European Americans

European American

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Predominantly Western Christianity · minorities practice Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Judaism or other faiths; sizeable irreligious population

A European American (Euro-American) is a person who resides in the United States and is either from Europe or is the descendant of European immigrants or founding colonists.

Overall, as the largest group, European Americans have the lowest poverty rate and the second highest educational attainment levels, median household income, and median personal income of any racial demographic in the nation.

Terminology

Use

In 1977, it was proposed that the term "European American" replace "white" as a racial label in the U.S. Census.

The term European American is more narrow than White American in terms of their official usage. The term is different from Caucasian American, White American, and Anglo American., though "European Americans" is sometimes used as a synonym for White Americans. According to the Texas Association of Museums, "European American," White American, Caucasian American or Anglo are terms that vary in their preference depending on the individual and their descent., Anglo is a term commonly used in the southwestern United States, because of that term combines a number of distinct ethnicities under a single rubric with origins in England. The term also has a more specific reference than either White American or Caucasian American since both of these terms include a larger group of people than is acknowledged in Europe. Also, whereas White American and Caucasian American carry somewhat ambiguous definitions, depending on the speaker, European American has a more specific definition and scope. However, there are many immigrants from the European continent who are not classified under the White racial grouping. A substantial or "visible" proportion of the populations of the Germany, Ireland, UK, and many other European countries are racially Black, Asian, and of numerous other ethnic backgrounds that have all migrated there in recent decades. These people often immigrate to the United States and are European American despite not being White. According to sociologist Rosanne Skirble, the term European American has increased somewhat in use, but White American, Caucasian American, and Anglo continue to be equally preferred depending on the descent of the given individual(s) or group to which the term refers.

Origin

The term was coined by some to emphasize the European cultural and geographical ancestral origins of Americans in the same way that is done for African Americans and Asian Americans rather than not emphasize ancestry. A European American identity is still notable because 90% of the respondents classified as white on the U.S. Census knew their European ancestry. Historically, the concept of an American was conceived in the U.S. as a person of mixed European ancestries to the exclusion of African Americans and Native Americans. As a linguistic concern, the term is often meant to discourage a dichotomous view of the racial landscape between the normative white category and everyone else. Margo Adair suggests that the recognition of specific European American ancestries allows certain Americans to become aware that they come from a variety of different cultures.

Origins

European Americans are largely descended from colonial American stock supplemented with two big waves of immigration from Europe. Today, each of the three different branches of immigrants are most common in different parts of the country. Colonial stock, which is of mostly English, Scottish/Scots-Irish, and Welsh descent, may be found throughout the country but is especially dominant in the South. Some people of colonial stock are also descendants of German and Dutch immigrants. The vast majority of these are Protestants. French descent, which can also be found throughout the country, is most concentrated in Louisiana, while Spanish descent is dominant in the Southwest. These are primarily Roman Catholic and were assimilated with the Louisiana Purchase and the aftermath of the Mexican-American War, respectively. The first wave of European migration came from Northern and Western Europe between about 1820 and 1890. Most of these were from Ireland, Germany, Britain, Netherlands, and Scandinavia, and with large numbers of Irish and German Catholics immigrating, Roman Catholicism became an important minority religion. Their descendants are dominant in the Midwest and West, although German descent is extremely common in Pennsylvania, and Irish descent is also common in urban centers in the Northeast. The second wave of European Americans arrived from 1880 to 1920s, mainly from Southern and Eastern Europe. This wave included Italians primarily from Southern Italy, Greeks, Poles, Slavs, Portuguese, and Eastern European Jews from Poland and Russia. Their descendants are dominant in the Northeast.

Culture

European American cultural lineage can be traced back to Europe and is institutionalized in the form of its government and civic education. The Solutrean hypothesis suggested that Europeans may have been among the first in the Americas. More recent research has argued this not to be the case and that the founding Native American population came from Siberia through Beringia. An article in the American Journal of Human Genetics states "Here we show, by using 86 complete mitochondrial genomes, that all Native American haplogroups, including haplogroup X, were part of a single founding population, thereby refuting multiple-migration models." Since European Americans have assimilated into American culture, most European Americans now generally express their individual 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. Southern Europeans, specifically Italians and Greeks, have maintained high levels of ethnic identity. In the 1960s, Mexican Americans and African Americans started exploring their cultural traditions as the ideal of cultural pluralism took hold. European Americans followed suit by exploring their individual cultural origins and having less shame of expressing their unique cultural heritage.

Demographics

(UN definition of Western Europe marked light blue):

  Northern Europe

  Western Europe

  Eastern Europe

  Southern Europe

]]The numbers below give numbers of European Americans as measured by the U.S. Census in 1980, 1990, and 2000. The numbers are measured according to declarations in census responses. This leads to uncertainty over the real meaning of the figures: For instance, as can be seen, according to these figures, the European American population dropped 40 million in ten years, but in fact this is a reflection of changing census responses. In particular, it reflects the increased popularity of the 'American' option following its inclusion as an example in the 2000 census forms.

It is important to note that 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 forbears and the apparent unimportance to many whites of European origin, responses appear quite inconsistent". In particular, a large majority of European Americans have ancestry from a number of different countries and the response to a single 'ancestry' gives little indication of the backgrounds of Americans today. When only prompted for a single response, the examples given on the census forms and a pride in identifying the more distinctive parts of one's heritage are important factors; these will likely adversely affect the numbers reporting ancestries from the British Isles. Multiple response ancestry data often greatly increase the numbers reporting for the main ancestry groups, although Farley goes as far to conclude that "no simple question will distinguish those who identify strongly with a specific European group from those who report symbolic or imagined ethnicity." He highlights responses in the Current Population Survey (1973) where for the main 'old' ancestry groups (e.g., German, Irish, English, and French), over 40% change their reported ancestry over the six-month period between survey waves (page 422).

An important example to note is that in 1980 23.75 million Americans claimed English Ancestry and 25.85 claimed English ancestry together with one or more other. This represents 49.6 million people. The table below shows that in 1990 when only single and primary responses were allowed this fell to 32 million and in 2000 to 24 million.

The largest ancestries in 2000, reporting over 5 million members, were in order: German, Irish, English, American, Italian, Polish, and French. They have different distributions within the United States; in general, the northern half of the United States from Pennsylvania westward is dominated by German ancestry, and the southern half by English and American. Irish may be found throughout the entire country. Italian ancestry is most common in the Northeast, Polish in the Great Lakes Region, and French in New England and Louisiana.

Further information: Racial demographics of the United States

European American Ancestries in the 2000 U.S. Census

Ancestry	1980	% of U.S. 1980	1990	% of U.S. 1990	2000	% of U.S. 2000	Change
North European	112,286,024	59.84%	108,762,804	39.9%	74,700,988	30.1%	-31.3%
West European	70,764,075	37.58%	74,874,596	30.5%	57,988,801	18.6%	-22.6%
East European	?	?	16,545,509	6.7%	14,071,153	4.9%	-15.0%
South European	17,393,296	9.29%	17,953,611	7.1%	20,242,412	7.1%	+12.7%
Albanian	28,658	0.02%	?	?	113,661	?	?
American (see notes)	no data	no data	12,396,000	5.0%	20,625,093	7.3%	+63%
Austrian	948,558	0.50%	864,783	0.3%	730,336	0.3%	-15.5%
Basque	43,140	0.02%	47,956	0.02%	57,793	0.02%	+20.5%
Belgian	360,227	0.19%	380,403	0.2%	384,531	0.1%	+01.1%
Belarusian	7,381	0.0%	?	?	?	?	?
British	?	?	1,119,140	0.4%	1,085,718	0.4%	-03.0%
Bulgarian	42,504	0.02%	?	?	?	?	?
Catalan	?	?	?	?	1,738	?
Croatian	252,970	0.13%	544,270	0.2%	374,241	0.1%	-31.2%
Czech	1,892,456	1.01%	1,296,369	0.5%	1,258,452	0.4%	-02.9%
Cypriot	6,053	0.0%	?	?	?	?	?
Danish	1,518,273	0.81%	1,634,648	0.7%	1,430,897	0.5%	-12.5%
Dutch	6,304,499	3.35%	6,226,339	2.5%	4,541,770	1.6%	-27.1%
English	49,598,035	26.34%	32,651,788	13.1%	24,509,692	8.7%	-24.9%
Estonian	25,994	0.01%	26,762	0.01%	25,034	0.01%	-06.5%
Faroese	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Finnish	615,872	0.33%	658,854	0.3%	623,559	0.2%	-05.4%
French	12,892,246	6.85%	10,320,656	4.1%	8,309,666	3%	-19.5%
German	49,224,146	26.14%	57,947,171	23.3%	42,841,569	15.2%	-26.1%
Greek	959,856	0.51%	1,110,292	0.4%	1,152,956	0.4%	+03.8%
Hungarian	1,776,902	0.02%	?	?	1,398,724	?	?
Icelandic	32,586	0.02%	40,529	0.0%	42,716	?	?
Irish	40,165,702	21.33%	38,735,539	15.6%	30,524,799	10.8%	-21.2%
Italian	12,183,692	6.47%	14,664,189	5.9%	15,638,348	5.6%	+06.6%
Latvian	92,141	0.05%	?	?	87,564	?	?
Lithuanian	742,776	0.39%	811,865	0.3%	659,892	0.2%	-18.7%
Luxembourg	49,994	0.03%	?	?	45,139	?	?
Macedonian	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Maltese	31,645	0.02%	39,600	0.0%	?	?	?
Moldovan	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Montenegrin	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Norwegian	3,435,839	1.83%	3,869,395	1.6%	4,477,725	1.6%	+15.7%
Polish	8,228,037	4.37%	9,366,051	3.8%	8,977,235	3.2%	-04.2%
Portuguese	1,024,351	0.54%	1,148,857	0.5%	1,173,691	0.4%	+02.2%
Romanian	315,258	0.17%	365,310	0.1%	368,729	0.1%	+176.1%
Russian	2,781,432	1.48%	2,951,373	1.2%	2,652,214	0.9%	-10.1%
Scots-Irish	16,418	0.01%	5,617,773	2.3%	4,319,232	1.5%	-23.1%
Scottish	10,048,816	5.34%	5,393,581	2.2%	4,890,581	1.7%	-09.3%
Serbian	100,941	0.05%	116,795	negligible	140,337	0.1%	+20.2%
Slovak	776,806	0.41%	1,882,897	0.8%	797,764	0.3%	-57.6%
Slovenian	126,463	0.07%	124,437	0.1%	176,691	0.1%	+42%
Spanish	2,781,208	1.48%	2,384,862	0.9%	2,487,092	0.9%	+04.3%
Swedish	4,345,392	2.31%	4,680,863	1.9%	3,998,310	1.4%	-14.6%
Swiss	981,543	0.52%	1,045,482	0.4%	911,502	0.3%	-12.8%
Ukrainian	730,056	0.39%	740,723	0.3%	892,922	0.3%	+20.5%
Welsh	1,664,598	0.88%	2,033,893	0.8%	1,753,794	0.6%	-13.8%
Total	150,227,658	79.78%	210,181,975	84.2%	171,801,940	60.7%	-18.3%

Notes

• The 1980 census had 188,302,438 people report at least one specific ancestry out of the then total 226,545,805 United States population. Numbers and percents by ancestry group do not add to totals because persons reporting a multiple ancestry are included in more than one group. Responses of total were: Single ancestry 63% and Multiple ancestry 37%. See 1980 U.S. Census for details.

• "American" - (1990 Census) 12,395,999 (5.0%).

• "American" - ((2000 Census), 20,625,093 or (7.3%) of the total U.S. population) - Mostly of British (mainly English and Scottish/Scots-Irish, but also Welsh as well) ancestry that they are unaware about or cannot trace. An increasing number are people of several different European nationalities, often four or more, none of which the person thinks are large enough to identify with (one typical example might be a person who is 1/4 Irish, 1/4 German, 1/4 Scottish, 1/8 Swedish, and 1/8 French).

• "White Hispanic" - (2000 Census) 16,907,852 or 48% identified themselves as "White" of the then total Hispanic population.

See also

• White American

• Anglo
• Hyphenated American
• Immigration to the United States
• Melting pot
• White Anglo-Saxon Protestant
• European ethnic groups

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