Largest (non-Hispanic) white alone or in any combination group by county (2020)
Total population
120,114,876 (2020) Detailed European responses only[a] 58.8% of the White alone population[1] 204.3Mwhite (one race)[2] 235.4M White alone or in combination 96.5 million Non-specified white ancestry[3]
European Americans are Americans of European ancestry.[4][5] 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 is now the United States. According to the 2020 United States census, 58.8% of the White alone population and 56.1% of the White alone or in combination wrote in a detailed European response.[6]
The 2020 census was the first census to allow data collection on subtypes of Europeans. During previous surveys, the number of people with British ancestry was considered to be significantly under-counted, as many people in that demographic tended to identify themselves simply as Americans (20,151,829 or 7.2%).[10][11][12][13] A 2015 genetic study of 148,789 European Americans concluded that British ancestry was the most common European ancestry among white Americans, with this component ranging between 20% and 55% of the total population in all 50 states.[14] The same applies to Americans of Spanish ancestry, as many people in that demographic tend to identify themselves as Hispanic and Latino Americans (58,846,134 or 16.6%), even though they carry a mean of 65.1% European genetic ancestry, mainly from Spain.[15]
An increasing number of people ignore the ancestry or origins question or chose no specific ancestral group such as "American or United States". In the 2000 census this represented over 56.1 million or 19.9% of the United States population, an increase from 26.2 million (10.5%) in 1990 and 38.2 million (16.9%) in 1980 and are specified as "unclassified" and "not reported".[16][17] In the 2020 U.S. census, 96.58 million people did not report any detailed white ethnic origins and are "Not specified".[18]
In 1995, as part of a review of the Office of Management and Budget's Statistical Policy Directive No. 15 (Race and Ethnic Standards for Federal Statistics and Administrative Reporting), a survey was conducted of census recipients to determine their preferred terminology for the racial/ethnic groups defined in the Directive. For the White group, European American came a distant third, preferred by only 2.35% of panel interviewees, as opposed to White, which was preferred by 61.66%.[19]
The term is sometimes used interchangeably with Caucasian American, White American, and Anglo-American in the United States.[20]
Origin
In contexts such as medical research, terms such as "white" and "European" have been criticized for vagueness and blurring important distinctions between different groups that happen to fit within the label.[21] Margo Adair suggests that viewing Americans of European descent as a single group contributes to the "wonder-breading" of the United States, eradicating the cultural heritage of individual European ethnicities.[22]
Subgroups
Racial types of European Americans as published in "The American Museum Journal" between 1900 and 1918.
There are several subgroupings of European Americans.[23] While these categories may be approximately defined, often due to the imprecise or cultural regionalization of Europe, the subgroups are nevertheless used widely in cultural or ethnic identification.[24] This is particularly the case in diasporic populations, as with European people in the United States generally.[25] In alphabetical order, some of the subgroups are:
Leaving Havana, Cuba, in 1539, De Soto's expedition landed in Florida. It explored the southeastern area of the United States. They reached as far as the Mississippi River in search of riches and fortune. Another Spaniard who explored the United States, Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, set out from New Spain in 1540 in search of the mythical Seven Cities of Gold. Coronado's expedition traveled to Kansas and the Grand Canyon but failed to discover gold or treasure. However, Coronado left a gift of horses to the Plains Indians. Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazano and Frenchman Jacques Cartier are other Europeans who explored the United States. The Spaniards viewed the French as threatening their trade route along the Gulf Stream.[29]
Since 1607, some 57 million immigrants from other lands have come to the United States. Approximately 10 million passed through on their way to some other place or returned to their homelands, leaving a net gain of 47 million people.[30]
Shifts in European migration
Before 1881, the vast majority of immigrants, almost 86% of the total, arrived from Northwestern Europe, principally Great Britain, Ireland, Germany, and Scandinavia, known as "Old Immigration". Between 1881 and 1893, the pattern shifted in the sources of U.S. "New Immigration." Between 1894 and 1914, immigrants from Central, Eastern, and Southern Europe accounted for 69% of the total.[31][32][33] Prior to 1960, the overwhelming majority came from Europe or of European descent from Canada. Immigration from Europe as a proportion of new arrivals has declined since the mid-20th century, with 75.0% of the total foreign-born population born in Europe compared to 12.1% recorded in the 2010 census.[34]
Breakdowns of the European American population into sub-components is a difficult and rather arbitrary exercise. Farley (1991) argues that "because of ethnic intermarriage, the numerous generations that separate respondents from their forebears and the apparent unimportance to many whites of European origin, responses appear quite inconsistent".[48]
American cultural icons, apple pie, baseball, and the American flag. All have European influence primarily from the British.
As the largest component of the American population, the overall American culture deeply reflects the European-influenced culture that predates the United States of America as an independent state. Much of American culture shows influences from the diverse nations of the United Kingdom and Ireland, such as the English, Irish, Cornish, Manx, Scotch-Irish, Scottish and Welsh. Colonial ties to the United Kingdom spread the English language, legal system and other cultural attributes.[5]
Much of the European-American cultural lineage can be traced back to Western and Northern Europe, which is institutionalized in the government, traditions, and civic education in the United States.[57] Since most later European Americans have assimilated into American culture, many Americans of European ancestry now generally express their personal ethnic ties sporadically and symbolically and do not consider their specific ethnic origins to be essential to their identity; however, European American ethnic expression has been revived since the 1960s.[58] Some European Americans such as Italians, Greeks, Poles, Germans, Ukrainians, Irish, and others have maintained high levels of ethnic identity. In the 1960s, the melting pot ideal to some extent gave way to increased interest in cultural pluralism, strengthening affirmations of ethnic identity among various American ethnic groups, European as well as others.[58]
Apple pie – New England was the first region to experience large-scale English colonization in the early 17th century, beginning in 1620, and it was dominated by East Anglian Calvinists, better known as the Puritans. Baking was a particular favorite of the New Englanders and was the origin of dishes seen today as quintessentially "American", such as apple pie and the oven-roasted Thanksgivingturkey, a bird that although not found in Europe has become linked in tradition and symbolism to the early European immigrants.[61] "As American as apple pie" is a well-known phrase used to suggest that something is all-American.
Hamburger – Although the origins of the hamburger, including the country in which it was first served, are subjects of debate, the hamburger first became widely marketed in the United States[62] and has been internationally known for decades as a symbol of American fast food.
Buffalo wings – Invented in 1964 at Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York by Italian-American Teressa Bellissimo. Now popular all over the country, it has become a symbol of American cuisine.[63]
Hot dog – Hot dogs were brought to New York by German immigrants.[64]
Pizza – Italian immigrants from Naples brought pizza to the United States.[65]
Fried chicken – Scottish immigrants brought fried chicken to the Southern United States. Enslaved African Americans began cooking fried chicken based on the recipes from white Scottish slaveholders.[66]
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving – In the United States, it has become a national secular holiday (official since 1863) with religious origins. The first Thanksgiving was celebrated by British settlers to give thanks to God and the Native Americans for helping the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony survive the brutal winter.[67] The modern Thanksgiving holiday traces its origins from a 1621 celebration at the Plymouth Plantation, where the Plymouth settlers held a harvest feast with the Native Americans after a successful growing season. William Bradford is credited as the first to proclaim the American cultural event which is generally referred to as the "First Thanksgiving".
Baseball – The earliest recorded game of base-ball involved the family of the Prince of Wales, played indoors in London in November 1748. The Prince is reported as playing "Bass-Ball" again in September 1749 in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, against Lord Middlesex.[68] English lawyer William Bray recorded a game of baseball on Easter Monday 1755 in Guildford, Surrey; Bray's diary was verified as authentic in September 2008.[69][70] This early form of the game was apparently brought to North America by English immigrants. The first appearance of the term that exists in print was in "A Little Pretty Pocket-Book" in 1744, where it is called Base-Ball.
American football – can be traced to modified early versions of rugby football played in England and Canadian football mixed with and ultimately changed by American innovations which led over time to the finished version of the game from 1876 to now. The basic set of rules were first developed in American universities in the mid-19th century.[71]
Golf - Golf originated from Scotland in the 15th century, the first course in Scotland being St Andrews. The first golf course in America was founded by a ScotJohn Reid in 1888, and was named after the first Scottish golf club Saint Andrew's Golf Club located in Yonkers, New York, from here golf soared as a national hobby, and by the turn of the 20th Century there was more than 1,000 golf courses in North America.[72]
Before 1931, other songs served as the hymns of American officialdom.
Amazing Grace – written by British poet and clergymanJohn Newton. Popular among African Americans, it became an icon in American culture and has been used for a variety of secular purposes and marketing campaigns.[76]
Hail, Columbia – initial presidential inauguration song up until early 20th century. Now used for the Vice President.
Some European Americans have varying amounts of Native American and Native African ancestry. From the 23andMe database, about 5 to at least 13 percent of self-identified European American Southerners have greater than 1 percent native African ancestry.[77]Southern states with the highest African American populations tended to have the highest percentages of hidden African ancestry.[78] European Americans on average are: "98.6 percent Native European, 0.19 percent Native African and 0.18 percent Native American." Inferred British/Irish ancestry is found in European Americans from all states at mean proportions of above 20%, and represents a majority of ancestry, above 50% mean proportion, in states such as Mississippi, Arkansas, and Tennessee. Scandinavian ancestry in European Americans is highly localized; most states show only trace mean proportions of Scandinavian ancestry, while it comprises a significant proportion, upwards of 10%, of ancestry in European Americans from Minnesota and the Dakotas.[77][78]
↑ The figure does not include respondents ignoring the ancestry question.
↑ Germany in this time period consisted of a large number of separate countries, the largest of which was Prussia.
↑ The Other category probably contains mostly English ancestry settlers. However, the loss of several states' census records makes closer estimates difficult. The summaries of the 1790 and 1800 censuses from all states surveyed.
↑ Total represents total immigration over the approximately 130-year span of colonial existence of the U.S. colonies as found in the 1790 census. At the time of the American Revolution, the foreign-born population was estimated to be from 300,000 to 400,000.
↑ The category "American" or "United States" was under "ancestry not specified" in the 1980 and 1990 census results. However they are shown separately in the 2000 census comparison brief showing 12,395,999 as American and 643,561 as United States in 1990.
↑ Stanley Lieberson and Lawrence Santi, "The Use of Nativity Data to Estimate Ethnic Characteristics and Patterns", Social Science Research, Vol. 14, No. 1 (1985), pp. 44-6.
↑ Stanley Lieberson and Mary C. Waters, "Ethnic Groups in Flux: The Changing Ethnic Responses of American Whites", Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 487, No. 79 (September 1986), pp. 82–86.
↑ Victor C. Romero (2014). "The Criminalization of Undocumented Migrants". In Lois Ann Lorentzen (ed.). Hidden Lives and Human Rights in the United States (3 volumes): Understanding the Controversies and Tragedies of Undocumented Immigration. Praeger Publications. p.16. ISBN978-1440828478. The 1924 act also sought to curtail the large number of eastern and southern European migrants who began entering the United States in 1890. Through the National Origins Quota formula, the act pegged future immigration at up to 2 percent of the number of foreign-born persons from a particular country already in the United States as of the 1890 census. Through race-neutral in language, the formula favored northwestern Europeans by using the 1890 census as its referent
↑ Paul Spickard (2007). "The Great Wave, 1870-1930". Almost All Aliens: Immigration, Race, and Colonialism in American History and Identity: Race, Colonialism, and Immigration in American History and Identity. Routledge. p.176. ISBN978-0415935937. Although many histories of immigration describe this period from the 1870s to the 1920s as one when the sources of migrants shifted from Northwest Europe to Southern and Eastern Europe - "Old Immigration" versus the "New Immigration," Northwest Europeans continued to come and stay in huge numbers.
↑ Benjamin Bailey (2002). "Introduction". Language, Race, and Negotiation of Identity: A Study of Dominican Americans. University of Massachusetts Amherst. p.15. During the heightened immigration associated with the 1880-1920 period, many doubted that the largely Southern and Eastern European newcomers would ever assimilate to the culture of the dominant groups, who were of predominantly Northwestern European origin ... Social differences between these immigrants and European Americans who were already in America were perceived as insurmountable.
↑ Waters, Mary C.; Ueda, Reed; Marrow, Helen B. (June 30, 2009). The New Americans. Harvard University Press. ISBN9780674044937. Retrieved February 4, 2015.
1 2 Elizabeth M. Grieco; Yesenia D. Acosta; G. Patricia de la Cruz; Christine Gambino; Thomas Gryn; Luke J. Larsen; Edward N. Trevelyan; Nathan P. Walters (May 2012). "The Foreign-Born Population in the United States: 2010"(PDF). US Census Bureau. Archived from the original(PDF) on February 9, 2015. Retrieved March 11, 2016.
↑ "Amazing Grace". NPR. December 29, 2002. Retrieved March 24, 2015.
1 2 Bryc, Katarzyna; Durand, Eric Y; MacPherson, J Michael; Reich, David; Mountain, Joanna (2014). "The genetic ancestry of African, Latino, and European Americans across the United States". bioRxiv10.1101/009340.
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