Mary wrote: >While living in Spain and Chile, I always made it a point to say >"estadounidense" whenever I could to express my nationality. However, >that isn't nearly as widely accepted, and earned me some very strange looks.
i lived in spain during my middle/high school years (1986-1992) and i *often* heard citizens of the US referred to as estadounidenses. a mouthful, but at least its clear as to whom we are referring! they quite often say "americanos" though, too. growing up in expat communities, i always called the country "the States" and not "America". i was surprised when i moved to the US to go to college that everyone called their country "America" (which sounded strange to me - isn't it ALL america, including my country, canada?), and that no one knew what i was talking about when i talked about "the States". expat kids run around talking about when their families are going to "the States" for vacation. -yael
