I prefer "Yankee" over "Usonian" over "American"

I was born in the USA. Many tongues call me "American": Italian (americano), French (Américain), German (Amerikaner), Dutch (Amerikaan), Afrikaans (Amerikaner), Japanese (アメリカ人, amerika-jin), Filipino (Amerikano), Hebrew (אמריקני), Arabic (أمريكي), Portuguese (americano), Russian (американец), and Hindi (अमरीकी, Amreeki).

I grew up in Southern California. Many of my friends were zeroeth-generation immigrants from Mexico. Weren't their parents born in North America, too?

As an adult, I lived in Washington State. There I met many fine Canadians, visiting for work, education, and play. Were they not Americans too?

We of the United States, in justice to Canadians and Mexicans, have no right to use the title "Americans" when referring to matters pertaining exclusively to ourselves.

-- James Duff Law

Circa 1903, James Duff Law coined the term "Usonian" for the peoples of the United States of America.

Esperanto speakers adopted "usonano" as early as 1905.

But why this term "America" has become representative as the name of these United States at home and abroad is past recall. Samuel Butler fitted us with a good name. He called us Usonians, and our Nation of combined States, Usonia.

– Frank Lloyd Wright

Wright popularized "Usonia" around 1927. To him, the US middle class outclassed European aristocracy. His Usonian homes celebrated the simplicity and individualism of US suburbia.

His Usonian homes inspired ranch-style houses.

But "Usonia" sounds too beautiful for the United States -- collegial, polished, academic. "Would you prefer Italian or Usonian wine with your halibut, ma'am?"

Our heritage is that of pilgrims and prophets and rednecks and reverends. We've got the best medical centers and the most overdoses; the best universities and the most young-Earth creationists.

I feel less than American and more than Usonian. I wish there were a word between…

Yankeeism is the general character of the Union. Yankee manners are as migratory as Yankee men. The latter are found everywhere and the former prevail wherever the latter are found. Although the genuine Yankee belongs to New England, the term "Yankee" is now as appropriate to the natives of the Union at large.

-- Thomas Colley Grattan

"Yankee" is a silly word. It probably originated from Dutch Janke ("Little John") or Flemish Jan Kees ("John Cheese").

During the Revolutionary War, British troops sang "Yankee Doodle" to paint US folk as raucous clowns. And in true Yankee fashion, US troops put it in their caps and called it macaroni. Yankee Doodle remains a source of national pride.

Brits (and Aussies) still use "Yankee" in a pejorative sense.

The US still exudes that panache. In the early 1800s, colonials built a civilization while consuming ~1 gallon of 90-proof liquor per month. Their children's children invented plastic and Hollywood, which pollinated via red cups and reality television. Only the US could elect a reality TV star to be its leader (twice). It takes gall to produce Idiocracy and then make it happen.

We should move the US capitol from DC to Las Vegas.

Only the US could give casinos to its decimated native populations as a consolation prize. Only we could inflict upon ourselves epidemics of painkillers, crack, school shootings, and Tide Pods. Only we could produce evangelicals.

US folk are Yankees. We're obnoxious, tacky, foul, and we're proud of it.

To foreigners, a Yankee is an American.

To Americans, a Yankee is a Northerner.

To Northerners, a Yankee is an Easterner.

To Easterners, a Yankee is a New Englander.

To New Englanders, a Yankee is a Vermonter.

And in Vermont, a Yankee is somebody who eats pie for breakfast.

-- E B White

But Southern Yankees reject the label. Many still cling to the failed Confederate nation of their fathers' fathers. They're right to remain angry -- we've since let our Southern siblings slide ever further into poverty, illiteracy, and hopelessness. To them, Yankeeism is another flavor of European aristocracy.

Southerners are suffering, and it's easier to be dismissive than to be helpful. The Civil War will not end until Southerners are proud to call themselves Yankees too.

the spartan, cramped, and unstintingly functional jeep became the ubiquitous World War II four-wheeled personification of Yankee ingenuity and cocky, can-do determination.

-- Doug Stewart

We should make Yankee synonymous with the best of the United States -- dynamism, ingenuity, hospitality, self-sufficiency.

I like "Usonia", but it ain't US. We're Yankees, for better and worse, and we should act like it.