The US is not the sum of America parts

THANKS to Joyce Anderson Gleasure (Letters, April 26) for correcting me on my geographic illiteracy as to the whereabouts of America.

In my ignorance I didn’t understand how Hugo Chavez, being from the southern part of the continent, is precluded from being called American nor did I comprehend how Castro’s Cuba is suddenly left abandoned in the wilderness of a hemisphere and is no longer part of the American continent.

It’s not clear if Joyce also relegates the Florida Keys and Puerto Rico to the same fate, or Hawaii with implications for Mr Obama. How about Nantucket? And, for God’s sake, what are we going to do about Manhattan if islands don’t qualify as part of continents.