"I'm an American too"

I used to work with a man who was profoundly deaf.  When it came to meetings he needed a signing translator, and his usual helper was a Canadian (who must have had amazing stamina to do things like full-day conferences on his own).

On several occasions the translator objected to people's use of the word 'America' to mean 'USA'.  "I'm an American too,"  he protested.  To some extent, this was just an assertion of Canadian separateness, but to some extent also it was still a real point.

That was thirty years ago, and US ubiquity and hegemony is even more fully established today, to the point at which I can hear on a BBC news programme a reference to 'south and central America' meaning Alabama, Louisiana etc, rather than Mexico to Chile.