What Is An American?

There are many criteria for being considered an "American", in my opinion. The first and most obvious criterion is that you have to be a citizen of the United States. To fully understand what it is to be an American, one has to live in the country and experience its lifestyle. However, one cannot state that because they are a citizen in the country, they are an American. Secondly, an American believes in democracy and takes every measure to attain, practice, and preserve it. The definition of democracy is "a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections." Another definition is "an organization or situation in which everyone is treated equally and has equal rights". An example of  a group of people who didn't practice democracy would be the US citizens who oppressed African-Americans through the slave trade and neglect of civil rights. They did not believe that everyone should be treated equally and had equal rights. They also did not believe that African-Americans should be represented in the system. Lastly, the third criterion for one to be considered an American is to accept individuality and diversity. America is considered a "mixing pot" of all kinds of people from different kinds of cultural background. If one cannot accept that another person may believe or behave differently than them, then they don't deserve to be called an American. This also merits the act of being an individual. To me, this means that nobody can tell someone else how they should or should not behave without proper justification (e.g. the law). Religious groups that condemn others and tell individuals that they are damned by God for something like homosexuality aren't composed of Americans. They don't believe in the practice of individuality! There is too much variation, in terms of kinds of people, in the country for others to be constantly passing judgment on someone else for their differences. Americans must be accepting of others. In synopsis, an American is someone who is a citizen of the United States. This citizen is democratic and every measure that needs to be taken to promote the practice of democracy is taken. Lastly, they are accepting of people from all walks of life and don't suppress the opinions and actions of others that contrast their own.