If anyone refers to Americans, in English, without qualification, the understanding is that they are referring to Citizens of the U.S.
Natural language is inherently ambiguous and you will always find edge cases, but the definition of "American" is as close to completely unambiguous as you're going to get.
I also take issue with your assertion that Latin Americans often refer to themselves as "American". I've never met a Latin American who said they were from "America" or were "American". Unless it was someone on an internet forum with a specific agenda.
I'm not saying that it doesn't happen, but I have quite a bit of contact with people from Mexico and Peru, and I've never heard it from them. I'm going to need sources before I believe that term is in common use.
Regardless usage dictates the rules of language and in English the common term is "American" not "Usamerican", or "USian".
Of course Natural language is ambiguous. It's also evolving and reflects attitudes, values and culture. It seems "American" == "US Citizen" has solidified, although the discussion was still going 60 years ago( http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/486658?uid=3739920&uid...
).
Our experiences talking to Latin Americans probably differ because of language. I have lived in Latin America, as a native Spanish speaker (which may have made it easier for Latin Americans to communicate their musings on identity, US-centrism and language).
The USA uses the name of the continent to name its citizens (As if French said ... "We're Europeans, and the Germans? Bah, they are only German, they can't really call themselves Europeans ... everybody knows that real Europeans are French). In any case, it seems your use of the word is the accepted meaning in English, so I stand corrected. But for your information, this is not the case in Spanish.
I agree with you that it may be different when speaking in Spanish. If I were speaking in another language in another country, I would use whatever the local word for American is.
>The USA uses the name of the continent to name its citizens (As if French said ... "We're Europeans, and the Germans? Bah, they are only German, they can't really call themselves Europeans ... everybody knows that real Europeans are French).
That analogy only holds if France had been called "The United States of Europe" for the last 200 years. Americans are only called Americans because the U.S.A. is the only country with America in the name. We didn't start calling ourselves Americans because we think that we are the only people on the continent. The name of our country happens to coincide with the name of the continent (this isn't even really the case in American English because we almost always qualify North or South America).
Based on the name of our country, the natural demonym is American. Germany is called "The Federal Republic of Germany", France is "The French Republic", and Mexico is "The United Mexican States", but we call them just German, French, and Mexican.
As an aside, I've never wanted to refer to myself as American in the sense that I'm from the new world or even as North American. When would this ever be appropriate? If someone asks were I'm from, "The New World" is so vague as to be mostly useless. The cultures, climate, and geography of the Americas are so varied--what possible meaning could, "I'm from the Americas" convey? It would imply some sense of unity that simply doesn't exist--there just isn't a New World identity, so why use a word in a way that implies there is one.
Do people from Canada, Mexico, Peru, Brazil, etc identify themselves as "Americans", though? My meager experience has been that most people identify with the name of their country, not continent.
The only time I've ever heard someone from South America identify themselves as "American", instead of Peruvian, Brazilian etc..., is on the internet when trying to make a point. Out of the numerous South Americans I've met offline, I've never heard one identify themselves as American.
South American's do sometimes take offense at calling their continent, "South America". They insist that the whole thing is one large continent called "America", yet they have no problem whatsoever referring to "North America" separately.
Yo soy americano, but would not call myself American. There is no confusion, the two words mean two different concepts, even if they share the same root.
Formal translations of "American" would map to "estadounidense" o "norteamericano". Informal ones would just say "gringo", which is a bit fuzzy and (depending on context) may include Canadians - or any Caucasian looking English speaker - as well.
American also means
> Something of, from, or related to the Americas > Indigenous peoples of the Americas
If you had lived in a Latin american country and spoken enough with the locals, you would know that many refer to themselves as "Americans".