Talk:Americans

English, British, Scottish, Welsh....

Hi I think it's a bit strange that British is in the list of European Ancestries when at the same time you also include English, Scottish .etc Especially when the combined ancestries of all the countries that make up Britain are way larger than the number who are British ancestry. Surely it should either be just British Ancestry or the break down into all the individual countries of the Union. Mishka Shaw (talk) 12:10, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Please see this reliable source. Each are listed as different ancestries. So although they maybe all British, if the term is meant to mean anyone from Great Britain, if the self designated ancestry is Scottish, they are and can be classified as such by the Census Bureau.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 05:09, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Ah I get you, makes sense Mishka Shaw (talk) 11:13, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, ancestries are listed by the number of people that choose them. So while British could be redundant, some people identify themselves that way. Illegitimate Barrister (talk) 06:05, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Anyone whose ancestors are of celtic/welsh/breton, anglo-saxon, norman, scandinavian, dutch/germanic, gaelic origin and had settled on the island of Britain for at least one millenia would qualify as "British".

Therefore it is perfectly normal for the word "British" to be on the list of European Ancestries. After all, no one today can claim "pure" English or Scottish blood lines.

If they settle in other parts of the world (for less than three centuries) where the population is predominantly English speaking (eg. Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Argentina, Falkland islands) then they can still classify themselves as "British".

However if they reside outside of Britain for over three centuries, then they have the option to opt out of the British designation (eg. US, Canada). --BrianJ34 (talk) 08:35, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

The ancestry demographics are based on what that individual self-identifies as, so if an individual self-identifies with one or more ancestries the USCB documents that.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 19:42, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Definition of "Americans"

The article begins with: "Americans, or American people, are citizens, or natives, of the United States of America." Even though the disambiguation refers to other uses in the first line, this definition is only based on wide-spread use of the word "Americans". But semantically it is not correct.

I'd like to suggest: "Americans, or American people, are citizens, or natives, of a country in America, even though in daily speech it is often only meant to refer to citizens of the United States".

McPoel (talk) 19:55, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

That would greatly change the scope of this article, which I would oppose, although Americans could be anyone from the Americas, the definition as verified, and the common name of people of the United States, is American. The plural of American is Americans. Since this article is about the people of the United States, this is the reason for the lead sentence. The lead sentence defines the scope of the article, and it is fine as is.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 01:19, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree with both points of view, but then I would suggest to change the title of the article to "Americans_(United_States)" to avoid the ambiguity that has been pointed out, and leave the page for "Americans" to redirect to the disambiguation of "American". Both definitions are well sustained and it seems to me both have a right to have their own article in Wikipedia, so someone could create the article "Americans_(Americas)" for this broader meaning which encompasses people from all the continent(s). I will leave over a week for discussion until I make this change if not contested.--Fermín F.M. 17:06, 2 August 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ferminmx (talk • contribs)

Have you looked through the archives? The current title was arrived at after some discussion: see Talk:Americans/Archive 1#Requested move (second non-archived request on page). I would suggest that moving the article without further discussion would therefore be inappropriate. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:44, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, thank you for your reply, I have looked at those archives and I understand that it is a sensitive and polemic topic. U.S. Americans have the historical, cultural, linguistic and every right to be called "American" but so does everyone else in the Americas, and there are many, many sources including dictionaries and many other materials that back this up, I think this is very clear; that is why my proposal is NEW, to keep the title of "Americans" just add "(United States)" to read "Americans_(United_States)". That way it is clear people from the U.S. are commonly called "Americans", but we take the ambiguity away from the title, and let us create (if there isn't already one) a page for "Americans_(Americas)", which would encompass people from the Americas including the U.S. This is my proposal, please discuss and if needed we might make some voting as it has been done before, since I think this proposal might better please all English language speakers, not only from the U.S. of course. I will await for any other comments before making any such change as proposed.--Fermín F.M. 18:23, 2 August 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ferminmx (talk • contribs)

I really like this, and obviously... support this. "American (United States)" and "American (Americas)". This is the best way to avoid ambiguity.--181.64.70.45 (talk) 08:44, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Disasgree, things are fine as it is as has been explained in English Americans or people from the United States, we would not call somebody from say Brazil an American in English, possibly South American but never just American, and certainly never call a Canadian an American, please read the talk page archive. MilborneOne (talk) 12:43, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

This is not about how do you talk, this is about how you should talk. We are all Americans (I'm from Colombia), just not only from the United States of America country. Agujero Negro (talk) 18:21, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

WP is not prescriptive, but descriptive. In other words, it is about how we do talk, not how we should talk. WP is not the place to Right Great Wrongs. Get over it. - BilCat (talk) 18:44, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

I have read the talk pages and as I said before, both views about Americans from the US or from all the American Continent(s) are well sustained and backed up by the corresponding literature, viz. at least most recognized English Language dictionaries include both meanings. How do you just know "how we speak"? I think this is the work of experts that make dictionaries: to define the meaning of words based on the most common usages of each as they change over time. Therefore, let us not insert our opinions on how we "think" or "feel" that a certain word is "commonly used", but let us restrict ourselves to the verifiable sources (some were already described in the archived talk pages). This is not about how we "believe" we speak, but about how the proper literature "says" we speak. I feel unnecessary to post here all the dictionary results since by all chance you might do so by yourselves by grabbing the nearest English dictionary you have at hand (or online). I repeat then my proposal to fork this page in two: "Americans_(United_States)" and "Americans_(Americas)", leaving the current version as the former, and creating another page for the latter. I will proceed to doing this soon if there is consensus.--Fermín MX 07:49, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

There is no consensus to support you proposal to this point, nor is there likely to be. WP does not only follow the dictionary definition, but other verifiable relible sources to determine common usage. - BilCat (talk) 08:12, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Why there is no picture of Americans?

Instead of a picture of Americans, there is the Flag of USA. On the other ethnic group/people pages there are pictures of the people (for example on the British people page, Han Chinese page and Russians page) Shouldn't this page be similar with the others? --Ransewiki (talk) 09:05, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Is there a good picture on Wikicommons that show a good and accurate cross section of the diversity of Americans?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 20:05, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, the image that was previously ther was removed only for technical reasons, such as a copyright problem or such. If it's possible to use multiple images in the infobox, such as is done in the thumbnails in the various ethnic sections, then that would make it easier to add substitutes for images in the future. - BilCat (talk) 07:44, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

I've added photos to the infobox, and duplicated the first section to show how to do this. I'm fine with these images being replaced by others. - BilCat (talk) 08:50, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

This is a list of the people in the previous infobox image: Eleanor Roosevelt, JP Morgan,Georgia O'Keeffe, John F Kennedy, Amelia Earhart, Abraham Lincoln, Susan B Anthony, Edgar Allan Poe, Betsy Ross, Martin Luther King Jr., Oprah Winfrey, Madonna, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Michael Jackson, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Dwight D Eisenhower, Emily Dickinson, Elvis Presley, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Neil Armstrong, Rosa Parks, Thomas Edison, and George Washington. - BilCat (talk) 08:58, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

I've removed the photos. Adding photos should rely on discussion here rather than just doing something as a "test" or as "examples." We have pages in Wikipedia if you want to test out changes to an article. --schutteGod 76.171.231.104 (talk) 15:39, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

I've restored the section. The "example" part referred to how to format the images. If you want to add more images, just do it. If you want to relace the images I've chosen, that's fine w ith me. But removing the whole section isn't productive. - BilCat (talk) 16:36, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Well, we found out why we have no images of Americans in the Lead - too much pettiness. I honestly didn't expect this much crap, or a lack of support. As has been pointed out,this is a regular feature of most other nationality/ethnicity articles. Thus I've removed the section as being against consensus. - BilCat (talk) 19:44, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

We are All Americans

Americans are anyone from North , South, And Central. This article is insulting to the Americans in Central and South America. You have millions of people in Central and South American that can confirm this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DrMenoRPS (talk • contribs) 13:32, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Please see archives for a topic that's been discussed before starting a new section. See: Talk:Americans/Archive_1#Americans_2. --Musdan77 (talk) 02:25, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

DrMeno's remarks are the real insult. He and people like him want to stamp out the use of the word "American" completely. The people of Central and South America have never intended and WILL NEVER call themselves or each other American. They will continue to be Mexican, Honduran, Brazilian, etc,etc. They have chosen "GRINGO" for citizens of the U.S.A. How can they demand that people of another country must change their nationality while they don't have to do anything? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.32.53.133 (talk) 14:12, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Einstein was a Jew "Religiously".

There is no evidence backing up that Einstein was ethnically Jewish, but religiously. He was a German. (N0n3up (talk) 04:52, 30 September 2013 (UTC))

I've moved image to the Lead infobox. As long as we don't add ethicities to that infobox, which I rather not see listed there, then the issue should be settled. - BilCat (talk) 13:56, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Apparently someone thinks US citizenship doesn't make one an American, and removed it from the infobox. Facepalm - BilCat (talk) 20:29, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Accurate meaning of Americans

I gave Americans an accurate meaning consistent with the 2 sources below but BilCat reverted my edit. [[1]]

• a person born, raised, or living in the U.S. [2]
• of, relating to, or characteristic of the United States or its inhabitants [3]

Americans do not only include US citizens and its native people but also permanent residents, those who renounced US citizenship, those who live outside the US, and so on. That's what the two sources are explaining and this is common sense.--Fareed30 (talk) 01:06, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

The point I want to raise here is that the introduction of this article is only giving readers the strict definition of an American but lacks other definitions. For example, an anti-American terrorist becomes a US citizen and then kills Americans vs. a person who grew up in America for many years but moved to another country for job, marriage or other purposes. I think a line should be added in the intro to include certain people who have strong connection to America although they may not be physically living inside the US, and not US citizens or legal permanent residents. See this

As defined by the INA, all U.S. citizens are U.S. nationals but only a relatively small number of persons acquire U.S. nationality without becoming U.S. citizens. Section 101(a)(21) of the INA defines the term “national” as “a person owing permanent allegiance to a state.” Section 101(a)(22) of the INA provides that the term “national of the United States” includes all U.S. citizens as well as persons who, though not citizens of the United States, owe permanent allegiance to the United States (non-citizen nationals).

--Fareed30 (talk) 13:20, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

User:Fareed30 has been blocked as a sockpuppet of banned user User:Lagoo sab. Banned users are not allowed to participate in WP, and their contributions can be removed on sight. Does anyone else support the changes he's made to the Lead? If not, I'm going to revert his changes in a few days. Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 11:22, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Top image

The top image selects nine particular Americans from all the rest (giving them undue weight), and I think we can easily do better. The infobox details the distribution of Americans in other countries but not within the US. So, I suggest the following image and caption, which seems rather unobjectionable.

Most of the American people are located in the contiguous United States, distributed as seen from space at night

Anythingyouwant (talk) 20:24, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

The image doesn't illustrate American people. It doesn't illustrate the distribution of American people. It illustrates night-time light sources on a portion of the North American continent - including parts of Canada and Mexico, as well as the contiguous United States. Given that it is normal to illustrate infoboxes with the subject of the relevant article, rather than with anything else, I think we'd need a better rationale than 'undue weight' for ignoring Wikipedia conventions. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:34, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, it's plain common sense that there aren't a whole lot of people in the dark areas, unless there's a huge group of Luddites hiding somewhere in Wyoming. Seriously, is it "convention" to illustrate the people of a country by cherry-picking nine of its most unusual citizens? I would prefer no image at all. Incidentally, many "maps of the United States" include incidental slivers of Canada and Mexico.Anythingyouwant (talk) 20:44, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Is it 'conventional'? See French people, Bolivian people, Japanese people, Canadians, Libyan people etc, etc... AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:55, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Most Americans don't glow in the dark. I'm not sure what the real issue you have is, as most other articles on citizens of countries or ethnicities have photos of notable people in the Lead. And adding a photo of lights to the article is very WP:POINTy. - BilCat (talk) 21:03, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

The only people in this montage who most people would recognize are the first five people, i.e. the ones who get top billing. None are Republicans, whereas the top three are all Democratic icons (JFK, Eleanor Roosevelt, and King who said he always voted Democratic). Moreover, none of these images show anyone remotely typical of the American people. In contrast, for example, see Japanese people which shows typical Samurai and also a typical contemporary family. Anyway, per WP:Other stuff exists, we ought not to obsess about what other articles do. I have no clue what "point" you think I'm trying to make; please clarify. The proposed top image very obviously shows roughly where the American people are located, just as the existing long list in the infobox does, and I'm not going to debate the obvious.Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:14, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

I have no clue what point you're trying to make, just that you're being disruptive to do it, which is the point of WP:POINT. If you feel the montage needs a better cross-section of people, them add some more. The montage in Canadians would probably be a good example to follow better example than Japanese people to follow, though I don't know if party affiliation is balanced there or not. - BilCat (talk) 22:23, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm just going to leave, which is my custom when facing silly accusations. I've stated my objections, and if you see any validity in them then you can implement them, or you can leave the article in its present deficient condition and attribute my objections to whatever insidious attitude you would like. It's totally up to you. Cheers.Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:22, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

So you didn't really leave after all, but came back almost 2 hours later and inserted the comments to make it look like you didn't leave? Sneaky! My opinion that replacing photos of people with an orbiltal shot of lights is disruptive still stands. The original single-file photo montage that was deleted had about 20 images in it. I selected a few that I thought were especially notable, then added some images from the other sections to add some that weren't in the original montage to reflect later additions to the article. I didn't add the rest becasue I wanted to encourage others to select their own images. I certainly didn't expect someone to delete it in favor of adding a photo of light sources! Sheesh! - BilCat (talk) 00:42, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

For the record, this was the original edit summary: "Being famous is atypical of the American people, so inserting a group photo instead." That certainly makes addition of the "group photo" appear disruptive, intended or not. - BilCat (talk) 03:30, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

For the record.Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:55, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Still being sneaky. And still here. - BilCat (talk) 18:16, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

You can expect me to stay here as long as you insist on continuing your personal attacks. Also please note:"While the purpose of article talk pages is to discuss the content of articles, the purpose of user talk pages is to draw the attention or discuss the edits of a user. Wikipedia is not a social networking site, and all discussion should ultimately be directed solely toward the improvement of the encyclopedia.". Thanks.Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:23, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

At least that wasn't sneaky. - BilCat (talk) 18:47, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

• If you want a picture of "Americans", just find a Norman Rockwell painting of a bunch of different (and unnamed) people and use that. Otherwise, go with the lights pic. Washington (English) and maybe JFK (Irish) make sense, but I don't understand why we need pictures of people in the manner we do, at least not the first nine pbp 19:59, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Seriously?

Seriously - an article about American people should have as its first image a collage of American people. I think that's about all I have to say on the matter. Red Slash 00:00, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

I disagree. Why should 9 specific Americans be chosen as representatives? Why those 9? I realize that several other ethnicity articles have this, but that doesn't make it right. SnowFire (talk) 01:20, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Doesn't make it wrong either. There's no guideline against it to my knowledge, nor any reason there should be. Make some suggestions of who you'd like to see, or better, go find some images on Commons and add a few more. I could have have added the 25 exact images that were there before, but I didn't want to be the only one involved in choosing images. So I chose e from the list, and 3 that were already in the article. So far, only one other user has bothered to add more images, and you like his choices even less than mine. And all you can say is WP:IDONTLIKETHEM? But if you're one of those who'd prefer the lights too, then go for it! But I doubt any of the editors of those other articles will be quick to follow suit. To laugh at us, yes. - BilCat (talk) 01:40, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

An article about a topic should start with an illustration of the topic, and the article is about people, not outdoor lighting (and definitely not a flag). If you don't like the specific makeup of the collage, FIND BETTER PEOPLE. (Or more representative ones, at least.) Seriously. Wikipedia is the free encyclopedia that you can edit! Go for it! We support you! Red Slash 02:01, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

The flag was there for some time, maybe 2 years or more. I guess it's preferable to squabbling, and it does represent America quite well. - BilCat (talk) 02:15, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

On a personal level, I resent that--I'm not a flag, I'm a real person and while a flag may explain me, it doesn't depict me. Look at low-quality city articles like Paris, Missouri - compare them to better-quality articles like Paris, Texas, or, like, Paris. It's no surprise that the better articles include as their very first picture a picture or collage of the city, which illustrates them far better than just a map (which they still, of course, include).

I know you yourself are not, of course, actually proposing that the flag replace the collage, which indeed was the way it used to be. I know you agree with me! But I do want to say, yes, it would not be appropriate to not have a picture of Americans at the top. Red Slash 02:49, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I'd rather have a collage of notable people, or I wouldn't have gone to the trouble of learning how to add them here. But I got tired of fighting the battle on my own, and realized the consensus was against me. Thanks for the help. Perhaps we should post a note at the U S project for further input, and for help assembling a colage of notable peole that can gain a consensus, even if it's not unanimous. - BilCat (talk) 03:50, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

There's my suggestion about the Rockwell people above, and here's a suggestion for nine below pbp 05:29, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

If I were picking nine

• George Washington (English)
• Abraham Lincoln (Scottish)
• John F. Kennedy (Irish)
• Eleanor Roosevelt (Dutch)
• Dwight D. Eisenhower (German)
• Martin Luther King, Jr. (Black)
• Cesar Chavez (Mexican/Latino)
• Daniel Inouye (Japanese/Asian)
• Sitting Bull (Native American)

That's my list. Hate on it if you want pbp 05:29, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Go ahead and add those, but I don't see the need to delete the other images at this time. We can have more than 9 images, and should. - BilCat (talk) 11:26, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Like RightCowWestCoast (below), I think one or more pictures of groups of ordinary Americans would be best at the top. Here are some images.

18.51.3.209 (talk) 20:18, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Rather than an image of individuals at the top, perhaps we can find an image of a group that has a diverse representation of the multiple races and ethnicities that make up the American people. For instance there are these:

It need not be any of these, but a group of diverse people.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 19:42, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Unexplained reversion

Recently, I have returned to editing wikipedia an an other editor reverted my recent efforts to improve the article. In reverting my edit the editor removed the German, Irish, and English individuals in the table for White Americans, as well as recreated the table inconstancy for Asian Americans. As I am not going to get into an edit war following a return from a multimonth wiki break that early, I would like the editor to explain why recreating problems is a net positive to this article.
When this article received less attention, I updated the demographics and added tables to each section. The reason why there wasn't a collage at the top of the article in the infobox as the consensus at the time was there wasn't an image which properly showed the diversity of the nation, that any of the active editors could provide at that time. In the tables in each section, which is categorized by race as is done by the U.S. Census, there was a representative individuals for each of the ethnicities/ancestries listed in the infobox.
By removing Einstein, Kennedy, and Washington the editor removed the German, Irish, and English representatives from that table, and by removing Chawla the editor removed the Indian representative from that table. I will wait 24 hours for a response. Otherwise, I will return the images in the infobox. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 19:11, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Disregard, I see the editor reverted themselves.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 19:14, 13 November 2013 (UTC)