Does America have a gender?

This summer most of my students are native Spanish speakers, and sometimes their English is minimal. In addition, some of them are so far behind that even though they're two years older than my pre-k students, I'm teaching the same information. Yesterday we had a party for the 4th of July with my students, so I was trying to explain to them why we celebrate the 4th of July. They really got the part about it being a birthday, but the whole 'nation' idea was really throwing them off. I thought I was doing a pretty good job until one of them asked, "Is America a girl or a boy?" It really was a smart question, given that we'd just been talking about birthday parties, which only people have, in addition to the fact that in Spanish the ending 'a' in 'America' would typically indicate a female gender. However, it was pretty clear that they weren't getting it. I gave up and decided that I'd done a good job exposing them to the concept, and they'd understand it better next year.