Definitely nation last.

Mind you, I don't really have much of a built in local identity at all. As in, the town and county don't mean much to me. But the area, yeah. There's a certain vibe to the tri county area that's distinct from the surrounding counties, and from the general Appalachian culture, as well as the southern Appalachian culture (as was brought up in a previous post here lol).

But I'm definitely a mountain boy, and a southerner. Both have left deep etching into my speech, my way of looking at the world, and how I look at the rest of the country.

But, yeah, being American is part of that. You can't really grow up in a single country and not internalize at least parts of the overall ethos and culture.

When it comes down to it, I tend to think of myself as a southerner more than an American. An American more than an american ( lower case because afaik, you don't capitalize it when you're referring to both continents), and an american more than a westerner. I tend to see more connections to people from Canada and Mexico than from central and south america, but I'd generally have more of a connection to, say, a Brazilian than maybe a Spaniard or an Italian.

There actually is an "american" connection. It's maybe not as intense as what you would find in the EU as a connecting ethos, but the way all the countries this side of the pond formed, the history we share, you'll end up having more in common with someone that doesn't have any recent shared ancestry than you might with people that are from where your most recent European ancestors came from. Like, my Irish side, when things come up in the world, there's usually less of an immediate "aha!", where I just get where they're coming from than with someone from Nicaragua (I happen to know several Nicaraguan families, so it's a good example).

Hell, sometimes, I find myself having more in common with people online that are from South America than with people from Utah or Montana. And that's with the language barrier.

I tend to think of myself as a southerner first though. Even when I hate part of the South's history or culture, I'm steeped in it. The humidity and the dirt are soaked into me.

It's like this: if someone asks, I tend to say I'm from America, but I am a southerner.