, ibi patria” which, when translated, means where bread is earned, there is my country. The overall meaning of this quote is really that your country is the place in which you have taken the opportunities that have been given or presented to you and turned them into success, whether that be in your career, social life or family life. In De Crevecoeur’s writing he also brings up the ideas that “ individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labors and posterity will one day cause great change in the world”, which can be translated as all races and ethnicities come together in work and bring a greater success to the world than if a single group of men were to do it alone which ties directly to the idea of the American Dream. The idea of the American Dream starts with the earliest American settlements in which the poorer of the settlers had come to the U.S. seeking opportunities that they thought would come with starting over in a new country.The American Dream can be summed up as a set of ideals having to do with the prosperity and equality of all men and women which, in other words, can be described as the success of those men and women as well as being equal in their endeavours. An underlined meaning in the American Dream would also be that hard work will ultimately lead to a better future for you and your family, you will have “material prosperity.”
De Crevecoeur writes about how all people who make their “bread” in the U.S. are considered Americans with no strings attached. There are people who agree with his first statement but who also say that there is one way to be an American that is better than the other, in order to please God. A man that comes to mind specifically when I discuss this is one who went by the name of Jonathan Edwards. Edwards wrote the sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, which, with the title foreshadowing the entirety of the writing, you can tell will have something to do with people being “sinners” and God being angry with them for an unknown reason. If you keep reading Edwards starts to discuss the congregation and how it is made up of sinners who, by their way of life, aren’t doing what God intended for them to do and by not doing whatever it is that he wants they are making him angry. Edwards was trying to make the argument that if they, the congregation and the people, didn’t change their ways and attempt to make God happy or seek his approval then they would be sent to hell but you only stood a chance if you were willing to change. If you didn’t change then “the God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you his wrath you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire.” (Jonathan Edwards) This, being the final sentence in “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, makes a huge statement about how Edwards, and maybe several other people, feel about the way that others act and how God feels about those people. It also shows that Jonathan Edwards is making a strong “claim” on the behalf of God.
To further support the argument of what an American is an important piece of evidence to incorporate is that through the Declaration of Independence, all “men” are able to have a say in the government because it is a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” I think that is a great way of describing an American because it shows that just about everyone and anyone can be an American. It supports this thought because of the fact that it The Declaration of Independence states that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. “ That can be translated to any man and/or woman is created equal and the government doesn’t have the right to take certain rights away from them such as their search/ strive for happiness. When it’s stated that all men are created equal I believe just that. No man or woman under the Creator, God, is neither better nor worse than a man or woman before or after him or her. With that being said, one man shouldn’t be considered anymore of an American than another.