What does it mean to be American: examples

He likes to make money, but likes to see everybody around him making money also.
He does not enjoy riches in the midst of poverty.
He wants a family of his own, a business of his own, a house of his own, and an opinion of his own.
His parents may be French, Italian, Czech, Polish, or German; but he has caught another spirit: he has been born again, he is an American.

Frank Crane

Yes; Americans are like that. They have something, I know not what—an engine, a dynamo—inside them, driving them on. 

Burton E. Stevenson

A cartoon of a man and a woman, the man is inviting her on his 4th of july party.

If it be pointed out that American painting lacks the element of similarity, that the work of all these painters is not enough alike to be bundled together and labelled “American School,” we may candidly rejoice and reply that the word American means individuality, and that one of the precious characteristics of the AMERICAN SCHOOL is the freedom of its members to express the feeling of the nation in divers ways.


American Art News, 1921

(…) to be an American means, among other things, to be different and to be proud you’re different.

Bobby Vinton

Scroll to Top