Essay On American Identity

“America is not just a country, it's an idea.” This quote was said by Bono during the University of Pennsylvania’s commencement address in 2004. This idealistic view of America is not just one singular idea that has stayed same throughout time, American identity has changed and transformed over the decades through debates and is still changing today. Some ideas about being an American that have been debated throughout history are: European vs. American, North vs. South, Federalist vs. Democratic-Republican.
In the creation of the United States of America, one of the first debates about how we should defined the term American was are we British or are we American? Some people believed that since they came from Britain, they were still to be considered British, but others believed that since they created their own country they should be considered Americans. This argument has evolved over time into an argument of should we be considered Americans or should we still claim ourselves as people from the lands our ancestors have hailed from. Some citizens prefer to be classified as their different ancestral cultures, but nowadays the one culture U.S. citizens agree on having in common is American.

South. In early years of the U.S., the states debated over ideals of what America should look like/be like, and the sides were Northern peoples and ideals and the Southern peoples and ideals. The of evolution of this concept has also changed due to the inward rush of immigrants from other nations into the United States and also the expansion of the country’s territory. The debate now is not just two sides, but involves many sides, such as West, East, North, South, South West, North West, East coast, and West coast. There are many different cultures throughout the U.S. across its many areas, yet most people can still agree they are