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This video talks to many Americans as well as other people who don't live in America. It's very interesting to me since all of their answers seemed to be that Americans have freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of everything. Also many answers consisted of saying how patriotic Americans are. Both of these answers I believe to be very true which is why I plan of using these answers when I need to answer this question of what does it mean to be an American.

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What this video is saying is that American doesn't always mean "white male," anyone can be an American. If you were born in America you have the right to call yourself an American, if you migrated here you also have the right to call yourself an American. It really doesn't matter how you got to America, what matters is that you got here and now you are allowed to say that you are actually truly an American

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This article talks about how anyone can be an American, it's not just limited to certain people. However, this articles main focus seemed to be based around living a democracy, and since we live in a democracy we are available to many rights that other countries don't have. This article can truly help me answer this question what it means to be an American because now I can incorporate living in a democracy in my answer.

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What is now formally required of immigrants seeking to become American citizens most clearly reflects the first two models of solidarity: professed allegiance to the principles of the Constitution (constitutional patriotism) and adoption of a shared culture by demonstrating the ability to read, write, and speak English (liberal nationalism).

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This video talks to many minorities about what makes someone an American. This is a very cool video since it is much different than every other source I have gotten and it is also cool because many of the people they talked to gave the same answer, that at certain points they felt like an American and at certain points they didn't. They also said that the main reason they came to America was opportunity, so I guess what this video is saying is that an American is someone who has many opportunities to better their own life.

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This image is a shows very clearly what Americans have and if you have these things you can be considered an American. This differs from my other sources since this is the first one I believe to have mentioned unity and self-government

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This article contains many peoples opinions on the meaning of an American. They all mostly say how an american is treated equally and fairly in everything they do and they also have a chance to achieve the American dream if they work hard enough.

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In 2014, New York Times reporter Damien Cave traveled the length of highway I-35, which runs south to north through the middle of the United States, for his "The Way North" project. Along the way, he asked 35 people, "What does it mean to be American?" These are some of their answers.

Becoming American means following the rules. It means respecting your neighbors, in your own neighborhood. -Francine Sharp, 73, retired teacher in Kansas (born in Kansas)

If you work hard, you get good things in life. -José, college student/roofer; immigrant without legal status in Tulsa, Oklahoma (born in Mexico)

Being American is making a change, and making good changes. Being American is being welcoming, being caring about other people, being proud of the country. And it's forgiveness. It's not holding grudges on anything-I mean, where's that going to get you? -Natalie Villafranca, 14, in Texas (born in Dallas)

Being American means protection by the law. Anyone can say whatever they want and, even if I don't agree with them, they're still protected by the law it's my job to enforce. That's their freedom. That's their right. -Sean Larkin, 40, sergeant with Tulsa Police Department's gang unit in Tulsa, Oklahoma (born in Virginia)

Being American is red, white and blue and being free. It doesn't matter what language you speak; if you're born in America, you're still American. No matter what you look like, no matter what. -Sebastien de la Cruz, 12, student who gained attention, and backlash, when he sang the national anthem during the 2013 NBA finals in a mariachi outfit (born and lives in San Antonio)

I want all girls, especially girls of color, to know that they can be a part of science. And more than that, they can be leaders in science. I want them to know that, because I know that I am America. That I am science. I'm just the part that people refuse to recognize. -Taylor R., 13, speaking about her ambitions at the March for Science in April 2017

The following excerpts are from other Americans discussing what they think it means to "be American." Among these voices are historians and writers who think about this topic a lot, as well as individuals from other walks of life who participated in a discussion for the documentary film A More Perfect Union.

Precisely because we are not a people held together by blood, no one knows who an American is except by what they believe. It's important that we do know our history, because our history is the source of our Americanness. -Historian Gordon Wood

When people wrote "All men are created equal," they really meant men; but they didn't mean any other men except white men who owned land. That's what they meant. But because the ideas are powerful, there's no way that they could get away with holding to that. It's not possible when you have an idea that's as powerful and as revolutionary as a country founded on the idea that just because you're in the world, just because you're here, you have a right to certain things that are common to all humanity. That's really what we say in those documents. The idea that we begin the Constitution with, "We, the People" . . . even though they didn't mean me! They had no idea I'd ever want to make a claim on that. And they'd have been horrified if they'd known that any of us would. But you can't let that powerful an idea out into the world without consequences. -Writer Rosemary Bray

The American Dream has no meaning for me. What it was founded on, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, in many ways I feel are used as billy clubs against minorities and cultural minorities, whether they be gay, or different in any way from the norm in this country. I, for example, don't think I'd like to go to California because of what I look like. I could be pulled over and carded, and I would have to prove my ancestry. And look how long my family has been in northern New Mexico. Ten to twelve generations! -Vicente Martinez

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In 2014, New York Times reporter Damien Cave traveled the length of highway I-35, which runs south to north through the middle of the United States, for his "The Way North" project. Along the way, he asked 35 people, "What does it mean to be American?" These are some of their answers.

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This article mostly talks about what it means to be an American from immigrants perspectives. It is very interesting because throughout every other article I've read through on this topic they all have had the regular answer of saying being an American means that you are a good person who contributes to this country in some way. But this article straight up said that, that wasn't what it meant to be an American. The true meaning of being an American they said was that you are willing to fight for American, and willing to fight to be an American everyday. What they mean by willing to fight to be an American is that since they were immigrants, they were forced to work really hard and fight just so they could become a true American.

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Today's Fourth of July holiday, our country's birthday, marks a new beginning for undocumented Americans like me.

Last month, TIME magazine featured an unprecedented photograph of 36 undocumented young people, myself included, on the cover of its U.S. and international editions. "We are Americans," the headline declared. "Just not legally." Shortly after, President Obama, in the most significant step in the fight for immigrant rights since President Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act in 1986, issued a directive to stop the deportation of an estimated 1 million DREAM Act-eligible undocumented youth and welcome them to our workforce. America, in turn, embraced 1 million dreams. And in last week's Supreme Court decision on Arizona's immigration law, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion for the highest court in the land: "As a general rule, it is not a crime for a movable alien to remain in the United States."

As we celebrate America's Independence Day -- as we explore what it means to be American on the most American of all days -- I also celebrate my independence from the word "illegal."

Academics and lawyers will be quick to point out that I, in fact, was never a "criminal." Being in the U.S. without authorization is not a crime, but rather a civil offense for the country's estimated 12 million undocumented residents. Yet for too long, the rhetoric around immigration has been shrouded in and synonymous with criminality. As a cable news producer on Aaron Sorkin's "The Newsroom" tells a colleague in the show's most recent episode, we've grown accustomed to talking about human beings as if "we're talking about scraping gum off our shoes."

"These people chose to take a huge risk to become Americans," the producer notes, "and they deserve a better descriptor than 'illegals.'"

To me, what it means to be an American goes beyond your place of birth or the documents you have, back to when throngs of Irish, Italian and Eastern Europeans crossed the Atlantic Ocean in search of a better life, no papers asked. What it means to be an American is less about who you are than what you are about-- how you live your life, how you contribute to this country, how you pledge allegiance to a flag hoping and praying it will make room for you. What it means to be an American is in the hearts of the people who, in their struggles and heartaches, in their joys and triumphs, fight for America and fight to be American every day.

A few weeks after I "came out" in June 2011 about my undocumented status in an essay in the New York Times Magazine, Washington state revoked my driver's license. Among the first people to reach out to me was Aaron Sorkin. I've interviewed Sorkin before. He told me he was working on a new show about a cable news program, and that the second episode is set on the day Gov. Jan Brewer signed the Arizona immigration bill into law. He asked for my thoughts on immigration. In an email later, I told him about the first time I watched one of his films. It was 1997, not too long after I discovered that I didn't have the proper documents to live in America. I was watching "The American President," a movie starring Michael Douglas, and toward the end of the film, Douglas, as the president, says: "America isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship. You gotta want it bad, 'cause it's gonna put up a fight." I was 16, lost and disoriented, and I told Sorkin that hearing those words helped me realize that I had to fight -- that America was a fight and that America had to be earned.

Undocumented Americans, aspiring citizens like me, have been fighting and will continue to fight for this country we call home. And, as more and more undocumented Americans and the people who support us -- the Good Samaritans in our lives, the teachers, pastors, neighbors and friends who make up our underground railroad -- "come out" and tell our stories, America's view of immigration and the nature of citizenship itself grows increasingly more complex and nuanced. It becomes about human beings.

Together with a small group of friends, I founded a campaign called Define American, which seeks to elevate conversation on immigration. And elevating and broadening the conversation means engaging different types of audiences from all walks of life. After appearing on "The O'Reilly Factor" last month, I received an email from Dennis Murphy of Omaha, Nebraska. The email reads:

"Mr. Vargas:

As founder and former state chairman of the Nebraska Minutemen, now merged with the Nebraska Tea Party, I was positively impressed by your interview with Bill O'Reilly. If I understand your situation correctly, you [were] brought into the United States by your parents when you were a young child, and they chose for whatever reason to do so in a fashion that avoided our immigration law. You now refer to yourself in your blog as "an undocumented American," which I believe is a fair and accurate assessment."

Thank you, Mr. Murphy, for considering me one of your fellow Americans. Let's keep the conversation going. Let's keep exploring what it means to be an American.

WATCH: Jose Antonio Vargas and others define 'American':

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Today's Fourth of July holiday, our country's birthday, marks a new beginning for undocumented Americans like me. Last month, TIME magazine featured an unprecedented photograph of 36 undocumented young people, myself included, on the cover of its U.S. and international editions. "We are Americans," the headline declared. "Just not legally."

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This gives the opinions of what is means to be an American from the youth of America, which allows for me to see different responses to this question and this makes it easier for me to come up with my answer of what it means to be an American.

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What does it mean to be an American? | Scholastic.com

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This quote by Ben Nelson explains very well that even though there are many perks and other things that make someone an American, there are also the basic things that allow for people to identify themselves as an American. These are things like freedom, opportunity, and rights.

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This chart gives the meaning that being a true American is pretty simple. The one thing it takes for someone to be an American is that they live in America and they are given the freedom they deserve. This knowledge helps me with answering the question what it means to be an American since this answer given in the  image is obviously a very important aspect of the answer and now I know to make sure and include it in my own answer.

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This quote by Jesse Ventura reminded me that being an American doesn't just mean you do the basic stuff, it means that you deeply care about your country and would do much more for it than just say the Pledge of Allegiance.

“There is much more to being a patriot and a citizen than reciting the pledge or raising a flag.”

Wrestler, Actor and former Governor of Minnesota Jesse Ventura