What is an American

You can’t just walk down any old street and ask any old stranger ‘What is an American,’ because this vague yet intense question requires unnecessary thought. Your stranger will stammer and blurt out the first foolish thing that comes to mine. “Someone who was born in America, or got their green card,” they would say and laugh at themselves and walk away. That, of course, is the most common answer.
However, if you meet a man in Britain who has lived there since he was three but born in America and he has an English accent and has no intention to go back to America. Is he an American?
On your search, you stop yet another stranger. You say a friendly hello to said stranger and he continues to walk by with a high tech cell phone clued to his left ear. “How rude,” you say, hopefully loud enough for him to hear.
You dine at the fabulous McCafe, being parched and tired from all your questioning. Your burger is dripping with grease and your soft drink taste flat. ‘Is this an American,’ you ask yourself.
Continuing your journey to find out what exactly is an American, you are sidetracked by a rally outside of a tall brick building. This crowd of people makes you think that it is more of a protest than a rally.
Picket signs read ‘Baby Killer!’ or ‘Say no to abortion!’ A girl, maybe sixteen, flees from the building hiding her face. Her mother isn’t far behind looking positively livid.
Is she an American? Are the protesters Americans?
On your journey, you take a short cut through the town park and see a group of four of five kids standing by a tree. They all dress similar, wearing only black. Sacs of grass is being passed between hands, being exchanged for large sums of cash. You role your eyes and continue walking.
You get to pleasure of sitting down what an old woman. You ask her for her opinion on the American topic.
“My grandfather came here for freedom because he was promised that and happiness. Lady Liberty was the symbol of that promise. He worked hard, and starved to feed his family. Kids these days have never felt half that hungry. Not for freedom, not for money, and not even for food.”
Okay, okay, so she didn’t make anything any clearer for you. Yet, you walk away smiling. Not because she talked to you or not because she didn’t answer your question, but because she is a sweet old woman.
Is she an American? Are the kids these days American? Is that squirrel by the playground an American as it rushes around to find nuts?
You see a few girls running around in your peripheral vision. You turn to them and see that they are quite young, no older than eleven. You walk up to them, slowly of course; don’t want to scare them away. You ask them what they think.
“Umm..to be able to cheerlead. And, um, I guess hanging out with friends?” She says the last part like a question and runs off with her friends. They giggle and point back at you, but you don’t mind. It’s just a part of being a kid, you guess.
Whoa, wait now, is that American?
You finally make it home, still as confused as when you left. Your mother made you dinner, mac-and-cheese, your favorite. She was feeding your baby sister, both sharing joyous smiles on their faces.
Is your mother an American? Could your sister, who is only seven months old, be an American?
As you sit and play with your dinner, you ask yourself, ‘Am I American?’
No, indeed. You cannot do such things. It is simply un-American.

Hi! I hope you don't take my review personally, but I'm gonna go through it line by line (: This is my first review, so I hope I don't do too poorly.


You can’t just walk down any old street and ask any old stranger ‘What is an American,’ because this vague yet intense question requires unnecessary thought.

I believe that you should have written ..any old stranger, "What is an American?", because this vague yet intense question.., because no more dialog exist in the paragraph after this one line. If you think I'm wrong, then disregard this whole paragraph.

Your stranger will stammer and blurt out the first foolish thing that comes to mine. “Someone who was born in America, or got their green card,” they would say and laugh at themselves and walk away. That, of course, is the most common answer.

You should have written "mind" and not "mine", but I know that was probably just a typo. I also think that you should say "would stammer" and not "will stammer", because 'will' implies that you ARE going to do the action, but the first paragraph implies that the person in question isn't. In any case, using the future tense "will" does not agree with the subjunctive/conditional "would".

"their" should be "his or her", but depending on how you want the stranger to sound, you could leave it as it is. Judging by the way the stranger said the sentence, it sounds as if he or she is not very formal, so leaving it as it is would make sense. Still, "his or her" would be proper English.

I also think you should have written "He or she would say", because you are talking about one person whose gender has not been established. If you were to do this, you'd also have to changge "themselves" to "him- or herself".


However, if you meet a man in Britain who has lived there since he was three but born in America and he has an English accent and has no intention to go back to America. Is he an American?

There're a lot of things wrong with the first sentence.

First, I think you should add "were to" after "if" since it's stating a condition.

You also need a comma after "three", and I think it'd sound better if you added "was" before "born". I also think the 'he' before 'has an English accent' makes the sentence sound really awkward. However, the sentence itself sounds awkward, because you used two coordinating conjunctions: but & and.

"has no intention to go back to America" would sound a lot better if you restated it and said, "no intention of going back to America". Omitting "has" before "no intention" makes it sound more natural and less rigid.

The first sentence is incomplete; you'd need to merge the two for it to make sense. This is because most "if" statements are actually "if...then", but 'then' can generally be omitted.
Example: If I'm just bad luck, [then] you're a liar. (Yes, Taking Back Sunday quote :q).

Anyway, your sentences could be merged so that they are read like this: However, if you were to meet a man in Britain who has lived there since he was three, but was born in America and has an English accent and no intention of going back to America, then is he an American?

On your search, you stop yet another stranger. You say a friendly hello to said stranger and he continues to walk by with a high tech cell phone clued to his left ear. “How rude,” you say, hopefully loud enough for him to hear.

"clued" should be "glued", but that was probably just a typo.

I think that "How rude," should be, "How rude!". When you use 'how' to exclaim something like that, you should use an exclamation point, especially in this instance because there's no more dialog, therefore making the use of an ! definite.


You dine at the fabulous McCafe, being parched and tired from all your questioning. Your burger is dripping with grease and your soft drink taste flat. ‘Is this an American,’ you ask yourself.

I think that you should have "of" after "all"; it sounds less awkward.

There should be a comma after "grease".

"taste" should be "tastes".

I think "Is this an American," should be, "Is this an American?" because it is specifically a question, even though it's rhetorical.


Continuing your journey to find out what exactly is an American, you are sidetracked by a rally outside of a tall brick building. This crowd of people makes you think that it is more of a protest than a rally.

I think it'd sound less awkward if you said, "..to find out what an American exactly is/is exactly..".

I think you should say "The crowd of people" rather than "This", because you have not specified which group of people you are talking about, and for all the reader knows, there could be a thousand at the rally.

Picket signs read ‘Baby Killer!’ or ‘Say no to abortion!’ A girl, maybe sixteen, flees from the building hiding her face. Her mother isn’t far behind looking positively livid.

There should be a comma after 'building'.

There should be a comma after 'behind'.


On your journey, you take a short cut through the town park and see a group of four of five kids standing by a tree. They all dress similar, wearing only black. Sacs of grass is being passed between hands, being exchanged for large sums of cash. You role your eyes and continue walking.

"shortcut" is one word. So, "you take a short cut" should be "you take a shortcut".

"of four of five" should be "of four or five", but I'm sure that was just your brain slipping; mine does it all the time when I'm writing.

"They all dress similar" sounds pretty awkward. Since your next verb, wearing, is in the present progressive tense, your first verb should just be an adjective in this case (are all dressed similar). You could, in theory, say that since "dress" is in the simple present, 'wearing' should be too, but that sounds strange.

"similar" should be "similarly", since it describes the manner in which they are dressed.

So, after all that, the sentence would be, "They are all dressed similarly, wearing only black."

"Sacs" should be "sacks". "Sac", iirc, refers to the pouch in which an insect's, e.g. a spider's, eggs reside.

You should've said "are being passed", because "are" would be the correct form of "to be" to modify the plural noun, sacks.

By saying "being exchanged for large sums of cash", you're just extending the sentence, which isn't always a good thing. You could change the sentence altogether and say, "Sacks of grass are being exchanged between hands for large sums of cash."

"role" should be "roll".


You get to pleasure of sitting down what an old woman. You ask her for her opinion on the American topic.

"to" should be "the".

"what" should be "with".

“My grandfather came here for freedom because he was promised that and happiness. Lady Liberty was the symbol of that promise. He worked hard, and starved to feed his family. Kids these days have never felt half that hungry. Not for freedom, not for money, and not even for food.”

"hungry" should be "hunger".

The woman should have said "half of that hunger".

Just a note: "Not for freedom, not for money, and not even for good." is an incomplete sentence, but by reading the previous sentence, one can infer what the woman means. If you really wanted to be correct, you could say, "Kids these days have never felt half of that hunger; not for freedom, money, or even food."


Okay, okay, so she didn’t make anything any clearer for you. Yet, you walk away smiling. Not because she talked to you or not because she didn’t answer your question, but because she is a sweet old woman.

I believe that the first two sentences should be one, because "yet" is most likely a conjunction in this case. Thus, "Okay, okay, so she didn't make anything any clearer for you, yet you walk away smiling." The comma after "yet" is unnecessary.

Starting the sentence with "Not" is improper, but as I said above, it can be understood by reading the previous sentence. If you really wanted to be correct, you could write, "You don't smile because she talked to you or because she didn't answer your question, but because she is a sweet old woman."



Is she an American? Are the kids these days American? Is that squirrel by the playground an American as it rushes around to find nuts?

I think you should've said, "..kids these days Americans?" because throughout the essay, you have used the noun "American" which may or may not imply something different than the adjective depending on the reader.

You see a few girls running around in your peripheral vision. You turn to them and see that they are quite young, no older than eleven. You walk up to them, slowly of course; don’t want to scare them away. You ask them what they think.

For some reason, I think you should've said "with your peripheral vision" rather than "in", but I suppose both could work. Personally, I would've said "with".

It'd probably be better not to omit "you" before "don't".

“Umm..to be able to cheerlead. And, um, I guess hanging out with friends?” She says the last part like a question and runs off with her friends. They giggle and point back at you, but you don’t mind. It’s just a part of being a kid, you guess.

It would've been more correct to say, "I guess to be able to hang out with friends?" but since it is an 11 year old girl speaking, proper grammar is not necessary.

I think you should have "it's" after "part like" to be more distinct.

Whoa, wait now, is that American?

I believe you should've had a semi-colon instead of just a coma after "now".

You finally make it home, still as confused as when you left. Your mother made you dinner, mac-and-cheese, your favorite. She was feeding your baby sister, both sharing joyous smiles on their faces.

You probably should've had a semi colon after "cheese". To avoid confusion, you could've just said, "Your mother made your favorite dinner, mac-and-cheese."

You should have used the present progressive form of "feed" (is feeding) rather than the past progressive, because by using the p.p., you are implying that your mother was feeding your baby sister WHILE she made your dinner.


All in all, I thought the essay itself was okay, but the major flaw was that the reader never found out the answer to the question. The question was clearly stated: What is an American?

The person in the story may not have been able to find out what an American actually was, but he or she could have said something like, "That's just it; there is no answer!" or something like that.

Good job.

Actually the girl is an American and also a murderer.