[ericmay]

If you’re following this line of reasoning then even the “native” Americans aren’t actually native because they migrated here too. Further, the concept of “America” referring to what is geographically the United States today isn’t a concept that was held be tribal peoples. It wouldn’t have ever made sense to describe them in this context as the original Americans because they never held such a concept themselves.

Also, tribal peoples, whether that’s in Europe or elsewhere are defeated and destroyed and swallowed up by other tribes and civilizations and over the long arc of history lose the status of being original as they are absorbed into a new entity. You can’t describe or study a Roman people as if they are “native” but not extended that same viewpoint to the modern day United States, for example, because both have absorbed other peoples who were native.

[carlosjobim]

America is a real physical landmass. Two actually. "American" is to be understood as those ethnicities from that physical and very much existing landmass. Whether they called it America or not, which they of course didn't. The same thing for discussing Australian native ethnicities for example.

Otherwise we have to argue that dinosaurs didn't exist, because they had never heard about Pangea.

> Also, tribal peoples, whether that’s in Europe or elsewhere are defeated and destroyed and swallowed up by other tribes and civilizations and over the long arc of history lose the status of being original as they are absorbed into a new entity.

Well it's not true, because of genetical heritage. It still exists, and now in modern times we can study the human genome better than ever. It is messy, it is overlapping, but it's not unworthy of study and curiosity. They weren't swallowed up and disappeared, genetically speaking. Very rarely would a genocide be complete, because conquerors would take the women at least from the conquered.

Being ethnically Roman was not the same as being a Roman citizen or Roman subject. The tribes which ethnically were Roman can be found listed here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_tribe

Here is more about Roman citizenship: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_citizenship

Just like in ethnical nations today, you can become a citizen by virtue of birth ethnicity, or by other procedures. And just like a foreigner cannot belong to any ethnicity or nation just because she has citizenship today, neither could they in Roman times.

[ericmay]

> America is a real physical landmass. Two actually.

America refers to the United States of America in virtually all context in the everyday English speaking world.

> "American" is to be understood as those ethnicities from that physical and very much existing landmass. Whether they called it America or not, which they of course didn't. The same thing for discussing Australian native ethnicities for example.

Let’s put it another way…

The people who live here now are the natives over the long arc of history. You’re only focusing on a small sliver of time in a very constrained historical environment.

If you say the native Americans as they are called are the only “real” natives so to speak you have to apply that standard everywhere. And if you think that the disruption of native lands in the past was bad, you’d also have to believe that continuing to bring more people to America is also bad, ergo immigration to the Americas is immoral.

> And just like a foreigner cannot belong to any ethnicity or nation just because she has citizenship today, neither could they in Roman times.

This is untrue in the western world, specifically the Anglo-American world. It’s difficult for most of the world to understand our societies and I think this is a good example of how things get confused. I can’t, as a white American, become “Chinese”. But a Chinese man or woman can certainly become an American and belong to our nation. There is no question about that.