I think most people on niche platforms like this are westerners (edit: by “westerner” I mean someone who is a “native” of countries with a western culture), and I’m bored so I just want to talk and share a different perspective. (Also, because Lemmy is a bit quiet at the moment, too quiet for my liking)
Political questions are welcomed.
I think the term “westerner” is more referring to someone who was born in a country with western culture. I do consider my self an American, but the term “westerner” feels like a term that tells more about where a person was born in. Or maybe I’m just misunderstanding the terminology.
I always thought of it as where someone is from. Not necessarily where they were born. I’m as [my state] as you can get but I only moved here around the age you moved to America. My grandpa was the most American man I ever met despite being in middle school when he got off the boat.
If you immigrate as an adult or teenager maybe not, but even then maybe yes. Who am I to tell some chick that moved here from Iran as a 20 year old that she’s any less one of us. In general if you consider yourself fully an American I think of you as a westerner regardless of how you wound up an American.
Well I mean, the term “American” is describing nationality. So anyone with US citizenship is, by definition, an American.
But I’m not sure what the term “westerner” even mean. Like, if it was a term that was used in the way like how “European” or “Asian” is used, then you can’t really become a westerner could you? Like I could move to Europe, but I can’t become a European.
But it depends on how the word “westerner” is defined. I’m not an English professor, so I have no idea how the word is supposed to be used.
“The West” is a very nebulous and hard-to-define concept at best, and so the term “Westerner” can be equally hard to pin down to one single definition.
In my experience, though, it generally refers to cultural background rather than ethnicity. If a person grows up in a “Western” country to the extent that their mindset and outlook is aligned with that country’s cultural values and way of life, then they are a Westerner, regardless of their ancestry.