It is the most common, correct and polite form used in México when referring to US citizens. I have never heard it used and can’t imagine how it could be used in a derogatory manner.
This is true now but wasn’t necessarily always true. In Mexican documents from the time of their revolution, cited in a (Spanish-language) history book I have, people from the US are referred to simply as “americanos”.
Why is it called a “restroom”, nobody wants to rest in there?
There’s no need to call him “Mrs”. 
After two years living in Germany, my brother just moved back to Michigan. His post on FB read, “Safely back in the states”.
The United States of America was founded and named in 1776. We were the first country to use the term American as our national demonym. So any other country which is laying claim to be called Americans is trying to take the term from us not vice versa.
As for things like USians or USers, they not only sound ridiculous but they’d make the problem worse. If the United States of Mexico resents the United States of America asserting primary claim to the term American, how much more resentful would they be if we asserted primary claim to the term United States?
As for terms like Estadounidense or Norteamericanos, we don’t tell you what to call yourselves, so don’t presume to tell us what to call ourselves.
The argument over “norteamericano” (itself a word you can question the literal truth of)or “estadounise” is irrelevant. Those are words in Spanish. The OP’s asking about the use of an English term. There is nothing at all wrong with one language saying “norteamericano” and the other “American” to describe the same thing.
I call people from Germany “German.” They call themselves “Deutsch.” I call the country with its capital in Athens “Greece,” and they call it “Hellas” or “Ellada.” In both cases the two words have completely different origins and root meanings. Both are correct; we’re speaking different languages.
:smack: I hate the iPad sometimes…
It’s a bit of a sidetrack, but not totally irrelevant, IMHO. It adds to the historical perspective of why one country in the Americas refers to its people as Americans, while the others do not.
The real answer is that the demonym “American” predates the country “The United States of America”. People who lived in America called themselves Americans, then they became revolting and became independent and formed a new country called the United States of America, and they didn’t change what they called themselves just because they formed a new country, they continued to call themselves Americans.
Countries can have official names like “The United States of America”, or “The United Kingdom” but they can also have unofficial names, like America or Britain. If someone called themselves British, would you be confused as to whether they were from Great Britain or Brittany?
ETA: Your (RickyJay’s) analogy would fit only if, say, Germans only called themselves “Europeen” (or however you say “Europeans” in German).
This really should have stuck in General Questions. There has to be a definitive answer to, “When/why did people start calling residents of this region Americans”. Wikipedia talks some about it: American (word) - Wikipedia
We were close to being Columbians. Would Colombia have still taken that name if we’d used Columbia? Then we’d still be stepping on somebody’s toes.
Anyway, in casual context I’ll use “Americans” but when I’m filling out forms and there’s a spot for Nationality I’ve always spelled out “United States of America,” space permitting, or if not then just “USA.”
In the event of any possibility of confusion people can use “U.S. Citizen” - this I kind of like because it plays into the mythology of Americans having a different kind of nationality than e.g. the French or English. Instead of a state growing out of a kingdom organized out of an ethnic group, we assembled the ambitious, and hungry rejects from all old nations and made our own new country (with blackjack and hookers) based on principles and not ethnicity.
This is just wrong. The Yankees didn’t invent the term. It was first applied to the landmass south of the Caribbean, then to North America by extension. For that matter, it was popularized by Martin Waldseemüller before the Brits even had New World colonies.
If a country in the Far East decided to call itself the Federated Republic of Asian States, would that make them “the first country to use the term Asian as a national demonym”? Would a Turk or a Kurd be “taking the name” when they’re referred to as “Asian”?
Well put, foolsguinea. But that doesn’t make what Little Nemo wrote wrong, exactly, just incomplete and misleading in tone. It is true that US residents were the first “country” to claim “American” as their demonym, if we restrict the word “country” to mean “fully independent state” – the US was the first such one in the Americas.
So, really what we have is the convergence of two stories:
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The fact that the US was the first independent country in the Americas (by some definitions), so as the nation-state emerged as an important unit for identifying people as this or that, whatever name US people used for themselves was likely to be important (and preclude its use by others that otherwise might have done so).
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Due to a specific history vis-a-vis the British Empire, many (probably most) English-speaking colonial residents between Maine and Georgia were calling themselves “Americans” well before the term was semi-officially locked in place by the imprimatur of independent nation-statehood.
You’re arguing a point I didn’t make.
One more thing: the term America refers unambiguously in English to the United States of America. There is no continent of America in English; there is a continent of North America and a continent of South America. Together they are referred to as the Americas (or more commonly the New World), but never, in English, as America. (New World is also used as an attributive when one is needed for something native to or typical of the Americas; so, for example, English-speaking zookeepers speak of New World monkeys when referring to primates found in Central and South America.)
This is actually much clearer than the situation on Europe, where I see the European Union regularly referred to as Europe in English-language news reports. Only context makes it clear that they are talking about the EU and excluding Norway, Switzerland, western Russia, and the former Yugoslavian countries. Aren’t Norwegians, Swiss, Russians living west of the Caucus Mountains, Montenegrins, Serbians, and Bosnian-and-Hertegovinians also Europeans? Why are they left out?
Good point, Alan Smithee. I would add “Western Hemisphere” to your list (“The Americas” and “New World”.)
A related point: many linguists, etc. use “Amerindian” to refer to cultures which were (or their predecessors were) in the Americas before 1500 AD. But “American Indian” is still used by most people to mean such groups that happen to find themselves within the current boundaries of the USA.
“Nacionalidad estadounidense” is what the Spanish Wikipedia uses for my father…
Same reason people from the Netherlands are called “Dutch” and not “Netherlandians”. Language can be weird sometimes.
Also, “United Statesians” (a) sounds too silly, (b) takes too long to say.
By this logic Germans should call themselves Federal Republicans since Germany does not cover all German speaking lands nor should France call itself “France” until they have Walloonia and the French speaking cantons of Switzerland.