I wrote a comment 5 o'clock in the morning as a quotation and I lost it. I was so frustrated and tired that I didn't write it again, but I will try to make a summary.
As Zexen correctly said America is called like it due to an italian cartographer called Amerigo Vespucci. Spanish people had a tradition of translating first names (Federico Nietzsche, Guillermo Shakespeare, things like that), so they called him Américo Vespucio. He did some research and he proved that the lands to which Columbus had arrived by sailing through the west were not India nor China, but a "new" continent. He did this by analizing the brazilian coastline. So if any of the two continents formed by the tectonic plates should be called America, that should be the southern one, that is, the one that was designated as America by the spanish people thanks to brazilian coastline.
I am not saying USA should change its name, that's ridiculous. I am just saying that America is divided in South, Central and North, but all of those countries are americans.
Somebody asked why was all of this such a big deal. I can see how this is difficult for those who aren't south americans. It has to do with the fact that our countries have been european colonies, and after that, USA has succesfully been involved in the economical and political issues of other americans countries: its goal was to help its own best interest. That's what we call neocolonialism. You should also consider what we call cultural colonialism and the fact that some traditions refer to the caribean and South America as USA backyard, and you may get the picture. We feel it is important for us to defend our identity as americans, we feel its a kind of violence not to be recognised as them. "America isn't just the United States" is like the proletariat saying "society does not only include burguesy".
Anyway, this issue is not as important as it was for me many years ago, but I do respect people who think of it as a sensible issue.
