European Americans Explained

Group:European Americans
Total:133 million European-diaspora Americans
41% of total U.S. population (2017)[1]
(as opposed to 235.4 million Americans identifying as White in combination with other races and 204.3 million self-identifying as white)[2]
61.6% of the total U.S. population (2020)
Regions:Contiguous United States and Alaska
smaller populations in Hawaii and the territories
Languages:Predominantly English, but also other languages of Europe
Religions:Predominantly Christianity (Mainly Protestantism and Roman Catholicism);
Minority religions: Judaism, Mormonism, Islam, Neo-Paganism, Scientology, Irreligion, Atheism

European Americans are Americans of European ancestry.[3] [4] 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 are now the United States.

The Spaniards are thought to have been the first Europeans to establish a continuous presence in what is now the contiguous United States, with Martín de Argüelles ( 1566) in St. Augustine, then a part of Spanish Florida,[5] [6] and the Russians were the first Europeans to settle in Alaska, establishing Russian America. The first English child born in the Americas was Virginia Dare, born August 18, 1587. She was born in Roanoke Colony, located in present-day North Carolina, which was the first attempt, made during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, to establish a permanent English settlement in North America.

In the 2020 United States census, English Americans (46.5 million), German Americans (45 million), Irish Americans (38.6 million), Italian Americans (16.8 million) and Polish Americans (8.6 million) were the five largest self-reported European ancestry groups in the United States.[7] However, the number of people with British ancestry is considered to be significantly under-counted, as many people in that demographic tend to identify themselves simply as Americans (20,151,829 or 7.2%).[8] [9] [10] [11] 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.[12]

An increasing number of people ignored the ancestry 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".[13] [14]

Terminology

Number of European Americans From 1800 To 2010
YearPopulation% of the United States
4,306,446 81.1%
19,553,068 84.3%
66,809,196 87.9%
134,942,028 89.5%
211,460,626 75.1%
223,553,265 72.4%

Use

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%.[15]

The term is sometimes used interchangeably with Caucasian American, White American, and Anglo American in many places around the United States.[16]

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.[17] 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.[18]

Subgroups

There are a number of subgroupings of European Americans.[19] 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.[20] This is particularly the case in diasporic populations, as with European people in the United States generally.[21] In alphabetical order, some of the subgroups are:

History

See main article: European immigration to the Americas.

See also: European colonization of the Americas.

Historical immigration estimates[22] [23]
CountryImmigration
before 1790		Ancestry 1790
England* 230,000 1,900,000
Ulster Scotch-Irish* 135,000 320,000
Germany 103,000 280,000
Scotland* 48,500 160,000
Ireland8,000 200,000
Netherlands 6,000 100,000
Wales* 4,000 120,000
France 3,000 80,000
Sweden and Other500 20,000
  • Totals, British
417,500 2,500,000+
United States 950,000 3,929,214

Before the arrival of Europeans, Native Americans predominantly inhabited the United States. The earliest Europeans to invade North America were the Spaniards. The first Spanish invasion was in 1565 at St. Augustine, Florida.[24] One of the most significant Spanish explorers was Hernando De Soto, a conquistador who accompanied Francisco Pizzaro during his conquest of the Inca Empire.

Leaving Havana, Cuba in 1539, De Soto's expedition landed in the state of Florida and 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 a threat to their trade route along the Gulf Stream.[25]

Since 1607, some 57 million immigrants have come to the United States from other lands. Approximately 10 million passed through on their way to some other place or returned to their original homelands, leaving a net gain of some 47 million people.[26]

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". The years 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.[27] [28] [29] 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 been in decline 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.[30]

Immigration since 1820

European immigration to the U.S. 1820–1970[31] [32] [33] [34] [35]
YearsArrivalsYearsArrivalsYearsArrivals
1820–1830 98,816 1901–1910 8,136,016 1981–1990
1831–1840 495,688 1911–1920 4,376,564 1991–2000
1841–1850 1,597,502 1921–1930 2,477,853
1851–1860 2,452,657 1931–1940 348,289
1861–1870 2,064,407 1941–1950 621,704
1871–1880 2,261,904 1951–1960 1,328,293
1881–1890 4,731,607 1961–1970 1,129,670
1891–1900 3,558,793 1971–1980
Arrivals Total 35,679,763

Notes and References

  1. Web site: European Immigrants in the United States. August 2018. Migration Policy Institute.
  2. Web site: Race and Ethnicity in the United States: 2010 Census and 2020 Census. 12 August 2021. . 5 November 2023.
  3. Web site: Merriam Webster Dictionary . Euro-American . March 13, 2014 . Merriam-Webster, Incorporated.
  4. Book: https://books.google.com/books?id=OJilCCGFCTYC&q=European+American&pg=PR9. Ethnic Groups of the Americas: An Encyclopedia. Americans of European descent. James B. Minahan. March 14, 2013. 17–18. Abc-Clio . 9781610691642.
  5. Web site: A Spanish Expedition Established St. Augustine in Florida . . March 27, 2009.
  6. Book: Latino Chronology . February 4, 2015. 9780313341540 . Figueredo . D. H. . 2007 . Bloomsbury .
  7. Web site: Census Bureau Releases 2020 Census Population for More Than 200 New Detailed Race and Ethnicity Groups. September 21, 2023. October 30, 2023.
  8. Book: Pulera, Dominic J.. Sharing the Dream: White Males in a Multicultural America. October 20, 2004 . A&C Black . 978-0-8264-1643-8 . October 30, 2023.
  9. Farley, Reynolds . 1991 . The New Census Question about Ancestry: What Did It Tell Us? . Demography . 28 . 3 . 411–29 . 10.2307/2061465 . 2061465 . 1936376. 41503995 . free .
  10. 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.
  11. 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.
  12. Bryc . Katarzyna . Durand . Eric Y. . Macpherson . J. Michael . Reich . David . Mountain . Joanna L. . The Genetic Ancestry of African Americans, Latinos, and European Americans across the United States . The American Journal of Human Genetics. 96 . 1 . 2015 . 0002-9297 . 10.1016/j.ajhg.2014.11.010. free . 37–53. 25529636 . 4289685 .
  13. Web site: 1980 Census of Population: Ancestry of the population by state: 1980. United States Census Bureau . November 5, 2023.
  14. Web site: Ancestry: 2000 Census in Brief. United States Census Bureau . November 5, 2023.
  15. A Test of Methods For Collecting Racial and Ethnic Information: May 1995 . CPS Publications . October 26, 1995 . March 24, 2015 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20111212044012/http://www.bls.census.gov/cps/pub/ethnic_0595.htm . December 12, 2011.
  16. Web site: Sandra Soo-Jin Lee . Joanna Mountain . Barbara A. Koenig . The Meanings of Race in the New Genomics: Implications for Health Disparities Research . Yale University . May 24, 2001 . March 11, 2016 . 54 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20160303204116/http://www.yale.edu/yjhple/issues/vi-spr01/docs/lee.pdf . March 3, 2016 .
  17. Bhopal, Raj. . White, European, Western, Caucasian or What? Inappropriate Labeling in Research on Race, Ethnicity and Health . 1998 . 1509085 . 9736867 . 88 . 9 . Am J Public Health . 1303–7 . 10.2105/ajph.88.9.1303.
  18. Web site: Adair, Margo . Challenging White Supremacy Workshop . 1990 . November 5, 2006 . cwsworkshop.org.
  19. Book: Lois Ann Lorentzen. Victor C. Romero. Hidden Lives and Human Rights in the United States (3 volumes): Understanding the Controversies and Tragedies of Undocumented Immigration. The Criminalization of Undocumented Migrants. 2014. 978-1440828478. Praeger Publications. 16. 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.
  20. Book: Paul Spickard. Paul Spickard. Almost All Aliens: Immigration, Race, and Colonialism in American History and Identity: Race, Colonialism, and Immigration in American History and Identity. The Great Wave, 1870-1930. 2007. 978-0415935937. Routledge. 176. 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 very large numbers..
  21. Book: Benjamin Bailey. Language, Race, and Negotiation of Identity: A Study of Dominican Americans. Introduction. 2002. University of Massachusetts Amherst. 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..
  22. Book: The source: a guidebook to American genealogy. Loretto . Dennis Szucs. Sandra. Hargreaves Luebking. 2006 . Ancestry . 978-1-59331-277-0 . (excludes African population). 5 November 2023.
  23. Data From Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPS).
  24. https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/european-colonization-north-america EUROPEAN COLONIZATION OF NORTH AMERICA
  25. https://countrystudies.us/united-states/history-4.htm United States History - The First Europeans
  26. Book: The New Americans . February 4, 2015. 9780674044937 . Waters . Mary C. . Ueda . Reed . Marrow . Helen B. . June 30, 2009 . Harvard University Press .
  27. Web site: Raymond L. Cohn . Immigration to the United States . EH.Net Encyclopedia . August 15, 2001 . March 24, 2015 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20060113114938/http://www.eh.net/encyclopedia/article/cohn.immigration.us . January 13, 2006.
  28. Web site: MPI Data Hub Graph . migrationinformation.org . March 24, 2015 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20070422114514/http://www.migrationinformation.org/datahub/charts/fb.2.shtml . April 22, 2007.
  29. Book: Loretto Dennis Szucs . Sandra Hargreaves Luebking . The Source: A Guidebook to American Genealogy . registration . March 11, 2016 . 2006 . Ancestry Publishing . 978-1-59331-277-0 . 367.
  30. Web site: Elizabeth M. Grieco . Yesenia D. Acosta . G. Patricia de la Cruz . Christine Gambino . Thomas Gryn . Luke J. Larsen . Edward N. Trevelyan . Nathan P. Walters . The Foreign-Born Population in the United States: 2010 . US Census Bureau . May 2012 . March 11, 2016 . https://web.archive.org/web/20150209224630/http://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/acs-19.pdf . February 9, 2015 . dead .
  31. Web site: Statistical Abstract of the United States Immigration from 1820. 1920 . 98. 5 November 2023.
  32. Book: Spickard, Paul. Almost All Aliens: Immigration, Race, and Colonialism in American History. May 7, 2009 . Routledge . 978-1-135-95048-4 . 5 November 2023.
  33. Web site: Statistical Abstract of the United States. 1927 . 89. 5 November 2023.
  34. Web site: Statistical Abstract of the United States: Immigration by country of origin 1851–1940. 1948 . 107. 5 November 2023.
  35. Web site: Statistical Abstract of the United States. 1968 . 92. 5 November 2023.

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