What is an American?

First of all, I'm pretty confused on what I have to write for this blog post, but I'm guessing that I will soon understand when I start typing out whatever appears in mind when I think of the question, "What is an American?". So let's begin on a journey of confusion. To start off, the dictation of "American" is actually not what people think it is. Most people think that the dictation of "American" is people that inhabits the United States, but not to say that they're wrong, the technical definition of "American" is a native or inhabitant of the Western Hemisphere. So therefore, anyone that inhabits North America and South America is to be considered Americans, since the technical definition does say that an American is anyone that lives on the Western Hemisphere. But people don't consider inhabitants of South America to be Americans or Canada in North America to be Americans, but people only consider anyone that inhabits within the United States to be an American. Which I think can be explained as to why people think that people that inhabit United States are only to be considered Americans and not any other other country's inhabitants in the Western Hemisphere to be considered Americans.
     From what I've been taught in school and learned personally, people that immigrated to the United States during 20th century and after, and people that sailed to the Americas during the 1600s, had a common purpose, and that purpose was what defined every other human being inhabiting the Western Hemisphere to not be considered Americans except for the inhabitants of the United States. That purpose was the pursuing of the dream life that everyone wishes for. The immigrants from the 20th century and the 21st century came to America because they wanted to have a better life, a life of better opportunities, the life of living rich, providing their children or future generation a better education, immigrants wanted to start back at square one of their life, making sure that they will not commit the same mistake that they did when they were back at their homeland. This wasn't as similar as the 1600s people, but they did purse their dream life like the 20th and 21st century immigrants did. The 1600s people wanted to escape their homeland because of many different reasons like maybe the government banishing the practice of all other religions, but only allowing one type of religion to be able to be practiced in the country, or the escape of warfare in the country, maybe even to escape the country's economic downfall. There are so many reasons as to why people migrate over to the United States, but they all came over because they wanted to pursue their dream life and believed that the Americas or the United States is the only place that can make their dream life come true. Even if that dream life that never came true, the people that migrated over to the United States or the Americas at least tried to make it happen, and really, all that matters is trying and taking risks. This is want makes an American an American, taking risks to make a dream come true, even when the odds are against you.