whats the difference between an american and U.S citizens?

Question

my friend john wants to know for his U.S homework

Answer 1

An American Citizen is one that was born in the United States and a U.S. Citizen is someone from another country that has been naturalized ( gone through INS)

Although if you break it down in very general terms another way to look at "American" is it can be anyone born in North, South or Central America ( Canadians, U.S. citizens, Latin, Hispanic, Argentinian ...etc.)

We U.S. citizens have kind of adopted the term to explain ourselves and tend to think of it as strictly a U.S. way to describe nationality. In reality we should call ourselves United State Americans.....but that's just toooooo long lol

Answer 2

An American is someone born on one of the American continents. A U.S. citizen is a person who was either born in the United States or has obtained citizenship after immigrating to the United States.

However, most people around the world generalize and stereotype, base upon the US media in all forms that an American is a US citizen, which may or may not always be true.

a person can be an American and not a US citizen
a person who is a US citizen is only an American if they were born on the continent.

Answer 3

Technically, anyone in North America (U.S. and Canada.) and South America (From Mexico south, all the way down!) are Americans. They live in a part of the "America's". It's easier to think of like this. German's are German, French are French, etc., but they can all be correctly be called European.)

Anyone (just about!) can become a U.S. citizen, regardless of where they are born. But there are differences between citizens, just like back in Roman days. There is only one big one though, and they are working on changing that, or so I read in the papers.

A U.S. citizen of NATIVE birth can run for president, not all "Americans" can. ANY U.S citizen can vote in elections, not all "Americans" can. There are other differences, but this is the quick and dirty way to describe it. If you need more info, drop me a line. I'm in the book. Ciao!

Answer 4

An American lives in North or South America.
A U.S. citizen while also being an American is from the United States. It's a smaller sub set.

Answer 5

Standard answer is that an American is born in the U.S.. All American's are U.S. Citizens, but there are some U.S. Citizens that do not consider themselves to be Americans. Some born in the U.S. fit this category too.

My vote is that if you feel you are American, you are. I

Answer 6

An American is anyone born on an "American Continent".

Nationality/Politically speaking it is a citizen of the United States.

Answer 7

I would consider both to be the same. For the homework, they might want to say that Americans are born here, and citizens can come from another country of origin. But to me they are still both the same.

Answer 8

Canada and Mexico are part of America also because the actual reference is North America.
The US is part of North America along with Canada & Mexico.

Correction : the Americas are all the lands of the western hemisphere

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americas

Answer 9

Nothing it is the same thing.