White Americans

From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core
Jump to: navigation, search

<templatestyles src="Module:Hatnote/styles.css"></templatestyles>

White Americans
Total population
Total population (2010 census)[1]
Template:Growth223,553,265
72.4% of total U.S. population, 2010[1]
Non-Hispanic whites
Template:Growth196,817,552
63.7% of total U.S. population, 2010[1]
White Hispanics
Template:Growth26,735,713[1]
8.7% of total U.S. population, 2010[1][1]
Regions with significant populations
All areas of the United States
Languages
Major: American English.

Others: Albanian  · Arabic  · Neo-Aramaic  · Armenian  · Azerbaijani  · Belarusian  · Czech  · Danish  · Dutch  · Finnish  · French  · German  · Greek  · Hebrew  · Hungarian  · Italian  · Kurdish  · Lithuanian  · Ladino  · Norwegian  · Pashto  · Persian  · Polish  · Portuguese  · Romanian  · Russian  · Slovak  · South Slavic  · Spanish  · Swedish  · Tamazight  · Turkish  · Ukrainian  · Yiddish

 · other languages
Religion
Predominantly Christian (Protestantism; Roman Catholic is the largest single denomination; Significantly: Orthodoxy), agnosticism, atheism, Mormonism, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism
Related ethnic groups
Europeans, Middle Eastern Americans, White Latin Americans, White Canadians, White Australians, European diasporas from other parts of the world

White Americans are people of the United States who are considered or reported as White. The United States Census Bureau defines White people as those "having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa. It includes people who indicated their race(s) as 'White' or reported entries such as Irish, German, Italian, Lebanese, Arab, Moroccan, or Caucasian"[2] and so is a wider group than European American. Like all official U.S. racial categories, "White" has a "Not Hispanic or Latino" and a "Hispanic or Latino" component,[3] the latter consisting mostly of White Mexican Americans and white Cuban Americans. The term "Caucasian" is often used interchangeably with "White", although the terms are not synonymous.[4][5]

The ten largest ancestries of American Whites are: German Americans (16.5%), Irish Americans (11.9%), English Americans (9.2%), Italian Americans (5.5%), Mexican Americans (5.4%), French Americans (4%), Polish Americans (3%), Scottish Americans (1.9%), Dutch Americans (1.6%), and Norwegian Americans (1.5%).[6][7]

Whites (including Hispanics who identified as White) constitute the majority, with a total of about 246,660,710, or 77.35% of the population as of 2014. Non-Hispanic Whites totaled about 197,870,516, or 62.06% of the U.S. population.

Historical and present definitions

<templatestyles src="Module:Hatnote/styles.css"></templatestyles>

Definitions of who is "White" have changed throughout the history of the United States.

Current U.S. Census definition

The term "White American" can encompass many different ethnic groups. Although the United States Census purports to reflect a social definition of race, the social dimensions of race are more complex than Census criteria. The 2000 U.S. census states that racial categories "generally reflect a social definition of race recognized in this country. They do not conform to any biological, anthropological or genetic criteria."[8]

The Census question on race lists the categories White or European American, Black or African American, American Indian and Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, Asian, plus "Some other race", with the respondent having the ability to mark more than one racial and\or ethnic category. The Census Bureau defines White people as follows:

"White" refers to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East or North Africa. It includes people who indicated their race(s) as "White" or reported entries such as Irish, German, Italian, Lebanese, Arab, Moroccan or Caucasian.[2]

In U.S. census documents, the designation White overlaps, as do all other official racial categories, with the term Hispanic or Latino, which was introduced in the 1980 census as a category of ethnicity, separate and independent of race.[9][10] Hispanic and Latino Americans as a whole make up a racially diverse group and as a whole are the largest minority in the country.[11][12]

File:White Americans.png
The countries from which White Americans claim their ancestry.

In cases where individuals do not self-identify, the U.S. census parameters for race give each national origin a racial value.

Additionally, people who reported Muslim (or a sect of Islam such as Shi'ite or Sunni), Jewish, Zoroastrian, or Caucasian as their race in the "Some other race" section, without noting a country of origin, are automatically tallied as White.[13] The US Census considers the write-in response of "Caucasian" or "Aryan" to be a synonym for White in their ancestry code listing.[14]

Social definition

President Abraham Lincoln was descended from Samuel Lincoln, and was of English and Welsh ancestry.
Actress Raquel Welch of Spanish (via Bolivia) and English ancestry back to the Mayflower.[15]

In the contemporary United States, essentially anyone of European descent is considered white. However, many of the ethnic groups classified as white by the U.S. Census, such as Jewish-Americans, Romani Americans, South Asians, Arab-Americans, and Hispanics may not identify as, and may not be perceived to be, white.[16][17][18][19][20]

The definition of white has been controversial and has changed significantly over the course of American history. Even among Europeans, those not considered white at some time in American history include Southern Europeans (Turk, Italian, Spaniard, Greek, Portuguese, etc.), Irish people and Central Europeans (Germans, Poles) and Eastern Europeans (Russians) but mostly notably Polish people due to the Partitions of Poland.[21][22]

Early on in the United States, the term "white" generally referred to those of British ancestry or northern (Nordic) and northwestern (British and French) European descent.

Demographic information

<templatestyles src="Module:Hatnote/styles.css"></templatestyles>

White Americans 1790–2010[23][24]
Year Population  % of the U.S Year Population  % of the U.S
1790 3,172,006 80.7 1910 81,731,957 88.9
1800 4,306,446 81.1 1920 94,820,915 89.7
1810 5,862,073 81.0 1930 110,286,740 89.8 (highest)
1820 7,866,797 81.6 1940 118,214,870 89.8 (highest)
1830 10,532,060 81.9 1950 134,942,028 89.5
1840 14,189,705 83.2 1960 158,831,732 88.6
1850 19,553,068 84.3 1970 177,748,975 87.5
1860 26,922,537 85.6 1980 188,371,622 83.1
1870 33,589,377 87.1 1990 199,686,070 80.3
1880 43,402,970 86.5 2000 211,460,626 75.1[25]
1890 55,101,258 87.5 2010 223,553,265 72.4[26]
1900 66,809,196 87.9

Whites (non-Hispanic and Hispanic) made up 79.8% or 75% of the American population in 2008.[11][12][27][28] 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 Irish and English.[29] In the 1980 census 49,598,035 Americans cited that they were of English ancestry, making them 26% of the country and the largest group at the time, and in fact larger than the population of England itself.[30] Slightly more than half of these people would cite that they were of "American" ancestry on subsequent censuses and virtually everywhere that "American" ancestry predominates on the 2000 census corresponds to places where "English" predominated on the 1980 census.[31][32]

White Americans 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 less than 50% of the population by 2042 in part because Non-Hispanic Whites have the lowest fertility rate of any major racial group in the United States[33] and largely due to mass-immigration and because of large scale intermarriage with Hispanic whites which ensures that children both of inter-ethnic marriages are also Hispanic whites.

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. See also: European Americans.

Geographic distribution

White Americans as percent of population, Census 2000.

According to the Census definition, white Americans are the majority racial group in almost all of the United States. They are not the majority in Hawaii, many American Indian reservations, parts of the South known as the Black Belt, the District of Columbia, all US territories, and in many urban areas throughout the country. Non-Hispanic whites are also not the majority in several southwestern states.

Overall the highest concentration of those referred to as "White alone" by the Census Bureau was found in the Midwest, New England, the Rocky Mountain states, Kentucky, and West Virginia. The lowest concentration of whites was found in southern and mid-Atlantic states.[3][34][35]

Although all large geographical areas are dominated by white Americans, much larger differences can be seen between specific parts of large cities.

States with the highest percentages of White Americans, as of 2007:[36]

States with the highest percentages of non-Hispanic whites, as of 2007:[37]

Income and educational attainment

<templatestyles src="Module:Hatnote/styles.css"></templatestyles>

<templatestyles src="Module:Hatnote/styles.css"></templatestyles>

Race Income.png

personal and household income
in the United States Census
in 2005

White Americans have the second highest median household income and personal income levels in the nation, by cultural background. The median income per household member was also the highest, since White Americans had the smallest households of any racial demographic in the nation. In 2006, the median individual income of a White American age 25 or older was $33,030, with those who were full-time employed, and of age 25 to 64, earning $34,432. Since 42% of all households had two income earners, the median household income was considerably higher than the median personal income, which was $48,554 in 2005. Jewish Americans rank first in household income, personal income, and educational attainment among white Americans.[38] In 2005, white households had a median household income of $48,977, which is 10.3% above the national median of $44,389. Among Cuban Americans, with 86% classifying as White, those persons born in the US have a higher median income and educational attainment level than most other whites.[39]

The poverty rates for White Americans are the second-lowest of any racial group, with 10.8% of white individuals living below the poverty line, 3% lower than the national average.[40] However, due to Whites' majority status, 48% of Americans living in poverty are white.[41]

Whites' educational attainment is the second-highest in the country, after Asian Americans'. Overall, nearly one-third of White Americans had a Bachelor's degree, with the educational attainment for whites being higher for those born outside the United States: 37.6% of foreign born, and 29.7% of native born Whites had a college degree. Both figures are above the national average of 27.2%.[42]

Gender income inequality was the greatest among whites, with White men outearning white women by 48%. Census Bureau data for 2005 reveals that the median income of white females was lower than that of males of all races. In 2005, the median income for White females was only slightly higher than that of African American females.[43]

Population by state or territory

Percentage of population self-reported as White American by state in 2010 :
   less than 50 %
   50 - 60 %
   60 - 70 %
   70 - 80 %
   80 - 90 %
   more than 90 %
White Population by state or territory (2000–2010)[44]
State/Territory Pop 2000 % pop 2000 Pop 2010 % pop 2010 % growth
2000-2010
Alabama Alabama 3,162,808 71.1% 3,275,394 68.5% +3.56% Increase
Alaska Alaska 434,534 69.3% 473,576 66.7% +8.98% Increase
Arizona Arizona 3,873,611 75.5% 4,667,121 73.0% +20.48% Increase
Arkansas Arkansas 2,138,598 80.0% 2,245,229 77.0% +4.99% Increase
California California 20,170,059 79.7% 21,453,934 74.0% +6.36% Increase
Colorado Colorado 3,560,005 82.8% 4,089,202 81.3% +14.86% Increase
Connecticut Connecticut 2,780,355 81.6% 2,772,410 77.6% -0.28% Decrease
Delaware Delaware 584,773 74.6% 618,617 68.9% +5.79% Increase
Washington, D.C. District of Columbia 176,101 30.8% 231,471 38.5% +31.44% Increase
Florida Florida 12,465,029 78.0% 14,109,162 75.0% +13.19% Increase
Georgia (U.S. state) Georgia 5,327,281 65.1% 5,787,440 59.7% +8.64% Increase
Hawaii Hawaii 294,102 24.3% 336,599 24.7% +14.45% Increase
Idaho Idaho 1,177,304 91.0% 1,396,487 89.1% +18.62% Increase
Illinois Illinois 9,125,471 73.5% 9,177,877 71.5% +0.57% Increase
Indiana Indiana 5,320,022 87.5% 5,467,906 84.3% +2.78% Increase
Iowa Iowa 2,748,640 93.9% 2,781,561 91.3% +1.20% Increase
Kansas Kansas 2,313,944 86.1% 2,391,044 83.8% +3.33% Increase
Kentucky Kentucky 3,640,889 90.1% 3,809,537 87.8% +4.63% Increase
Louisiana Louisiana 2,856,161 63.9% 2,836,192 62.6% -0.70% Decrease
Maine Maine 1,236,014 96.9% 1,264,971 95.2% +2.34% Increase
Maryland Maryland 3,391,308 64.0% 3,359,284 58.2% -0.94% Decrease
Massachusetts Massachusetts 5,367,286 84.5% 5,265,236 80.4% -1.90% Decrease
Michigan Michigan 7,966,053 80.2% 7,803,120 78.9% -2.04% Decrease
Minnesota Minnesota 4,400,282 89.4% 4,524,062 85.3% +2.81% Increase
Mississippi Mississippi 1,746,099 61.4% 1,754,684 59.1% +0.49% Increase
Missouri Missouri 4,748,083 84.9% 4,958,770 82.8% +4.44% Increase
Montana Montana 817,229 90.6% 884,961 89.4% +8.29% Increase
Nebraska Nebraska 1,533,261 89.6% 1,572,838 86.1% +2.58% Increase
Nevada Nevada 1,501,886 75.2% 1,786,688 66.2% +18.96% Increase
New Hampshire New Hampshire 1,186,851 96.0% 1,236,050 92.3% +4.14% Increase
New Jersey New Jersey 6,104,705 72.6% 6,029,248 68.6% -1.23% Decrease
New Mexico New Mexico 1,214,253 66.8% 1,407,876 68.4% +15.95% Increase
New York New York 12,893,689 67.9% 12,740,974 65.7% -1.18% Decrease
North Carolina North Carolina 5,804,656 72.1% 6,528,950 68.5% +12.48% Increase
North Dakota North Dakota 593,181 92.4% 605,449 90.0% +2.07% Increase
Ohio Ohio 9,645,453 85.0% 9,539,437 82.7% -1.10% Decrease
Oklahoma Oklahoma 2,628,434 76.2% 2,706,845 72.2% +2.98% Increase
Oregon Oregon 2,961,623 86.6% 3,204,614 83.6% +8.20% Increase
Pennsylvania Pennsylvania 10,484,203 85.4% 10,406,288 81.9% -0.74% Decrease
Rhode Island Rhode Island 891,191 85.0% 856,869 81.4% -3.85% Decrease
South Carolina South Carolina 2,695,560 67.2% 3,060,000 66.2% +13.52% Increase
South Dakota South Dakota 669,404 88.7% 699,392 85.9% +4.48% Increase
Tennessee Tennessee 4,563,310 80.2% 4,921,948 77.6% +7.86% Increase
Texas Texas 14,799,505 71.0% 17,701,552 70.4% +19.61% Increase
Utah Utah 1,992,975 89.2% 2,379,560 86.1% +19.40% Increase
Vermont Vermont 589,208 96.8% 596,292 95.3% +1.20% Increase
Virginia Virginia 5,120,110 72.3% 5,486,852 68.6% +7.16% Increase
Washington (state) Washington 4,821,823 81.8% 5,196,362 77.3% +7.77% Increase
West Virginia West Virginia 1,718,777 95.0% 1,739,988 93.9% +1.23% Increase
Wisconsin Wisconsin 4,769,857 88.9% 4,902,067 86.2% +2.77% Increase
Wyoming Wyoming 454,670 92.1% 511,279 90.7% +12.45% Increase
American Samoa American Samoa 682 1.2%
Guam Guam 10,666 6.9%
Northern Mariana Islands Northern Mariana Islands 1,274 1.8%
Puerto Rico Puerto Rico 3,064,862 80.5% 2,825,100 75.8% -7.17% Decrease
United States Virgin Islands U.S. Virgin Islands 12,275 11.3% 17,131 16.1% +39.56% Increase
United States United States of America 211,460,626 75.1% 223,553,265 72.4% +5.72% Increase

Culture

Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

Three members of the Kennedy political dynasty, John, Robert and Edward. All eight of their great-grandparents emigrated from Ireland.

From their earliest presence in North America, White Americans have contributed literature, art, agricultural skills, foods, science and technology, clothing styles, music and language to American culture.

Four regional cultures

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 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 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, settled there, thus forming the basis for the New England regional culture. The next mass migration was of southern English Cavaliers and their working class English 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 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.

In his book, Fischer brings up several points. He states 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 asserts that it is not only important to understand where different groups came from, but when. All population groups have, at different times, their own unique set of beliefs, fears, hopes and prejudices. When different groups came to America and brought certain beliefs and values with them, these ideas became, according to Fischer, more or less frozen in time, even if they eventually changed in their original place of origin.

Admixture

<templatestyles src="Module:Hatnote/styles.css"></templatestyles>

Admixture in Non-Hispanic Whites

Some White Americans have varying amounts of American Indian and Sub-Saharan African ancestry. In a recent study, Gonçalves et al. 2007 reported Sub-Saharan and Amerindian mtDna lineages at a frequency of 3.1% (respectively 0.9% and 2.2%) in White Americans of European descent.[45] DNA analysis on White Americans by geneticist Mark D. Shriver showed an average of 0.7% Sub-Saharan African admixture and 3.2% Native American admixture.[46] In another study, about 30% of all White Americans, approximately 66 million people, have a median of 2.3% of Black African admixture.[47] Southern states with the highest African American populations, tended to have the highest percentages of hidden African ancestry.[48] Also, from the 23andMe database, about 5 to at least 13 percent of self-identified white American Southerners have greater than 1 percent African ancestry.[48]

Admixture in Hispanic Whites

Most Hispanic Americans self-identify racially as white in the US Census; however, a large amount of them, would rather consider themselves as ethnically mestizo (of mixed European and Native background) or mulatto (of mixed African and European background); for instance, just a tenth of those who considers themselves as mestizo or mulatto select multiracial on the census, preferring to answer just white in the census.[49] Genetic research has found that the average European admixture among self-identified White Hispanic Americans is 73% (the average for Hispanic Americans regardless of race is 65.1%), contrasting to that of non-Hispanic European Americans, whose European ancestry totals 98.6% in average.[50][51]

See also

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 2010 United States Census statistics
  2. 2.0 2.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. 3.0 3.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. Caucasians included most Europeans, Northern Africans, and Asians as far east as the Ganges Delta in modern India.
  5. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. U.S. Census Bureau, 2008
  7. Sharon R. Ennis, Merarys Ríos-Vargas, Nora G. Albert (May 2011). http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-04.pdf U.S. Census Bureau. p. 14 (Table 6). Retrieved 2011-07-11.
  8. Questions and Answers for Census 2000 Data on Race from U.S. Census Bureau, 14 March 2001. Retrieved 15 October 2006.
  9. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. Overview of Race and Hispanic Origin 2000 U.S. Census Bureau
  11. 11.0 11.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  12. 12.0 12.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  13. Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results. Race and Nationality Descriptions from the 2000 Census and Bureau of Vital Statistics. May 21, 2007
  14. University of Michigan. Census 1990: Ancestry Codes. August 27, 2007
  15. Tavis Smiley. Shows. Raquel Welch. April 19, 2010 | PBS
  16. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  17. Seth Korelitz, "The Menorah Idea: From Religion to Culture, From Race to Ethnicity," American Jewish History 1997 85(1): 75–100. 0164–0178
  18. Peter Novick, The Holocaust in American Life (1999); Hilene Flanzbaum, ed. The Americanization of the Holocaust (1999); Monty Noam Penkower, "Shaping Holocaust Memory," American Jewish History 2000 88(1): 127–132. 0164–0178
  19. Steve Siporin, "Immigrant and Ethnic Family Folklore," Western States Jewish History 1990 22(3): 230–242. 0749–5471
  20. M. Lerner, Village Voice, 1993
  21. Sander L. Gilman,Race in contemporary medicine:Pg 54
  22. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  23. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  24. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  25. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  26. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  27. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  28. U.S. Census Bureau; 2008 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates. Retrieved 2009-11-07
  29. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  30. Census.gov
  31. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  32. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  33. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  34. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  35. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  36. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  37. United States – States; and Puerto Rico: Percent of the Total Population Who Are White Alone, Not Hispanic or Latino 2007
  38. New Study Claims US Jews Have Reasons to Be Proud – News Briefs – Arutz Sheva
  39. Pew Hispanic center
  40. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  41. Rural Poverty: Myths and Realities
  42. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  43. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  44. 2010 Demographic Profile. Population by Race, ethnicity, sex/age
  45. Sample of 1387 American Caucasian individuals catalogued in the FBI mtDNA population database, Gonçalves et al. 2007, Sex-biased gene flow in African Americans but not in American Caucasians
  46. Shriver, et al., "Skin pigmentation, biogeographical ancestry and admixture mapping, Hum Genet (2003) 112 : 387–39.
  47. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  48. 48.0 48.1 Scott Hadly, "Hidden African Ancestry Redux", DNA USA*, 23andMe, March 4, 2014.
  49. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  50. Bryc, Katarzyna et al. "The genetic ancestry of African, Latino, and European Americans across the United States" 23andme. pp. 22, 38 doi:10.1101/009340. "Supplemental Tables and Figures". p. 42. 18 September 2014. Retrieved 16 July 2015.
  51. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links