White people in the United States

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Baraboo, WI: HS students (including one Afro-American and one Hispanic), give the NS-salute before prom in May 2018. The First Amendment prohibited any typ of blame.[1]

European Americans or whites, often classified as "Caucasians", are currently the majority race in the United States, but will soon became of minority. As possibly the most researched white group, with there are also being research on race variables that are not allowed to be researched in many countries. Whites in the United States are discussed in many Metapedia articles on race and other topics. A few examples are stated in the "See also" section.

History

The first Germans arrived 1608 at James Fort (see also: Thirteen Colonies)

The term "White Americans" refers to people in the United States who belong to any of the European races. The United States Census Bureau additionally includes peoples from the Middle East, and North Africa in their classification of White American. "White Americans" in official statistics also often has a Hispanic component.

German Americans (16.5% to 21%), Irish Americans (11.9%), English Americans (9.0%), Italian Americans (5.8%), Polish Americans (3.3%), French Americans (3.1%), Scottish Americans (1.9%), Dutch Americans (1.6%), Norwegian Americans (1.5%), Swedish Americans (1.4%), Scotch-Irish Americans (1.2%), Russian Americans (1.0%), Welsh Americans (0.7%), and Portuguese Americans (0.4%) make up more than half of the White population. Whites constitute the majority, with 80% (66% non-Hispanic Whites and nearly all 14% Hispanic) or 75% (65.4% non-Hispanic and 9.6% Hispanic) of the U.S. population. According to U.S. Census Bureau statistics from 1980, 1990, and 2000, one of every three White Americans has only one European nationality in their ancestry; one out of three have two European ethnicities in their family tree; and one out of three Whites has three or more different European nationalities in their ancestry. Germanic races of Germans, Dutch, Scandinavians, Anglo-Saxons, etc. account to well over 40% of the white population.

Whites (non-Hispanic and Hispanic) made up 79.8% or 75% of the American population in 2008, although declining rapidly.[2][3][4][5] This latter number is sometimes recorded as 77.1% when it includes about 2% of the population who are identified as white in combination with one or more other races. The largest ethnic groups (by ancestry) among white Americans were Germans, followed by the Irish and the English.[6] It is likely that many Americans who are descended of English, Irish, or Scottish peoples, or perhaps even more commonly a combination of these and of these and other ethnic groups, simply identify as "American" in the census, and that Americans of English descent are far greater in number than those of German descent. For a better idea on why Americans of English ancestry are likely far undercounted, see English American.

White Americans (again, non-Hispanic and Hispanic Whites) are projected to remain the majority, though with their percentage decreasing to 72% of the total population by 2050. However, the projections are that the non-Hispanic White population will become 50% of the population by that time,[7] in part because Non-Hispanic Whites have the lowest fertility rate of any major racial group in the United States and largely due to mass-immigration.

While over ten million white people can trace part of their ancestry back to the Pilgrims who arrived on the Mayflower in 1620 (this common statistic overlooks the Jamestown, Virginia foundations of America and roots of even earlier colonist-descended Americans, such as Spanish Americans in St. Augustine, Florida), over 35 million whites have at least one ancestor who passed through the Ellis Island immigration station, which processed arriving immigrants from 1892 until 1954.

White American culture derived its earliest influences from English, Scottish, Welsh, Cornish and Irish settlers and is quantitatively the largest proportion of American culture. From their earliest presence in North America, White Americans have contributed literature, art, agricultural skills, foods, clothing styles, music, and language to American culture. In the United States, the term "suburban culture" is considered a euphemism for White American culture and is sometimes used as a racially neutral alternative.

In his 1989 book "Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America" (ISBN 0-19-506905-6), David Hackett Fischer explores the details of the folkways of four different groups of settlers from the British Isles that came to the American colonies during the 17th and 18th centuries from distinct regions of Britain and Ireland. His thesis is that the culture of each group persisted (albeit in modified form), providing the basis for the modern United States.

According to Fischer, the foundation of America's four regional cultures was formed from four mass migrations from four different regions of the British Isles by four distinct ethno-cultural groups. New England's formative period occurred between 1629 and 1640 when Puritans, mostly from East Anglia in England, settled there, thus forming the basis for the New England regional culture. The next mass migration was of southern English cavaliers and their Irish and Scottish servants to the Chesapeake Bay region between 1640 and 1675. This spawned the creation of the American Southern culture.

Then, between 1675 and 1725, thousands of Irish, Cornish, English and Welsh Quakers plus many Germans sympathetic to Quaker ideas, led by William Penn, settled in the Delaware Valley. This resulted in the formation of the General American culture, although, according to Fischer, this is really a "regional culture," even if it does today encompass most of the U.S. from the mid-Atlantic states to the Pacific Coast. Finally, a huge number of settlers from the borderlands between England and Scotland, and from northern Ireland, migrated to Appalachia between 1717 and 1775. This resulted in the formation of the Upland South regional culture, which has since expanded to the west to West Texas and parts of the U.S. Southwest.

Fischer claims that the U.S. is not a country with one "general" culture and several "regional" culture, as is commonly thought. Rather, there are only four regional cultures as described above, and understanding this helps one to more clearly understand American history as well as contemporary American life. Fischer also claims that when the different groups came to America and brought certain beliefs and values with them, these ideas became more or less frozen in time, even if they eventually changed in their original place of origin.

Neighborhoods

Many later European immigrants, upon their arrival in the United States, felt isolated from the mainstream, English-speaking, Anglo-Saxon population due to linguistic, religious, and cultural differences. They overcame this isolation by quickly creating closely-knit neighborhoods of members of their own ethnic groups. Such neighborhoods often grew into large, self-contained districts with their own churches and shops bearing signs in their own native languages.

The most notable of these ethnic districts were New York's Little Italy, Hamtramck in Michigan known for a large Polish community, the Irish Channel in New Orleans, Little Canada in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area and Little Portugals in the New England states. Various religious sects have developed insular communities, including the modern day Amish (German) communities in Pennsylvania and Mormons in the entire state of Utah; Mesa, Arizona; Pocatello, Idaho; Las Vegas, Nevada and other cities.

Mixed-races

Mixed-race hispanics may claim that they are "white hispanic" which inflates the percentage of "whites". Some whites have varying amounts of native American ancestry. Often, such claims, especially by celebrities, are unsubstantiated. DNA testing regularly shows that "politically correct claims" are over-exaggerated, false, or just wishful thinking. Actress Jessica Alba had always bragged about her "large percentage of indigenous Mexican blood". DNA testing in 2009 showed a different picture:

Sexy Latina JESSICA ALBA was left shocked and stunned on U.S. TV on Tuesday night (01Dec09) when she learned she's more European than native American. The Fantastic Four star agreed to take a DNA test prior to her appearance on comedian George Lopez's late-night show, and felt sure genealogy experts would discover her ancestors were more indigenous American than any other group. Lopez sent his guest's saliva swab off to the DNA Diagnostics Center in Cincinnati, Ohio - and revealed the results during Alba's appearance. He told the actress, "You are 13 per cent indigenous American and you are 87 per cent European." A shocked Alba, who is a third-generation American with Mexican ancestry, responded, "Really? Wow!" With her mother and father watching from the studio audience, the actress added, "That's crazy... Does Spain count, because Alba comes from Spain...? Is Spain Latina?"[8]

See also

References

  1. Students Who Made Apparent Nazi Salute in Photo Won’t Be Punished, New York Times, 24 November 2018
  2. Detailed Tables - American FactFinder; T3-2008. Race [7]. 2008 Population Estimates. U.S. Census Bureau. Retrieved on 2010-03-16.
  3. U.S. Census Bureau; 2008 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates. Retrieved 2009-11-07
  4. T4-2008. Hispanic or Latino By Race [15]. 2008 Population Estimates. U.S. Census Bureau. Retrieved on 2010-03-15.
  5. B03002. HISPANIC OR LATINO ORIGIN BY RACE. 2008 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates. U.S. Census Bureau. Retrieved on 2010-03-16.
  6. United States Population Projections By Race and Hispanic Origin: 2000 TO 2050 (Excel). United States Census Bureau. Archived from the original on 2008-03-06. Retrieved on 2008-05-05.
  7. United States Population Projections By Race and Hispanic Origin: 2000 TO 2050 (Excel). United States Census Bureau. Archived from the original on 2008-03-06. Retrieved on 2008-05-05.
  8. Alba learns she's European