For those of you who do not live in the United States, what I am about to say, any life-long, or even extended resident of the country could tell you: people have dual loyalties, to their region or state, and to the nation as a whole. Generally this revolves around sports teams more than it does history, but there are still identities that people have with where they are from.

For instance, I was at university a couple years back, sitting around a lunch table with a few other people from various parts of the country, and we talked about the nick names that we wore based on what state we were from.

A guy from Indiana said he was a Hoosier.
A girl from North Carolina said it made her a Tar Heel.
A guy from Florida said it made him a Floridian.

And then they all looked at me.

And I said (and I quote):

Well I'm from Georgia, so that makes me a gentleman.