How neatly does the English-language use of the term(s) "America(n\s)" cross over into Latin American Spanish?

Question

I mean my Question more as a matter of cultural conceptions rather than translation as such.

Coming from the English-speaking (y originalmente no hablaba español en absoluto) side of the equation, it has so far been only a few years since I learned, much to my surprise, that in Spanish (for the most part, at least in Latin America and in Europe), North and South America are not in fact two discrete continents, but rather a single one, generally referred to as, simply, América.

Quite logically, it follows that anyone from any part of [the] America(s) is an American. The trick with this, however, is the fact that, not only in the USA or even exclusively in English, the term "American" typically tends to connote a person specifically from the country called the United States of America.

Both in English and in Spanish, a shortcut around this confusion seems to be the terms Latin America(n\s), hispanoamericanos, and such the like, which cover the vast majority of the non-anglophone parts of América.

But is it at all common for people from América Latina, whether in English or Spanish, to casually refer to themselves simply as "Americans/ americanos" sans any qualifiers and generally without expecting the risk of confusion (unless, say, they come from a Spanish-speaking U.S. territory such as Puerto Rico is)?

Many English-speakers that I know would affirm what seems to be obvious, that someone from a continent called "America" (North, South, Central or however you'd want to parse it) is undoubtedly an American. For the most part though, my understanding and experience is that the conception of "American" as referring exclusively to people from the USA is pervasive enough that I have Canadian friends who are quick to eschew the term, emphasising a distinction between themselves and U.S. citizens, while I have Mexican friends who seem bewildered at the discovery of the idea that in English they are not "Americans" as obviously as they've always been precisely that in Spanish.

Further to that, when hispanohablantes [those among them who are not also English-speakers] hear U.S. citizens referred to as "Americans" and the nation of the USA called simply "America," is that generally a source of confusion for them, since, if I understand the use of the terms correctly, in Spanish these terms equate, not to a single country and its inhabitants alone, but to an entire continent and the constituents thereof? Does it tend to create situations in which one wonders: "Hmmm ... ¿Pero de qué parte del vasto continente americano estamos hablando aquí?"

I recently asked a Mexican and an Argentine this question. They're both fluent in English, though. The Argentine simply said that latinoamericanos understand this terminology as "a mistake" made by people from the USA. Is there anything more to it than that? Or is it just as simple as my Argentinian friend puts it?

Answer 1

This topic calls for an entire essay but it suffices to say that, as you've already noticed, americano/a is not a generally good translation for (US American) "American" in all situations and, in the particular case of the modern (historically speaking), non-anachronistic designation of United States nationals, it's often a source of conflict. I say conflict, not misunderstanding, because a lot of Spanish-speaking people outside the US, even if they've never met someone from the US and don't speak English at all, know what "American" means in the US, and resent it as an appropriation (of a whole continent, no less!).

I know no Spanish-speaking people (outside the US) who call themselves americanos meaning "from the American continent". It's always latinoamericanos or, in some fancy circles, hispanoamericanos (the root of that has to do with what Brazilians call themselves, if anything). I have no idea if people from other continents, when residing there in their own countries, call themselves by the name of their continent in normal discourse (e.g. do people from Nigeria ever refer to themselves as Africans, outside of specific political contexts?); it sounds weird to me and, I'm sure, to most of my compatriots. We're argentinos and, if pressed, latinoamericanos—a cultural more than geographical designation.

There's an unspoken consensus that, no matter what we think, americano in certain contexts means "US American". Fútbol americano is never mistaken for "football played in our continent". The classic German movie Der amerikanische Freund is translated as El amigo americano and I don't think anyone ever imagined the friend was other than a US native. We know it's not really a mistake by US natives; they're just oblivious to it. Personally I think it's rather stupid to get mad at them, as some people certainly do.

Outside of those contexts, the word does mean "American" in the geographical sense. If I read in an anthropology book that Los primeros americanos vinieron de Asia a través del estrecho de Bering, it's obvious that it refers to "the first human inhabitants of the American continent".