[RSCT] U.S. Americans

[Doug Larkin]

Dear Colleagues,

The discourse surrounding the current presidential election is firmly
embedded, for better or for worse, in pop culture. Our politicians are
regularly parodied and pilloried in the media. Yet one recent sound bite
that I've heard recently strikes me as somewhat counter-hegemonic, and an
opportunity exists for us in the critical community to appropriate it and
put it to good use. It comes from, of all people, Lauren Upton, otherwise
known as Ms. Teen South Carolina, who was asked a question about why one
fifth of Americans could not find the United States on a world map:

³I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because some
people out there in our nation don¹t have maps..."

I have no desire for mockery here, but what occurs to me is that the phrase
"U.S. Americans" is actually quite a good one. There is good reason to
criticize the use of the term "Americans" as colonial and hegemonic when it
refers only to the citizens of the United States, as if the rest of the
hemisphere did not exist. Using the term "U.S. Americans" to refer to the
residents of the United States could go a long way in reminding our fellow
citizens that we share this side of the Earth with many other people outside
our country, who also call themselves Americans.

Doug Larkin

Doug Larkin 
Teaching Assistant, Science Education
232 Teacher Education Building
Dept. of Curriculum and Instruction
University of Wisconsin
225 N. Mills St.
Madison, WI 53706