Argentina: Part 5: "America" in Argentina

Like much of the rest of the world, Argentina has been influenced/invaded/affected by the United States. You'll see from the pictures that we really ship out our, um, finest overseas.

McDonalds and the Argentine flag (not the greatest shot, but you get the idea)

From Argentina Nov 2008

Hooters

From Argentina Nov 2008

I'm serious when I say that McDonalds were everywhere. I think we also spotted TGIFridays, Shell, and Burger King: all fantastic representations of "American" companies.

I put "America" and "American" in quotation marks because Argentines (and perhaps others from South and Central America) seem to take offense at the fact that we citizens of the United States have co-opted the terms "America" and "American" to refer to our nation and citizenship. I can see their point in that anyone who is a citizen of a North, South, or Central American country could claim the label American or say they are from America.

I guess I've never thought of our use of those terms as denying that people from other countries in this hemisphere have a claim to them too. Also, what else will we call ourselves? United Statesers? United Statsians? Ew. Residents of the United States of America. Too long. Perhaps we are somewhat justified in calling ourselves "Americans" (not only for lack of a better label) since the country's official name is the United States of America.

Up next: Buenos Aires