Ever since 9/11 Americans have been using the term "homeland". Following the Al Qaeda attack the US government formed the Department of Homeland Security. Government offices discuss "threats to the homeland". Even the news media will discuss "the homeland".
Homeland? What's that mean.
I think it's supposed to mean the United States, or perhaps the continental United States, as opposed to our diplomatic missions or overseas missions. It should frankly absurd, and even a little bit fascistic.
Traditionally, Americans haven't spoken of any part of their country as "the homeland". Rather, we speak of our country as, well, "our country", or "the United States", or "America", but not the homeland. Homeland has a certain "blood and soil"* type of connotation that Americans have generally sought to avoid. Indeed, one long hallmark of American culture is that even though we recognize and celebrate the existence of regional cultures, the country belongs to everyone. So, for example, a New Yorker can move to Alabama, should he chose, or an Alabaman to Hawaii, etc. By doing that, that internal immigrant is moving from one regional culture to another, but generally there's no folkish prohibition to hit.
Indeed, the closest term in the western world to "Homeland", as we're presently using it, is the German word Heimat. Heimat is a bit difficult to translate, but it roughly equates with "homeland" while adding a cultural, and indeed blood, relationship to the term. The Nazis were big on Heimat, although a cultural closeness to Heimat isn't unique to them in any fashion. Still, that type of association, which is sort of a fascist thing in general, is not something Americans have every held.
Americans have held a sentimental attachment to "the heartland", which is generally conceived to be the Mid West agricultural heart of the country, which many non Eastern Americans have a familial connection to. That's quite a bit different. Southerners, Texans, New Englanders, and Westerners (at least) have a sentimental attachment to their regions, which they usually just identify geographically. People of native ancestry often are attached to a region as well.
All that creeps up on the concept of a "motherland", which is a cultural concept that's strong with some ethnicities in the United States and some nationalities around the globe. Perhaps the one that's the strongest is the Russian one, with its concept of "Mother Russia". Irish Americans have traditionally had a strong sentimental and cultural attachment to "the old country", as have Italian Americans. None of those concepts, however, equates with "the homeland".
Even the adoption of the term in the security context is a bit odd. We used to speak of "national security" where we now speak of "homeland security". "National security" sounded mature and sober. "Homeland Security" sounds like the enemy is at the gates and we're holed up in the bunker. Not very appealing.
Indeed, for that matter, the change in terms strikes me the same way that the old change from the "War Department" to the "Department of Defense" strikes me. Poorly chosen. There was no doubt what the focus of the "War Department" was.
All good reasons, in my view, to ditch all this reference to "Homeland". Let's just call it was it is, we're either in a long term war with foreign enemies who have an internal fifth column, like the Cold War, or we're engaged in a huge effort against criminal organizations which occasionally have armed expression. Either way, there were existing departments for that sort of thing with less odd names.
*
Blut und Boden: A Nazi phrase associated with Die Heimat (roughly, "the homeland", expressing a nearly genetic identity with a die Heimat with die Volk).
