European Americans

Terminology

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%.

The term is sometimes used interchangeably with Caucasian American, White American, and Anglo-American in the United States.

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. 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.

Subgroups

There are several subgroupings of European Americans. 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. This is particularly the case in diasporic populations, as with European people in the United States generally. In alphabetical order, some of the subgroups are:

• Northwestern European Americans, including Austrian Americans, Belgian Americans, British Americans (Cornish Americans, English Americans, Manx Americans, Scotch-Irish Americans, Scottish Americans, Welsh Americans), Dutch Americans, French Americans (Breton Americans), German Americans, Irish Americans, Luxembourger Americans, Nordic and Scandinavian Americans (Danish Americans, Finnish Americans, Icelandic Americans, Norwegian Americans, Swedish Americans), and Swiss Americans, or "Old Immigrants" (the first waves of which arrived pre-1881)
• Eastern European Americans, including Belarusian Americans, Czech Americans, Estonian Americans, Hungarian Americans, Latvian Americans, Lithuanian Americans, Polish Americans, Russian Americans, Slovak Americans, and Ukrainian Americans, or "New Immigrants" (the first large waves of which arrived 1881–1965)
• Southern European Americans, including Albanian Americans, Bosnian Americans, Bulgarian Americans, Croatian Americans, Cypriot Americans, Greek Americans, Italian Americans, Maltese Americans, Macedonian Americans, Moldovan Americans, Montenegrin Americans, Portuguese Americans, Romanian Americans, Serbian Americans, Slovenian Americans, and Spanish Americans (Basque Americans, Catalan Americans, Galician Americans), also "New Immigrants" or "New Immigrants"(the first large waves of which arrived 1881–1965)

History

Main article: European immigration to the Americas

Before the arrival of Europeans, Native Americans predominantly inhabited the United States. The earliest Europeans to colonize North America were the small number of Spaniards. The first Spanish colonization was in 1565 at St. Augustine, Florida. 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 Florida. It 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 threatening their trade route along the Gulf Stream.

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

During the 1600s and 1700s, Europeans arrived in North America in search of religious freedom, economic prospects, and political independence.

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". 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. 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 declined 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.

Immigration since 1820

Population born in Europe

The figures below show that of the total population of the specified birthplace in the United States, 11.1% were born overseas.

Demographics

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 forebears and the apparent unimportance to many whites of European origin, responses appear quite inconsistent".

Ancestral origins

Culture

As the largest component of the American population, the overall American culture deeply reflects the European-influenced culture that predates the United States of America as an independent state. Much of American culture shows influences from the diverse nations of the United Kingdom and Ireland, such as the English, Irish, Cornish, Manx, Scotch-Irish, Scottish and Welsh. Colonial ties to the United Kingdom spread the English language, legal system and other cultural attributes.

Scholar David Hackett Fischer asserts in Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America that the folkways of four groups of people who moved from distinct regions of the United Kingdom to the United States persisted and provide a substantial cultural basis for much of the modern United States. Fischer explains "the origins and stability of a social system which for two centuries has remained stubbornly democratic in its politics, capitalist in its economy, libertarian in its laws and individualist in its society and pluralistic in its culture."

Much of the European-American cultural lineage can be traced back to Western and Northern Europe, which is institutionalized in the government, traditions, and civic education in the United States. Since most later European Americans have assimilated into American culture, many Americans of European ancestry now generally express their personal 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. Some European Americans such as Italians, Greeks, Poles, Germans, Ukrainians, Irish, and others have maintained high levels of ethnic identity. In the 1960s, the melting pot ideal to some extent gave way to increased interest in cultural pluralism, strengthening affirmations of ethnic identity among various American ethnic groups, European as well as others.

Law

The American legal system also has its roots in French philosophy with the separation of powers and the federal system along with English law in common law.

Cuisine

Main article: Cuisine of the United States

• Apple pie – New England was the first region to experience large-scale English colonization in the early 17th century, beginning in 1620, and it was dominated by East Anglian Calvinists, better known as the Puritans. Baking was a particular favorite of the New Englanders and was the origin of dishes seen today as quintessentially "American", such as apple pie and the oven-roasted Thanksgiving turkey, a bird that although not found in Europe has become linked in tradition and symbolism to the early European immigrants. "As American as apple pie" is a well-known phrase used to suggest that something is all-American.
• Hamburger – Although the origins of the hamburger, including the country in which it was first served, are subjects of debate, the hamburger first became widely marketed in the United States and has been internationally known for decades as a symbol of American fast food.
• Buffalo wings – Invented in 1964 at Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York by Italian-American Teressa Bellissimo. Now popular all over the country, it has become a symbol of American cuisine.
• Hot dog – Hot dogs were brought to New York by German immigrants.
• Pizza – Italian immigrants from Naples brought pizza to the United States.
• Fried chicken – Scottish immigrants brought fried chicken to the Southern United States. Enslaved African Americans began cooking fried chicken based on the recipes from white Scottish slaveholders.

Thanksgiving

• Thanksgiving – In the United States, it has become a national secular holiday (official since 1863) with religious origins. The first Thanksgiving was celebrated by British settlers to give thanks to God and the Native Americans for helping the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony survive the brutal winter. The modern Thanksgiving holiday traces its origins from a 1621 celebration at the Plymouth Plantation, where the Plymouth settlers held a harvest feast with the Native Americans after a successful growing season. William Bradford is credited as the first to proclaim the American cultural event which is generally referred to as the "First Thanksgiving".

Sports

• Baseball – The earliest recorded game of base-ball involved the family of the Prince of Wales, played indoors in London in November 1748. The Prince is reported as playing "Bass-Ball" again in September 1749 in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, against Lord Middlesex. English lawyer William Bray recorded a game of baseball on Easter Monday 1755 in Guildford, Surrey; Bray's diary was verified as authentic in September 2008. This early form of the game was apparently brought to North America by English immigrants. The first appearance of the term that exists in print was in "A Little Pretty Pocket-Book" in 1744, where it is called Base-Ball.
• American football – can be traced to modified early versions of rugby football played in England and Canadian football mixed with and ultimately changed by American innovations which led over time to the finished version of the game from 1876 to now. The basic set of rules was first developed in American universities in the mid-19th century.
• Golf - Golf originated from Scotland in the 15th century, the first course in Scotland being St Andrews. The first golf course in America was founded by a Scot John Reid in 1888, and was named after the first Scottish golf club Saint Andrew's Golf Club located in Yonkers, New York, from here golf soared as a national hobby, and by the turn of the 20th Century there was more than 1,000 golf courses in North America.

Music

Another area of cultural influence are American Patriotic songs:

• The Star-Spangled Banner – takes its melody from the 18th-century English song "To Anacreon in Heaven" written by John Stafford Smith for the Anacreontic Society, a men's social club in London and lyrics written by American Francis Scott Key. This became a well-known and recognized patriotic song throughout the United States, which was officially designated as the American national anthem in 1931. Before 1931, other songs served as the hymns of American officialdom.

• Amazing Grace – written by British poet and clergyman John Newton. Popular among African Americans, it became an icon in American culture and has been used for a variety of secular purposes and marketing campaigns.

• Hail, Columbia – initial presidential inauguration song up until early 20th century. Now used for the Vice President.

• Battle Hymn of the Republic – Patriotic song sung during the civil war time between 1861 and 1865.

Admixture in Whites

Some European Americans have varying amounts of Native American and Native African ancestry. From the 23andMe database, about 5 to at least 13 percent of self-identified European American Southerners have greater than 1 percent native African ancestry. European Americans on average are: "98.6 percent Native European, 0.19 percent Native African and 0.18 percent Native American." Inferred British/Irish ancestry is found in European Americans from all states at mean proportions of above 20%, and represents a majority of ancestry, above 50% mean proportion, in states such as Mississippi, Arkansas, and Tennessee. Scandinavian ancestry in European Americans is highly localized; most states show only trace mean proportions of Scandinavian ancestry, while it comprises a significant proportion, upwards of 10%, of ancestry in European Americans from Minnesota and the Dakotas.

Notes

References

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