Blog 1 (My Intro)

 Hey Class, My Name is Fiyinfoluwa Odulana. I am a 17 year old Nigerian Student who is majoring in Computer Science. I have a heavy interest in a lot of fictional media, mainly video games, animation and comics. I would love to be a script writer for various mediums mainly comic books and tv shows and I do some occasional (once a month) writing. 

To me, there are various meanings of the question "What is an American?" I could go for the direct dictionary definition; "An American are the citizens and nationals of the United States of America." However, if answering a question as nuanced as that were that easy, we wouldn't need to enter a class for it. In my opinion, the question implies something more than just the strict definition. It implies there are several values that are needed to qualify to be an American. One that comes to my mind almost immediately is the core values of the American Dream. The American Dream is the idea that one can, through hard work, achieve their own success regardless of social standing. I think the American Dream carries some of these core values that answer our core question. The idea of making your own success through your hard work is something that speaks to many Americans and I think is a core part of America's identity as America grew from the many immigrants that came to the country and created their own success and a country where being American didn't mean you had to be born American. However, the reason I say it carries some but not all of the core values that answer our question the fact that, well, hard work to create your own success isn't some exclusive value found only in America. It's a value that can be found in people from any part of the world. To frame the American Dream as the one answer of the question ignores some of the nuance of the dream, it also ignores the nuance of the question. So where does that leave us? Well, to me, the fact that it is such an open ended question means that there will be very open ended answers, that to truly answer such a question, we must look through various social, political, religious and educational lenses as well as many other readings of such topics to really answer "What is an American?"