Problem: I think being American skews our views of nationalism a bit, being a cultural melting pot. One thing is for certain, when in other countries, we can always be spotted easily as American, so I don't think that not living here makes you less of an American. We're a unique lot, quite different from the rest of the world. For us, I think the concept of a nation is defined by our geographic borders. Not only are we proud to be Americans and see ourselves as different from the rest of the world, but we're also proud of our state borders, its usually one of the first things we identify ourselves by. Cultures from other countries still identify as being from that culture, even if they were born here. They typically hyphenate with American, like Indian-American or Mexican-American. I do think we're affected by a set of ideals that makes us American, our freedom being one of them, that makes us easily identifiable as Americans.