The term White American is rarely used, both because racial categories such as white are rarely used to identify a "hyphenated American" group, and because white Americans often identify simply as "white" and tend not to identify themselves as a sub-group of Americans. The (capitalized) phrase "White American" commonly refers to the group defined by the US Census; in almost all other cases, "white" is not capitalized and is rarely part of the phrase "white American." In the United States, the term white might appear to be synonymous with White American, but the Census definition is somewhat counterintuitive (see below) and the cultural boundaries separating white from other racial or ethnic categories are contested and always changing. See the full discussion in the article "White (people)."
US Census Statistics and Definitions
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White American is the largest racial group counted in the 2000 Census, comprising 77.1 percent of the population. About 2% of this total were people who identified as "white" in combination with one or more other races; about 8% also identified ethnically as Hispanic. The largest ethnic groups among White Americans were Germans followed by the Irish and the English.
Note that many Americans who are treated as part of minority groups are included in the census category White. This is true for many Hispanic Americans, since the 2000 Census separated questions of "race" -- divided into White, Black, American Indian and Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, Asian, and Other (with the ability to mark more than one race) -- from the "ethnic" question of Hispanic identification. (Around 48% of Hispanic Americans identify as "white," while 42% identify racially as "Hispanic" by selecting "Other" as their racial group and writing in a Hispanic national origin or pan-ethnic label.) It is also true for many Arab and non-European Jewish Americans, since the 2000 Census conflates race and geographic/national origin: white is defined to include people with ancestral origins in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.
Because of these inconsistencies, statistics for White Americans are rarely used for demographic, civil-rights, or other social statistical purposes.
Geographic Distribution of White Americans
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 many American Indian reservations, parts of the South known as the Black Belt, the majority-Hispanic Central Valley of California (note that many Hispanics designate their race as "Other"), and in many urban areas throughout the country.
Historical meanings
The most recent United States Census (2000) defined the 'White' race as follows: "The term White refers to people having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa." It includes people who indicated their race or races as "White" or wrote in entries such as Irish, German, Italian, Israeli, Syrian, Lebanese, Portuguese, Polish and Scottish.
A flaw in current official US government parameters for race is that it gives national origin a racial value. Given the differences between common US understandings of white versus the official parameters, it can be somewhat problematic for peoples of Middle Eastern and North African heritage who for one reason or another are not commonly seen in social circles as white but are encompassed in the official definition. Reasons for this may include the heterogeneity of their populations, religious, linguistic or ancestral differences (please see below).
Another predicament is that by simply responding Israeli in the US census can lead to a person being categorised as "White". This disregards whether or not that Israeli (if Jewish) is actually of European descent (Ashkenazi), or for example, of Ethiopian descent (Falasha), Yemenite descent (Teimani), Indian descent (Indian Jews), etc.
German Americans
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Germans from the war-ravaged Palatinate immigrated in large numbers in the 1700s. Benjamin Franklin in Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, etc. complained about them in terms of both culture and color: why should the Palatine Boors be suffered to swarm into our Settlements, and by herding together establish their Language and Manners to the Exclusion of ours? Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion... the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes, are generally of what we call a swarthy Complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted, who with the English, make the principal Body of White People on the Face of the Earth. I could wish their Numbers were increased. However, by the late 1800s, though nativists continued to be suspicious of their culture and language, Germans along with Scandinavians and Dutch were included with the British and considered America's "old stock" (or in scientific racist terms, Teutonic or Nordic) and racially superior to the Irish and to the later immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe.
In the early United States, the term became more exclusive, coming to refer only to those of English heritage or persons to whom the term WASP applies. However, unlike most European immigrant groups whose acceptace as white (that is, in U.S. colloqual definitions, since all Europeans had been white by legal U.S. definition), German immigrants quickly came to be accepted as White. [1] German-Americans were also the largest group of immigrants during the 19th century, outnumbering both English and Irish immigrants, making German-Americans the largest ethnic group in the United States to this very day.[2]
Irish Americans
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In the 19th Century, Irish immigrants were often discriminated against due to their majority Catholic religion. Irish fear of Protestant indoctrination in public schools is what led to the drive to open U.S. Catholic parochial schools, and eventually to the founding of the University of Notre Dame.
Noel Ignatiev's startlingly titled book How the Irish Became White (ISBN 0415918251) documents how the dominant American majority society originally excluded the Catholic Irish immigrants as a stigmatized group and often compared them to the Negroes who were in a similar position, but capitalized on conflict between the two groups and eventually recruited Irish-Americans as co-participants in white supremacism; however, this is not necessarily the same as showing the Irish were literally called 'not white'.
Eastern European and Slavic Americans
Eastern Europeans and Slavic Americans were classified as White upon their arrival at Ellis Island in the United States. The new arrivals from eastern Europe, however, were considered "'ethnics'...seen as 'not quite white'" [1] by the colloquial understanding of the time. Legislation was also passed, such as the Immigration Act of 1924 to restrict and reduce their further entry.
Italian Americans
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Mass immigration to the United States from Italy occurred during the late 19th and 20th century. The new arrivals from southern Europe were also considered "'ethnics'...seen as 'not quite white'" [2] by the colloquial understanding of the time. Legally, however, Italians had always been "white" in U.S. law. Nevertheless, the same piece of legislation, the Immigration Act of 1924, was also aimed at restricting and reducing their entry.
Additionally, Southern Italians were classified as a different "nationality" primarily at the request of their Northern Italian counterparts, and due to their populations containing a greater proportion of darker-skined people.[3].
Italians often fell victim to anti-Catholicism, cultural prejudices, and even racial violence, such as lynching. Like the Irish Catholics who had preceded them, they were vulnerable to discrimination and prejudice from America's predominantly Protestant majority.
European Jewish Americans
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According to one source — although not supported by census records of the period which recorded all Jews as White — European Jews in America did not become accepted as 'White' until the 1940s.[4]
Jewish people desired assimilation. As early as 1911, German/American-Jewish anthropologist Franz Boas (1858-1952) purported in The Mind of Primitive Man, that "no real biological chasm separated recent immigrants from Mayflower descendants."[5]
Hispanic Americans
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Despite differences in ancestry from one Latin American to another — encompassing people from the Southwestern United States and Mexico to Central America, South America and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean, they all tend to be labelled as Hispanic, often erroneously giving it a "racial" value. The term "non-Hispanic White" is used for clarity to designate members of the dominant cultures of the US. A question, however, is whether some, all, or no Hispanics are seen as White by non-Hispanic Whites.
Of the over 40 million "Hispanic or Latinos" for the United States Census, 2000, a plurality of 48.6% identified as "White-Hispanic", 48.2% identified as "Hispanic-Hispanic" (most of whom are presumed to be mestizos), and the remaining 3.2% identified as "Black-Hispanic". Of those who identified as "White-Hispanic", many would also possess at least some Amerindian and/or black ancestry.
Judging by census intermarriage statistics, even non-White 'Hispanics' — that is, mestizos and mulattos — may be in the process of integrating into the majority community and often labeled as White. Mestizos and mulattos, however, are most often considered non-White.
The media and Hispanic community leaders themselves in the U.S. nearly always refer to Hispanics as if a separate group from 'Whites' and the 'White majority', especially those who are discernably of mixed racial descent. This may be because 'white' is often used as shorthand for 'non-Hispanic white'. Federal agencies' standards have become more precise in this regard. The EEOC explicitly defines Hispanics as a separate and distinct "ethnicity."[6] Newer versions of this form [3] follow the Census Bureau in separating Hispanic self-identity from "racial" self-identity. On the decennial census form, a respondent who checks the "Hispanic or Latino" "ethnicity" box can, in a following question, also check one or more of the 5 official race categories. Supporters of this policy claim that statistics on Hispanics as a group must be collected in order to track discrimination, for affirmative action purposes, etc., in the same way that they are for non-White racial groups, and for women. The Bureau, in contrast, simply says that they are mandated to ask such questions by the U.S. Congress.
Mexican Americans
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Throughout the history of the United States, Mexicans and Mexican Americans have held different racial statuses, including White. Past misconceptions that Mexicans and/or Mexican Americans somehow constitute a single racial type have been responsible for these across-the-board labellings. Today, however, according to U.S. Census criteria and other governmental legal constructions, Mexicans, Mexican Americans, and any other persons of a Hispanic national origin are considered independent of any single race. Instead, a person may identify their Hispanic nationality, or identify generically as "Hispanic or Latino" and then separately indicate any one or more of the five officially recognised racial groups (or alternatively check "other race"). In the last U.S census, however, around half of all persons of Mexican or Mexican American origin in the U.S. checked "White" to register their race (in addition to stating their Mexican national origin).
At the times when Mexicans where treated as a monolithic group, and allotted white status, they were permitted to intermarry with what today are termed "non-Hispanic whites" (unlike blacks and Asians); were allowed to acquire U.S. citizenship upon arrival (unlike Asian immigrants); served in all-white units during the World War II (unlike blacks and Japanese); could vote and hold elected office in places such as Texas, especially San Antonio (unlike blacks); ran the state politics and constituted most of the elite of New Mexico since colonial times; and went to integrated schools in Central Texas and Los Angeles (unlike Blacks in the south and Asians in Southern California). Additionally, Asians were barred from marrying Mexican Americans because of their legal White status.
Despite their legal status as white, and even their claim to European heritage (see criollo, mestizo) some Mexican Americans are seen as socially and racially non-White. Given that many Mexican-Americans with complete or predominant European features are not seen or even realized to Mexicans since they do not fit the "Mexican type" (i.e. mestizo; which most, but not all, Mexicans indeed are), and can be looked over as being simply non-Mexican White Americans. This tends to lower the perception of the true number of white Mexican Americans there may actually be. This is also the case with other White Hispanics. Nevertheless, some Mexicans view themselves (sometimes even in cases when it is clearly not the case) as distinctly non-white. These proudly claim direct descent from Amerindians, most commonly the Aztecs and Mayans.
The 1930 U.S. census form asked for "color or race." The 1930 census enumerators were given these instructions: "write 'W' for White; 'Mex for Mexican [4], but from 1940 to the latter part of the century the instructions were: Mexicans.-Report "white" (W) for Mexicans unless they are definitely of Indian or other nonwhite race. [5]
During the Great Depression, Mexicans were mostly considered non-White. Anywhere from one to two million people were deported in a decade-long effort by the government to free up jobs for those who were considered “real Americans” and rid the county governments of “the problem.” The campaign, called the "Mexican Repatriation", was authorized by President Herbert Hoover and it targeted areas with large Hispanic populations, mostly in California, Texas and Michigan. Although President Franklin Roosevelt ended federal support when he took office, many state and local governments continued with their efforts. It left festering emotional wounds that for many have not healed. Estimates now indicate that approximately 60 percent of the people deported were children who were born in America and others who, while of Mexican descent, were legal citizens. Many of these people returned to the United States during the labor shortages of World War II.
In Mexico herself, mestizos are said to account for some 60% of the population, and together with the White population of Mexico (estimated at 9%) they constitute close to 70% of the country. Most of the rest of the population (estimated at 30%) is classified as Amerindian or predominantly Amerindian, and 1% other. Time will tell as it has for other nationalities that were once considered non-white, but are now White Americans.
North African and Middle Eastern Americans
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According to the U.S. Census definition, North Africans and Middle Easterners are classified as White, and U.S. federal agencies group all Middle Easterners and North Africans as White. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission regulations also explicitly define White as "peoples of Europe, North Africa, or the Middle East," and the Census Bureau's decennial form offers no check-box for such a self-identity under the "race" question.
North African and Middle Easterners, however, are usually not included within the general structural concepts of White American society. The U.S. Census classification of North African and Middle Eastern Americans as White is largely in an American legal context. Various other countries account for them in non-White categories. In the USA, common non-governmental, colloquial and social understandings of "White" differ from that country's official government definition.
Self-identification should also be taken into account, as for example, most Egyptian Americans would not consider themselves "White". A person who would have written Egyptian in entries relating to ethnic origin is automatically considered White. People who check "Other race" and wrote Egyptian or another North African or Middle Eastern country are still counted as White. Many forms specifically ask people of North African or Middle Eastern descent to check White for "race". An Egyptian man once sued the US government to have "White" removed from his immigration documents. [6] Similarly, the US Census considers Egyptian and Berber Americans as "Arabs", even though most Berbers and many Egyptians would object to this classification quite as much.
In the American context, the common contention of excluding these largely Caucasoid groups of North Africa and the Middle East from the popular definition of "White" (as opposed to the official government definition) has been based on the argument of their disparate cultural, religious, linguistic heritage and ancestral origins. It has also been based on the argument that there is a significant sub-Saharan component in their populations [7] — a long-spanning presence throughout the history of that largely contiguous region.
While it is undeniable that many people in North Africa (Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, etc) and the Arabian Peninsula (Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, etc.) have enough black African ancestry or are dark enough — at times being as dark-complexioned as some African Americans — to be considered black by popular U.S. standards, some may also be lighter-complexioned by comparison, comparable to Southern Europeans. And although some people of the Levant (Syria, Lebanon, Israel/Palestine, Jordan, etc.) may also be as dark as those found in North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, some are lighter-complexioned. Finally, a tiny percentage throughout the Middle Eastern and North African region as a whole may even resemble Northern Europeans.
See Haney-Lopez (1996) for a comprehensive list of U.S. Supreme Court decisions that repeatedly reversed prior U.S. Supreme Court decisions (back and forth many times) regarding whether or not Afghanis, Syrians, Asian Indians, and Arabians are White.[7]
Asian Americans
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Throughout much of America's population hisotry, there has always been a slow but constant immigration from the countries of the Asian continent. With this, there has also been mounting legislation which was passed trying to restrict these peoples from immigrating, most forcefully against the Chinese. The Naturalization Act of 1790 also restricted naturalized American citizenship to whites only.[8] As a result, in the early 20th century many new arrivals with origins in the Asian continent petitioned the courts to be legally classified as "white", and hence there exist many United States Supreme Court rulings on their "Whiteness".
In successful cases, such as the case for Armenians — who were then known as "Asiatic Turks" — their legal acquisition of whiteness was achieved with the help of anthropologist Franz Boas who had testified as an expert scientific witness [9]. In other cases, the courts seemed to contradict themselves on the parameters for whiteness, with the cases of Takao Ozawa v. United States (1922) and United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind (1923) being a prime example. In the first case, the court ruled that Takao Ozawa, of Japanese descent, was not White, despite the fact that he was of a pale "white" complexion. The court stated that in U.S. law, the anthropology at the time which classified the Japanese as belonging to the Mongoloid race, overruled his pale pigmentation. In the latter case, the court ruled that Bhagat Singh Thind, of Indian descent, was not white despite the fact that Indians were deemed Causasian by physical anthropologists. The court in this instance stated that in U.S. law, "the common understanding of the white man" overruled physical anthropology.
East and Southeast Asian Americans
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Nineteenth-century Asian American people of East and Southeast Asian origin were not considered White.[10] These Asian Americans have therefore always been classified as Asian or as belonging to the "Mongoloid race".[11]
In Jim Crow era Mississippi, however, Chinese American children were allowed to attend Whites-only schools and universities, rather than attend segregated Black-only schools, and some of their parents became members of the infamous Mississippi "White Citizens' Council" who enforced anti-Black racism and Black segregation.[8]
Asian Indian and South Asian Americans
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In the early 20th century, people of Asian Indian or other Indian Sub-Continent origin were classified as racially "Hindu"[12] and not White, although they had been classified as belonging to the Caucasian race by anthropologists. The anthropological findings had been accepted by the United States courts, but they were overruled by what the courts outlined to be "the common understanding of the white man".
Nevertheless, there are instances of courts granting white status to petioners. Additionally, between 1950 to 1970, they were classified as White, until an Indian-American group protested to the Office of Management and Budget to remove Indians from the White category[citation needed].
This regional group includes Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims, Indian Christians, Indian Jews, and various others.
African Americans
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Due to the one-drop theory in the United States, for the past century or so, English-speaking Americans with any known African ancestry, no matter how slight or invisible, have often been categorized as Black. As detailed above, however, those of Hispanic, Middle Eastern or North African heritage are an exception, in that those who look European, or occasionally even those appearing mixed, are not labeled "Black" though they may have some sub-Saharan African ancestry, perhaps even acknowledging it.
The one-drop rule is historically recent.[citation needed] As mentioned above, before the 18th century, the terms "Black" and "White" did not designate groups. Before the Civil War, someone's "racial identity" depended on the combination of their appearance, African blood fraction, and social circle.[9]
Nevertheless, that the endogamous isolation of the African-American community has lasted for centuries is confirmed by DNA admixture studies. {[fact}}Many recent studies in genetics and molecular anthropology have shown that there is a surprisingly small degree of genetic overlap between members of the U.S. Black endogamous group and the U.S. White endogamous group. About one-third of all White Americans are found to have traces of African ancestry; they average about 23% African admixture.[10] Black Americans as a whole also have some European admixture, averaging about 17 percent.[11]
Eventually, in the United States, "black" came to denote African ancestry and "brown" became attributed to mixed-race Hispanics, Southeast Asian Americans and South Asian Americans (people of the Indian subcontinent), though not much used. In Australia, on the other hand, "Black" denotes Aborigines and "Brown" came to denote South Asians and Middle Easterners/North Africans. See also Wog.
See also
Other terms commonly used for "White American":
References
- ^ See David R. Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class (London: Verso, 1991) p. 32 for their earlier status. See op. cit. p. 142 for Stephen O. Douglas's acceptance, in his debates against Lincoln, that Germans are a "branch of the Caucasian race." See op. cit. p. 155 for anti-abolitionist tracts of 1864 accusing abolitionist German-Americans of having "broken their ties with the white race" by opposing slavery. Finally, see Frank W. Sweet, Legal History of the Color Line: The Rise and Triumph of the One-Drop Rule (Palm Coast FL: Backintyme, 2005) p. 332 and Leon F. Litwack, North of Slavery: the Negro in the Free States, 1790-1860 (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1961) p. 75 for the legislated disfranchisement of Pennsylvanians of African ancestry by the first state legislature controlled by German-Americans.
- ^ Adams, J.Q.; Pearlie Strother-Adams (2001). Dealing with Diversity. Chicago, IL: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company. 0-7872-8145-X.
- ^ Thomas A. Guglielmo, White on Arrival: Italians, Race, Color, and Power in Chicago, 1890-1945, 2003, ISBN 0195155432
- ^ Karen Brodkin, How Jews Became White Folks and What That Says About Race in America (New Brunswick NJ, 1998).
- ^ Franz Boas, The Mind of Primitive Man (New York, 1911).
- ^ Employer Information Report EEO-1 and Standard Form 100, Appendix § 4, Race/Ethnic Identification, 1 Empl. Prac. Guide (CCH) § 1881, (1981), 1625. In apparent self-contradiction, this version of the regulation states that the distinct Hispanic "race" comprises, "All persons of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central or South American, or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race". [Underline is the author's.]
- ^ Ian F. Haney-Lopez, White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race (New York: New York University, 1996), Appendix "A".
- ^ James W. Loewen, The Mississippi Chinese: Between Black and White (Cambridge MA, 1971); Warren (1997), 200-18, 209-11.
- ^ See "Chapter 9. How the Law Decided if You Were Black or White: The Early 1800s" in Legal History of the Color Line: The Rise and Triumph of the One-Drop Rule by Frank W. Sweet, ISBN 0939479230. A summary of this chapter, with endnotes, is available online at | How the Law Decided if You Were Black or White: The Early 1800s.
- ^ Although abstracts of most such peer-reviewed studies can be found in pubmed, a current index to recent admixture studies, along with full-text links, is available at: Various admixture studies.
- ^ Heather E. Collins-Schramm and others, "Markers that Discriminate Between European and African Ancestry Show Limited Variation Within Africa," Human Genetics 111 (2002): 566-69.
External links