Americans, or American people, are citizens of the United States of America. The country is home to people of different national origins. As a result, Americans do not equate their nationality with ethnicity, but with citizenship.[40] With the exception of the Native American population, generally all Americans or their ancestors immigrated within the past five centuries.[41] Also, there are other groups that did not immigrate to the United States but became American because of American expansion in the late 1800s. These groups are people from Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippine Islands.