Eastern European Americans

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Eastern European Americans are Americans of Eastern European ancestry. Eastern European American people can usually trace back full or partial heritage to Belarus, Russia, Moldova, Ukraine and other nations connected to Eastern Europe geographically or culturally.

Contents

Background

Eastern European Americans have been considered as a distinct pan-ethnic group which is based on tracing ancestry to one or more of the nations of Eastern Europe, or of a nation bordering with or otherwise ethnoculturally connected to the region. [1] The group can be subdivided into nation-based groupings, such as Moldovan Americans or Russian Americans. [2]

History

In the 1880s and 1890s, many Eastern Europeans settled in places like Cleveland, Ohio, which, along with German Americans, contributed to the population of Cleveland being 75 percent foreign-born by 1900. [3] Between 1900 and the 1965 Hart–Celler Act, the majority of immigration into the US was from Southern and Eastern Europe. [4] After the First World War, Eastern European Americans made up a significant part of the Pittsburg, Kansas mining community, dubbed the "Little Balkans", and cooperated in labor strikes with Swedish Americans, Austrian Americans and other European immigrant groups. [5]

During World War II, the ethnic group were subjected to government measures and restrictions. Speaking in the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2003, U.S. Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) stated how "Eastern European Americans were unfairly arrested, detained, interned, or relocated". [6] In the 1950s, Eastern European Americans, including second or third generation Americans, as well as more recent arrivals, such as those who were exiled or refugees from the Soviet Union, were faced with the conflicting position of needing to demonstrate loyalty to the United States, while advocating for policy which could help their former homelands. [7]

The 1950s marked a social breakthrough for many Eastern European Americans. In a New England Board of Higher Education interview with David Halberstam, the historian proposed how access to white society became possible for the pan-ethnic group, along with Italian Americans by the mid-decade point. [8] Representing this social shift, the US Census Bureau found that Eastern European and Southern European Americans born between 1956 and 1965 had practically converged in education outcomes with British Americans, and were, in fact, slightly outperforming Americans of solely British heritage in the completion of bachelor's degrees. [9]

In the mid-1970s, the Helsinki Accords caused some political tension between the Ford administration and the Americans of Eastern European heritage. [10]

Founded as an Irish American heritage unit, the 69th Infantry Regiment had a significant number of Eastern European Americans serving in 2001. [11] In 2004, the marketing strategy of Czech Airlines targeted Central and Eastern European Americans to encourage tourism. [12]

In 2016, writing for the American Enterprise Institute ahead of the US 2016 election, political appointee Marc Thiessen suggested that Donald Trump's relationship with Vladimir Putin was driving away Eastern European American voters, especially in relation to the Ukrainian crisis. [13] Political scientist Agnia Grigas similarly argued that the GOP nominee was cause for concern for Americans with Eastern European heritage due to the alleged relationship with the Russian president. [14]

In 2019, as a part of the ongoing measles resurgence in the United States, Eastern European Americans were reported to be particularly affected by an outbreak in Washington state. [15]

Discrimination

A Fromm Institute for Lifelong Learning course, titled Race and The American Legal System, examines some of the legal injustices faced by the group. [16]

Academic research

A 2008 Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute study tested over five hundred Eastern European American volunteers consecutively in order to identify human leukocyte antigen alleles and contribute towards a hematopoietic stem cell registry. [17]

See also

Related Research Articles

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Arab Americans are American citizens of Arab heritage. Arab Americans trace ancestry to any of the various waves of immigrants of the countries comprising the Arab World.

White is a racial classification and skin color specifier, generally used for people of European origin; although the definition can vary depending on context, nationality, and point of view. This term has at times been expanded to encompass persons of South Asian, West Asian, and North African descent, persons who are often considered "non-white" in other contexts in the United States. It has also been alleged that, in the United States, people of Southern European and even Irish descent have been excluded from this category, although this idea has been contested. The usage of "white people" or a "white race" for a large group of mainly or exclusively European populations, defined by their light skin, among other physical characteristics, and contrasting with "black", "red", "brown", "yellow", and other "colored" people or "persons of color", originated in the 17th century. Prior to this, Europeans also described people from East Asia as being "white". It was only during the 19th century that this vague category was transformed in a pseudo-scientific system of race and skin color relations.

Melting pot Monocultural metaphor

The melting pot is a monocultural metaphor for a heterogeneous society becoming more homogeneous, the different elements "melting together" with a common culture; an alternative being a homogeneous society becoming more heterogeneous through the influx of foreign elements with different cultural backgrounds, possessing the potential to create disharmony within the previous culture. Historically, it is often used to describe the cultural integration of immigrants to the United States.

German Americans Americans of German birth or descent

German Americans are Americans who have full or partial German ancestry. With an estimated size of approximately 44.2 million in 2018, German Americans are the largest of the self-reported ancestry groups by the United States Census Bureau in its American Community Survey. German Americans account for about one third of the total ethnic German population in the world.

White nationalism is a type of nationalism or pan-nationalism which espouses the belief that white people are a race and seeks to develop and maintain a white racial and national identity. Many of its proponents identify with and are attached to the concept of a white nation, or a "white ethnostate".

Polish Americans Americans of Polish birth or descent

Polish Americans are Americans who have total or partial Polish ancestry. There are an estimated 9.15 million self-identified Polish Americans, representing about 2.83% of the U.S. population. Polish Americans are the second-largest Central European ethnic group after Germans, and the eighth largest ethnic group overall in the United States.

European Americans Americans of European ancestry

European Americans are Americans of European ancestry. This term includes people who are descended from the first European settlers in America as well as people who are descended from more recent European arrivals. European Americans are the largest panethnic group in the United States, both historically and at present.

White Americans are Americans who identify as and are perceived to be white people. White Americans constitute the historical and current majority of the people living in the United States, with 72% of the population identifying as white alone and 75% identify white fully or multiracial. Non-Hispanic Whites totaled about 197,181,177 or about 60.1% of the white population in 2019. European Americans are the largest panethnic group of White Americans and have constituted the majority population of the United States since the nation's founding.

Race and ethnicity in the United States is a complex topic because the United States of America has a racially and ethnically diverse population. At the federal level, race and ethnicity have been categorized separately.

Russian Americans Americans of Russian birth or descent

Russian Americans are Americans of full or partial Russian ancestry. The term can apply to recent Russian immigrants to the United States, as well as to those who settled in the 19th-century Russian possessions in northwestern America. Russian Americans comprise the largest Eastern European and East Slavic population in the U.S., the second-largest Slavic population generally, the ninteenth-largest ancestry group overall, and the eleventh-largest from Europe.

Ethnic groups in Central America

Central America is a subregion of the Americas formed by six Latin American countries and one (officially) Anglo-American country, Belize. As an isthmus it connects South America with the remainder of mainland North America, and comprises the following countries : Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama.

White Latin Americans, or European Latin Americans, are Latin Americans who are considered white, typically due to European descent. Latin American countries have often encouraged intermarriage between different ethnic groups since the beginning of the colonial period.

Brazilians citizens of Brazil

Brazilians are the citizens of Brazil. A Brazilian can also be a person born abroad to a Brazilian parent or legal guardian as well as a persons who acquired Brazilian citizenship. Brazil is a multiethnic society, which means that it is home to people of many ethnic origins. As a result, a majority of Brazilians do not identify their nationality as not being necessarily directly related to their ethnicity; in fact, the idea of ethnicity as it is understood in the anglophone world is not popular in the country.

European Canadians, also known as Euro-Canadians, are Canadians with ancestry from Europe. They form the largest panethnic group within Canada with roughly 73 percent of the population.

White ethnic

White ethnic is a term used to refer to White Americans who are not Old Stock or White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. They consist of a number of distinct groups and make up approximately 69.4% of the white population in the United States. The term usually refers to the descendants of immigrants from Southern, Central and Eastern Europe, Ireland, the Caucasus, and France/Francophone Canada.

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. The majority of these respondents are visibly White Americans, who either simply use this response as a political statement or are far removed from and no longer self-identify with their original ethnic ancestral origins. The latter response is attributed to a multitude of generational distance from ancestral lineages, and these tend be of English, Scotch-Irish, or other British ancestries, as demographers have observed that those ancestries tend to be seriously undercounted in U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey ancestry self-reporting estimates. Although U.S. Census data indicates "American ancestry" is most commonly self-reported in the Deep South, the Upland South, and Appalachia, the vast majority of Americans and expatriates do not equate their nationality with ancestry, race or ethnicity, but with citizenship and allegiance.

Non-Hispanic whites are European Americans, Middle Eastern Americans, and North African Americans that speak English as a native language as defined by the United States Census Bureau.

Demographics of Cleveland

From its founding in 1796, Cleveland's population grew to 796,841 in 1920, making it the fifth largest city in the United States at the time. By 1930, the population rose to 900,429 and, after World War II, it reached 914,808. Due to various historical factors including deindustrialization, suburbanization, and urban sprawl, Cleveland's population began decreasing in the 1960s. By 1980, the city's population was 573,822 and it had lost its position as one of the top 10 largest cities in the U.S. By 2019, the population had further fallen to 381,009. Beginning in 2018, the city's population began to flatten, after decades of decline. Additionally, since 2010, some neighborhoods within Cleveland, notably Downtown, have begun seeing a population increase.

Eastern European Canadians are Canadians of Eastern European ancestry. Eastern European Canadian people can usually trace back full or partial heritage to Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and other nations in, bordering with, or otherwise culturally connected to Eastern Europe.

Eastern European Australians are Australians of Eastern European ancestry. Eastern European Australian people can usually trace back full or partial heritage to Belarus, Moldova, Russia, Ukraine and other nations bordering with or ethnoculturally related to Eastern Europe. They are a subgroup of European Australians, along with Northwestern European Australians and Southern European Australians.

References

  1. ↑ "Eastern European Americans". Library of Congress. 2015.
  2. ↑ Gail Garfinkle Weiss (2009). Americans from Russia and Eastern Europe (New Americans). Benchmark Books. p. 8. ISBN   978-0761443100. Including people whose parents, grandparents, or other ancestors were born in Russia and Eastern Europe, the total number of Eastern European Americans is much higher.
  3. ↑ "Historic Ethnic Groups in Ohio". State Library of Ohio. Cleveland, Ohio, likewise, saw many Eastern Europeans choosing its city as their new home. While thousands of Germans often chose rural areas throughout Ohio as their new residence, they also settled in Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland. In fact, at the beginning of the 20th century, at least 50 percent of Cleveland residents were German. Over 75 percent of Cleveland’s population was foreign born by 1900.
  4. ↑ Irmo Marini (2009). "Counseling White Americans". The Professional Counselor's Desk Reference. Springer Publishing. p. 249. ISBN   978-0826171818. Southern and Eastern European Americans. After 1900, and prior to the 1965 Immigration Act, most immigrants to the United States came from southern and eastern European countries.
  5. ↑ "Amazon Army". Kansas Historical Society. February 1, 2011. These local families were immigrants from many European nations who had brought their mining skills to southeast Kansas. Called "Little Balkans," this region was home to French, Italian, Swedish, Austrian, German, British, and Eastern European Americans who spoke many different languages.
  6. ↑ "Statement of The Honorable Russ Feingold" (PDF). Senate Judiciary Committee. October 16, 2003. Thousands of German Americans, Italian Americans, and Eastern European Americans were unfairly arrested, detained, interned, or relocated. Our government confiscated the personal property of many European Americans and restricted their travel rights.
  7. ↑ Jonathan H. L'Homedieu (2009). "Journal of American Ethnic History". Baltic Exiles and the U.S. Congress: Investigations and Legacies of the House Select Committee, 1953-1955 (Volume 31 ed.). University of Illinois Press. p. 41. Politically motivated Eastern European Americans rejected the postwar political settlement in their former homelands. They were caught between promoting unrealistic foreign policy prescriptions in the American political spectrum, such as advocating the use of military force to roll back Communism in Eastern Europe, and having to demonstrate their loyaltly to the United States.
  8. ↑ "Fall 2005 Connection: 50 Years of New England Higher Education and Economic Development". New England Board of Higher Education. September 26, 2013. But in retrospect, it was narrower than we thought. We perceived ourselves in the ‘50s as a white society, and the breakthrough was mostly limited to people who were descendents of Italian-Americans, Eastern European Americans, children of Jewish immigrants.”
  9. ↑ Dominic J. Pulera (2006). "A Nation of 100 Million". Sharing the Dream: White Males in a Multicultural America. Continuum International Publishing Group. p. 30. ISBN   978-0826418296. The Census Bureau found that 55.9% of white men born between 1956 and 1965 had attended college and 25.5% of them had completed bachelor's degrees. However, the percentages had virtually converged for two groups in this cohort: men of solely British ancestry (66.3% and 31.8%, respectively) and Southern and Eastern European men (66.4% and 33.8%, respectively). Interestingly, these trends were reflected in the data for women too. While the Southern and Eastern European Americans began to prosper in America, African Americans continued to suffer from discrimination and diminished life chances
  10. ↑ Sarah B. Snyder (2010). "Through the Looking Glass: The Helsinki Final Act and the 1976 Election for President". Diplomacy & Statecraft. pp. 86–106. Helsinki Final Act became a point of contention between the White House and Eastern European Americans during Ford's election campaign
  11. ↑ Sean Michael Flynn (2007). The Fighting 69th: One Remarkable National Guard Unit's Journey from Ground Zero to Baghdad . Viking Adult. ISBN   978-1616802868. Most of its soldiers were immigrant kids with no military experience and no intention of serving their country very long. Once an all-Irish outfit, the 69th was now a mix of Latinos, African Americans, Eastern European Americans, Asian Americans, and a few token Irish Americans.
  12. ↑ "People and Accounts of Note". The New York Times . June 29, 2004. Czech Airlines, Prague, named Global Advertising Strategies, New York, to create two campaigns for its United States account, which is handled internally and on a project basis. One campaign will be focused on Central and Eastern European-Americans and the other will be aimed at encouraging American business travelers to visit Central and Eastern Europe.
  13. ↑ "Trump's Putin bromance is driving away Eastern European-American voters". American Enterprise Institute. August 23, 2016. Similarly out of the mainstream were those central and eastern European Canadians, now condescendingly called "ethnics." Of those who served with SOE , most were Yugoslavs who had immigrated to Canada in the 1920s and 1930s.
  14. ↑ "Will GOP-leaning foreign policy voters pass on Trump?". The Hill . April 11, 2016. History might repeat itself, because just like 71 years ago when a great number of Americans of Eastern European descent felt betrayed by the Democrats over their dovish stance vis-a-vis Moscow, now they might feel similarly about the current GOP nominee.
  15. ↑ "America's Measles Crisis Will Get Worse Before It Gets Better". Pacific Standard. April 29, 2019. For many months, the virus also circulated among Eastern European Americans in southern Washington State, where vaccine skepticism is unusually widespread, Vox reports. Washington's outbreak was officially declared over last week, Messonnier said.
  16. ↑ "Race and The American Legal System". Fromm Institute for Lifelong Learning. This course will examine the way in which the legal system, through court decisions, treaties and legislation, systematically discriminated against Native Americans, African Americans, Latin Americans, Asian Americans and certain Eastern European Americans.
  17. ↑ S. J. Mack (2008), HLA-A, -B, -C, and -DRB1 allele and haplotype frequencies distinguish Eastern European Americans from the general European American population., Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute, Sequence-based typing was used to identify human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-A, -B, -C, and -DRB1 alleles from 558 consecutively recruited US volunteers with Eastern European ancestry for an unrelated hematopoietic stem cell registry.
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