North American's promised land surrounding vacant deli (8)
I believe the answer is:
canadian
'north american's' is the definition.
(Canadian is an example)
'promised land surrounding vacant deli' is the wordplay.
'promised land' becomes 'canaan' (I've seen this before).
'surrounding' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'vacant' says to hollow out the word (remove centre letters).
'deli' with its centre removed is 'di'.
'canaan' enclosing 'di' is 'CANADIAN'.
(Other definitions for canadian that I've seen before include "A countryman" , "Toronto native" , "from place across the Pond" , "Nationality of citizen of Quebec" , "Can Diana be this nationality?" .)