Total population | |
---|---|
19,364,103 (5.93%) 2021 estimates, self-reported [1] | |
Regions with significant populations | |
Southern United States and Midwestern United States, especially Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia | |
Languages | |
English (American English dialects) | |
Religion | |
Predominantly Christianity (mainly Protestantism) | |
Related ethnic groups | |
White Southerners and other American ancestries |
American ancestry refers to people in the United States who self-identify their ancestral origin or descent as "American", rather than the more common officially recognized racial and ethnic groups that make up the bulk of the American people. [2] [3] [4] The majority of these respondents are visibly White Americans, who are far removed from and no longer self-identify with their original ethnic ancestral origins. [5] [6] The latter response is attributed to a multitude of generational distance from ancestral lineages, [3] [7] [8] and these tend be Anglo-Americans [7] of English, Scotch-Irish, Welsh, Scottish or other British ancestries, as demographers have observed that those ancestries tend to be recently undercounted in U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey ancestry self-reporting estimates. [9] [10]
Although U.S. census data indicates "American ancestry" is most commonly self-reported in the Deep South, the Upland South, and Appalachia, [11] [12] a far greater number of Americans and expatriates equate their national identity not with ancestry, race, or ethnicity, but rather with citizenship and allegiance. [13] [8]
The earliest attested use of the term "American" to identify an ancestral or cultural identity dates to the late 1500s, with the term signifying "the indigenous peoples discovered in the Western Hemisphere by Europeans." [14] In the following century, the term "American" was extended as a reference to colonists of European descent. [14] The Oxford English Dictionary identifies this secondary meaning as "historical" and states that the term "American" today "chiefly [means] a native (birthright) or citizen of the United States." [14]
President Theodore Roosevelt asserted that an "American race" had been formed on the American frontier, one distinct from other ethnic groups, such as the Anglo-Saxons. [15] : 78, 131 He believed "(t)he conquest and settlement by the whites of the Indian lands was necessary to the greatness of the race...." [15] : 78 "We are making a new race, a new type, in this country." [15] Roosevelt's "race" beliefs were not unique in the 19th and early 20th century. [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] Professor Eric Kaufmann has suggested that American nativism has been explained primarily in psychological and economic terms to the neglect of a crucial cultural and ethnic dimension. Kauffman contends American nativism cannot be understood without reference to the theorem of the age that an "American" national ethnic group had taken shape prior to the large-scale immigration of the mid-19th century. [18]
"Nativism" gained its name from the "Native American" parties of the 1840s and 1850s. [21] [22] In this context, "Native" does not mean indigenous or American Indian, but rather those descended from the inhabitants of the original Thirteen Colonies (Colonial American ancestry). [23] [24] [18] These "Old Stock Americans," were predominantly Protestants from England, Sweden, the Netherlands, and even modern-day Russia and Finland. They saw Catholic immigrants as a threat to traditional American republican values, as they were loyal to the papacy. [25] [26] This form of American nationalism is often identified with xenophobia and anti-Catholic sentiment. [27]
Nativist outbursts occurred in the Northeast from the 1830s to the 1850s, primarily in response to a surge of Catholic immigration. [28] The Order of United American Mechanics was founded as a nativist fraternity, following the Philadelphia nativist riots of the preceding spring and summer, in December 1844. [29] The New York City anti-Irish, anti-German, and anti-Catholic secret society the Order of the Star Spangled Banner was formed in 1848. [30] Popularised nativist movements included the Know Nothing or American Party of the 1850s and the Immigration Restriction League of the 1890s. [31]
During the antebellum period (pre-Civil War), between 1830 and 1860, Americanism acquired a restrictive political meaning due to nativist moral panics. [32] Nativism would eventually influence Congress; [33] in 1924, legislation limiting immigration from Southern and Eastern European countries was ratified, also quantifying previous formal and informal anti-Asian previsions, such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907. [34] [35]
According to U.S. Census Bureau; "Ancestry refers to a person's ethnic origin or descent, 'roots,' or heritage, or the place of birth of the person or the person's parents or ancestors before their arrival in the United States." [36]
According to 2000 U.S. census data, an increasing number of United States citizens identify simply as "American" on the question of ancestry. [37] [38] [39] The Census Bureau reports the number of people in the United States who reported "American" and no other ancestry increased from 12.4 million in 1990 to 20.2 million in 2000. [40] This increase represents the largest numerical growth of any ethnic group in the United States during the 1990s. [2] The state with the largest increase over the past two census was Texas, where in 2000, over 1.5 million residents reported having "American ancestry." [41]
In the 1980 census, 26% of United States residents cited that they were of English ancestry, making them the largest group at the time. [42] In the 2000 United States Census, 6.9% of the American population chose to self-identify itself as having "American ancestry." [2] The four states in which a plurality of the population reported American ancestry were Arkansas (15.7%), Kentucky (20.7%), Tennessee (17.3%), and West Virginia (18.7%). [40] Sizable percentages of the populations of Alabama (16.8%), Mississippi (14.0%), North Carolina (13.7%), South Carolina (13.7%), Georgia (13.3%), and Indiana (11.8%) also reported American ancestry. [43]
In the Southern United States as a whole, 11.2% reported "American" ancestry, second only to African American. American was the fourth most common ancestry reported in the Midwest (6.5%) and West (4.1%). All Southern states except for Delaware, Maryland, Florida, and Texas reported 10% or more American, but outside the South, only Missouri and Indiana did so. American was one of the top five ancestries reported in all Southern states except for Delaware, in four Midwestern states bordering the South (Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, and Ohio) as well as Iowa, and in six Northwestern states (Colorado, Idaho, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming), but only one Northeastern state, Maine. The pattern of areas with high levels of American is similar to that of areas with high levels of not reporting any national ancestry. [43]
In the 2014 American Community Survey, German Americans (14.4%), Irish Americans (10.4%), English Americans (7.6%), and Italian Americans (5.4%) were the four largest self-reported European ancestry groups in the United States, forming 37.8% of the total population. [44] However, English, Scotch-Irish, and British American demography is considered to be seriously undercounted, as the 6.9% of U.S. Census respondents who self-report and identify simply as "American" are primarily of these ancestries. [9] [10]
Reynolds Farley writes that "we may now be in an era of optional ethnicity, in which no simple census question will distinguish those who identify strongly with a specific European group from those who report symbolic or imagined ethnicity." [37]
Stanley Lieberson and Mary C. Waters write "As whites become increasingly distant in generations and time from their immigrant ancestors, the tendency to distort, or remember selectively, one's ethnic origins increases.... [E]thnic categories are social phenomena that over the long run are constantly being redefined and reformulated." [39] [45] Mary C. Waters contends that white Americans of European origin are afforded a wide range of choice: "In a sense, they are constantly given an actual choice—they can either identify themselves with their ethnic ancestry or they can 'melt' into the wider society and call themselves American." [46]
Professors Anthony Daniel Perez and Charles Hirschman write "European national origins are still common among whites—almost 3 of 5 whites name one or more European countries in response to the ancestry question. ... However, a significant share of whites respond that they are simply "American" or leave the ancestry question blank on their census forms. Ethnicity is receding from the consciousness of many white Americans. Because national origins do not count for very much in contemporary America, many whites are content with a simplified Americanized racial identity. The loss of specific ancestral attachments among many white Americans also results from high patterns of intermarriage and ethnic blending among whites of different European stocks." [8]
The response of American ancestry is addressed by the United States Census Bureau as follows:
Some people identify their ancestry as American. This could be because their ancestors have been in United States for so long or they have such mixed backgrounds that they do not identify with any particular group. Some foreign born or children of the foreign born may report American to show that they are part of American society. There are many reasons people may report their ancestors as American, and the growth in this response has been substantial. [47]
A 2015 genetic study published in the American Journal of Human Genetics analyzed the genetic ancestry of 148,789 European Americans. The study concluded that Inferred British/Irish ancestry is found in European Americans from all states at mean proportions of more than 20% and represents a majority of ancestry (more than 50% mean proportion) in states such as Mississippi, Arkansas, and Tennessee. These states are similarly highlighted in the map of the self-reported "American" ethnicity in the US Census survey, which might reflect regions with lower subsequent migration from other parts of Europe. [48]
White is a racial classification of people generally used for those of mostly European ancestry. It is also a skin color specifier, although the definition can vary depending on context, nationality, ethnicity and point of view.
Anglo is a prefix indicating a relation to, or descent from England, English culture, the English people or the English language, such as in the term Anglosphere. It is often used alone, somewhat loosely, to refer to people of British descent in Anglo-America, the Anglophone Caribbean, South Africa, Namibia, Australia, and New Zealand. It is used in Canada to differentiate between French-speaking Canadians (Francophones), located mainly in Quebec but found across Canada, and English-speaking Canadians (Anglophones), also located across Canada, including in Quebec. It is also used in the United States to distinguish the Latino population from the non-Latino white majority.
Irish Catholics are an ethnoreligious group native to Ireland whose members are both Catholic and Irish. They have a large diaspora, which includes over 36 million American citizens, plus over 7 million Irish Australians, of whom around 67% adhere to Catholicism.
European Americans are Americans of European ancestry. This term includes both people who descend from the first European settlers in the area of the present-day United States and people who descend from more recent European arrivals. Since the 17th century, European Americans have been the largest panethnic group in what are now the United States.
British Americans usually refers to Americans whose ancestral origin originates wholly or partly in the United Kingdom. It is primarily a demographic or historical research category for people who have at least partial descent from peoples of Great Britain and the modern United Kingdom, i.e. English, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, Scotch-Irish, Orcadian, Manx, Cornish Americans and those from the Channel Islands and Gibraltar.
The 2010 census estimated Alabama's population at 4,802,740, an increase of 332,636 or 7.5% since 2000. This includes a natural increase of 87,818 and a net migration of 73,178 people into the state. Immigration from outside the United States resulted in a net increase of 30,537 and migration within the country produced a net increase of 42,641.
White Americans are Americans who identify as white people. In a more official sense, the U.S. Census Bureau, which collects demographic data on Americans, defines "white" as "A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa." This group constitutes the majority of the people in the United States. According to the 2020 census, 71%, or 235,411,507 people, were White alone or in combination, and 61.6%, or 204,277,273 people, were White alone. This represented a national white demographic decline from a 72.4% white alone share of the U.S. population in 2010.
The United States has a racially and ethnically diverse population. At the federal level, race and ethnicity have been categorized separately. The most recent United States census recognized five racial categories, as well as people who belong to two or more of the racial categories. The United States also recognizes the broader notion of ethnicity. The 2000 census and 2010 American Community Survey inquired about the "ancestry" of residents, while the 2020 census allowed people to enter their "origins". The Census Bureau also classified respondents as either Hispanic or Latino, identifying as an ethnicity, which comprises the minority group in the nation.
The Anti-Vagrancy Act, also known as the Greaser Act, was enacted in 1855 in California, by legalizing the arrest of those perceived as violating its anti-vagrancy statute.
White Hispanic and Latino Americans, also called Euro-Hispanics, Euro-Latinos, White Hispanics, or White Latinos, are Americans of white ancestry and ancestry from Latin America. It also refers to people of European ancestry from Latin America that speak Spanish natively and immigrated to the United States.
The legal and social strictures that define White Americans, and distinguish them from persons who are not considered white by the government and society, have varied throughout the history of the United States. Race is defined as a social and political category within society based on hierarchy.
The Know Nothings were a nativist political movement in the United States in the 1850s, officially known as the Native American Party before 1855, and afterwards simply the American Party. Members of the movement were required to say "I know nothing" whenever they were asked about its specifics by outsiders, providing the group with its colloquial name.
The English diaspora consists of English people and their descendants who emigrated from England. The diaspora is concentrated in the English-speaking world in countries such as the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, South Africa, India and to a lesser extent, Zimbabwe, Zambia and continental Europe.
The English people are an ethnic group and nation native to England, who speak the English language, a West Germanic language, and share a common ancestry, history, and culture. The English identity began with the Anglo-Saxons, when they were known as the Angelcynn, meaning race or tribe of the Angles. Their ethnonym is derived from the Angles, one of the Germanic peoples who invaded Britain around the 5th century AD.
Americans are the citizens and nationals of the United States. The United States is home to people of many racial and ethnic origins; consequently, American law does not equate nationality with race or ethnicity, but with citizenship and an oath of permanent allegiance. The majority of Americans or their ancestors immigrated to the United States or are descended from people who were brought as slaves within the past five centuries, with the exception of the Native American population and people from Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines, who became American through expansion of the country in the 19th century; additionally, American Samoa, the United States Virgin Islands, and Northern Mariana Islands came under American sovereignty in the 20th century, although American Samoans are only nationals and not citizens of the United States.
English Americans are Americans whose ancestry originates wholly or partly in England. In the 2020 United States census, English Americans were the largest group in the United States with 46.5 million Americans self-identifying as having some English origins representing (19.8%) of the White American population. This includes 25,536,410 (12.5%) who were "English alone". Despite them being the largest self-identified ancestral origin in the United States, demographers still regard the number of English Americans as an undercount. As most English Americans are the descendants of settlers who first arrived during the colonial period which began over 400 years ago, many Americans are either unaware of this heritage or choose to elect a more recent known ancestral group even if English is their primary ancestry.
Nativism is the political policy of promoting or protecting the interests of native-born or indigenous inhabitants over those of immigrants, including the support of anti-immigration and immigration-restriction measures. In the United States, nativism does not refer to a movement led by Native Americans, also referred to as American Indians.
Non-Hispanic Whites or Non-Latino Whites are White Americans classified by the United States census as "white" and not Hispanic. According to the United States Census Bureau yearly estimates, as of July 1, 2023, Non-Hispanic whites make up about 58.9% of the U.S. population, or 197,639,521 people. The United States Census Bureau defines white to include European Americans, Middle Eastern Americans, and North African Americans. Americans of European ancestry are divided into various ethnic groups. More than half of the white population are German, Irish, English, French and Polish Americans. Many Americans are also the product of other European groups that migrated to parts of the US in the 19th and 20th centuries, as the bulk of immigrants from various countries in Northern, Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe, as well as the Caucasus region, migrated to the United States.
Xenophobia in the United States is the fear or hatred of any cultural group in the United States that is perceived as being foreign or strange or un-American. It expresses a conflict between an ingroup and an outgroup and may manifest in suspicion by the one of the other's activities, and beliefs and goals. It includes a desire to eliminate their presence, and fear of losing national, ethnic, or racial identity and is often closely linked to racism and discrimination.
The ideology of nativism - favoring native inhabitants, as opposed to immigrants - has been very common and contentious within American politics for centuries. Nativist movements have been around since even before American independence, and have targeted a wide variety of nationalities.
To be or to become an American, a person did not have to be of any particular national, linguistic, religious, or ethnic background. All he had to do was to commit himself to the political ideology centered on the abstract ideals of liberty, equality, and republicanism. Thus the universalist ideological character of American nationality meant that it was open to anyone who willed to become an American.
In the case of the United States, the national ethnic group was Anglo-American Protestant ("American"). This was the first European group to "imagine" the territory of the United States as its homeland and trace its genealogy back to New World colonists who rebelled against their mother country. In its mind, the American nation-state, its land, its history, its mission and its Anglo-American people were woven into one great tapestry of the imagination. This social construction considered the United States to be founded by the "Americans", who thereby had title to the land and the mandate to mould the nation (and any immigrants who might enter it) in their own Anglo-Saxon, Protestant self-image.
The upsurge of the faithful fueled bigotry among Americans who demonized cities and discounted foreigners, especially Catholics and Jews, as true citizens. Old stock American nativists feared that "papists"...