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EspañolWHITE AMERICAN
(Redirected from White Americans)
The term 'white American' (often used interchangeably with "Caucasian American"[3] and within the United States simply "white"[4]) is an umbrella term that refers to people of European, Middle Eastern, and North African descent residing in the United States.[5] In the most recent United States Census conducted in 2000, 47.9% of the then 35,305,818 U.S. Hispanics also fell into the white American category,[6] making White Hispanics the plurality among Hispanics of all races in the United States.
Because the cultural boundaries separating white Americans from other racial categories are contested and fluid, this broad official definition includes people who might not be considered white by others and who might not consider themselves white, including White Hispanic Americans and North African Americans.
Main articles: Definitions of whiteness in the United States
Today, 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."[7] It defines "white people" as "people having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa.[8] In U.S. census documents, the designation ''white'' overlaps, as do all other official racial categories, with the term ''Hispanic'', which was introduced in the 1980 census as a category of ethnicity, separate and independent of race.[9]
Hispanicity, which is independent of race, is the only ethnic category, as opposed to racial category, which is officially collated by the U.S. Census Bureau. The distinction made by government agencies for those within the population of any official race category, including "white American", is between those with Hispanic ethnic backgrounds and all others of non-Hispanic ethnic bacgrounds. In the case of White Americans, these two groups are respectively termed '"White Hispanics"' and '"non-Hispanic Whites"'; the former having at least one ancestor from the people of Spain or Spanish-speaking Latin America, and the latter consisting of an ethnically diverse collection of all others who are classified as white American who are of non-Hispanic ethnic backgrounds.
Many Americans who are treated as part of minority groups are included in the census category "white." This is true for many Hispanic Americans, 47.9% of whom identified racially as white. The 2000 Census separated the question on Hispanics from the question on race, the latter being divided into the 5 categories of white, black or African American, American Indian and Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, Asian American, plus "other", with the respondent having the ability to mark more than one category. It is also true for many Arab and other Middle Eastern Americans and North African Americans, as well as non-European Jewish Americans, since the 2000 Census conflates race and geographic/national origin: ''white'' is defined to include people with original origins in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.
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, Mexican, or Caucasian as their "race" in the "Some other race" section, without noting a country of origin, are automatically tallied as white.[10] This may result in the counting of persons such as Indian Muslims, Indian Jews, and Indian Zoroastrians as white, if they solely report their religious heritage without their national origin.
According to race scholars such as Karen Brodkin, in the United States, essentially anyone of European descent is considered white and Jews (presumably those of European origin, that is, Ashkenazi Jews) are also today considered white.[11] However, while the census asserts that "race" and "ethnicity" are separate, some Hispanics of primarily European descent may not consider themselves white and may not be considered white by others.[12][13][14] Likewise, while people of Middle Eastern and North African descent are included in the white category in the census, studies have found that Arab American teenagers may sometimes construct identities that distinguish themselves from "white society."[15]
The cultural boundaries separating white Americans from other racial or ethnic categories have changed significantly over the course of American history. Even among Europeans, those not considered white at some time in American history are the Irish, Germans, Ashkenazi Jews, Italians, Spaniards, Slavs, Greeks and other European Mediterranean peoples.[16] David R. Roediger argues that the construction of the white race in the United States was an effort to mentally distance slave owners from slaves.[17] The process of officially being defined as ''white'' by law often came about in court disputes over pursuit of citizenship.[18]
Main articles: United States Census, 2000
White American is the largest racial group counted in the 2000 Census, comprising 77.1 percent of the population. This includes about 2% of the population who self-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.
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, and in many urban areas throughout the country. In California, non-Hispanic Whites slipped from 80% of the state's population in 1970 to 43% in 2006.[19]
Overall the highest concentration of non-Hispanic whites, those referred to as ''white'' alone by the Census Bureau was found in the northern Midwest, New England, the Rocky Mountain states, Kentucky, and West Virginia. The lowest concentration of non-Hispanic whites was found in southern and mid-Atlantic states.[20][21][22]
Although all large geographical areas are dominated by white Americans, much larger differences can be seen between specific parts of large cities.
Main articles: Affluence in the United States#Race
Some argue that because white Americans have faced the least discrimination of any racial or ethnic group, they have had time to build up wealth, and that this is a major contributor to economic inequities among races today.[23][24] White Americans have the second highest median household income and personal income levels in the nation. 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 between ages 25 and 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. Among whites, Jewish Americans rank first in household income, personal income and educational attainment among white Americans. In 2005, non-Hispanic white households had a median household income of $48,977, 10.3% above the national median of $44,389. American-born Cuban Americans (half of the Cuban American populace) almost all classify as white, and have a higher median income and educational attainment level than non-Hispanic whites.[25]
Poverty rates for white Americans are the lowest of any racial group, with 8.6% of white individuals living below the poverty line (3% below the national average).[26] However, due to whites' majority status, 48% of Americans living in poverty are white.[27]
Whites' educational attainment are the second-highest in the country, after Asian Americans'. Overall, nearly one-third of white Americans had a Bachelor degree, with the educational attainment for whites being higher for those born outside the United States. Nearly forty percent, 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%.[28]
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, indicating that income inequities seem to run along gender lines more so than along racial lines.[29]
:''see also Admixture in the United States''
According to a recent study about one third of all white Americans, 74 million, have between 2 and 20 percent Native American and/or African admixture[30].
1. General Demographic Characteristics: 2005
2. Hispanic Origin:by Race in Census 2000
3. Lee, Sandra S. Mountain, Joanna. Barbara, Koening A. The Meanings of Race in the New Genomics: Implications for Health Disparities Research. Yale University. 2001. Accessed October 26, 2006.
4. The U.S. Census Bureau, for example, uses "white" rather than "white American." Racial and Ethnic Classifications Used in Census 2000 and Beyond
5. http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/fedreg/1997standards.html
6. http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/cenbr01-1.pdf Overview of Race and Hispanic Origin: 2000
7. Questions and Answers for Census 2000 Data on Race from U.S. Census Bureau, 14 March 2001. Retrieved 15 October 2006.
8. http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/c2kbr01-4.pdf The White Population: 2000, Census 2000 Brief C2KBR/01-4, U.S. Census Bureau, August 2001.
9. Overview of Race and Hispanic Origin 2000 U.S. Census Bureau
10. Surveilance Epidemology and End Results. Race and Nationality Descriptions from the 2000 US Census and Bureau of Vital Statistics. 2007. May 21, 2007. [1]
11. Karen Brodkin, ''How Jews Became White Folks and What That Says About Race in America'' (New Brunswick NJ, 1998).
12. http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/excerpts/exminbla.html
13. http://www.davidberreby.com/work14.htm
14. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/white_house/jan-june00/census_3-23.html
15. http://caliber.ucpress.net/doi/abs/10.1525/sop.2004.47.4.371
16. John Tehranian, "Performing Whiteness: Naturalization Litigation and the Construction of Racial Identity in America," ''The Yale Law Journal'', Vol. 109, No. 4. (Jan., 2000), pp. 825-827.
17. Roediger, Wages of Whiteness, 186; Tony Horwitz, Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War (New York, 1998).
18. Sweet, Frank W. ''Legal History of the Color Line: The Notion of Invisible Blackness.'' Backintyme Publishers (2005), ISBN 0939479230.
19. The Best Story of Our Lives
20. Census 2000, The Geography of US Diversity, , Cynthia, Brewer, ESRI Press, 2001,
21. Distribution of those identifying as White alone, by state, US Census Bureau
22. US Census Bureau, Whites in the 2000 Census
23. Dealing with Diversity, , J.Q., Adams, Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, 2001, 0-7872-8145-X
24. The African American Odyssey, , Darlene, Hine, Pearson, 2006, 0-12-182217-3
25. Cubans in the United States http://pewhispanic.org/files/factsheets/23.pdf.
26. US Census Bureau, Household income in 2005 by race
27. http://www.ag.iastate.edu/centers/rdev/newsletter/june97/rural-poverty.html
28. US Census Bureau report on educational attainment in the United States, 2003
29. US Census Bureau, Personal income forum, Age 25+, 2005
30. Afro-European Genetic Admixture in the United States, Frank Sweet
★ White Population 2000 from the US Census
The term 'white American' (often used interchangeably with "Caucasian American"[3] and within the United States simply "white"[4]) is an umbrella term that refers to people of European, Middle Eastern, and North African descent residing in the United States.[5] In the most recent United States Census conducted in 2000, 47.9% of the then 35,305,818 U.S. Hispanics also fell into the white American category,[6] making White Hispanics the plurality among Hispanics of all races in the United States.
Because the cultural boundaries separating white Americans from other racial categories are contested and fluid, this broad official definition includes people who might not be considered white by others and who might not consider themselves white, including White Hispanic Americans and North African Americans.
Historical and present definitions
Main articles: Definitions of whiteness in the United States
Today, 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.
Current U.S. Census definition
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."[7] It defines "white people" as "people having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa.[8] In U.S. census documents, the designation ''white'' overlaps, as do all other official racial categories, with the term ''Hispanic'', which was introduced in the 1980 census as a category of ethnicity, separate and independent of race.[9]
Hispanicity, which is independent of race, is the only ethnic category, as opposed to racial category, which is officially collated by the U.S. Census Bureau. The distinction made by government agencies for those within the population of any official race category, including "white American", is between those with Hispanic ethnic backgrounds and all others of non-Hispanic ethnic bacgrounds. In the case of White Americans, these two groups are respectively termed '"White Hispanics"' and '"non-Hispanic Whites"'; the former having at least one ancestor from the people of Spain or Spanish-speaking Latin America, and the latter consisting of an ethnically diverse collection of all others who are classified as white American who are of non-Hispanic ethnic backgrounds.
Many Americans who are treated as part of minority groups are included in the census category "white." This is true for many Hispanic Americans, 47.9% of whom identified racially as white. The 2000 Census separated the question on Hispanics from the question on race, the latter being divided into the 5 categories of white, black or African American, American Indian and Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, Asian American, plus "other", with the respondent having the ability to mark more than one category. It is also true for many Arab and other Middle Eastern Americans and North African Americans, as well as non-European Jewish Americans, since the 2000 Census conflates race and geographic/national origin: ''white'' is defined to include people with original origins in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.
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, Mexican, or Caucasian as their "race" in the "Some other race" section, without noting a country of origin, are automatically tallied as white.[10] This may result in the counting of persons such as Indian Muslims, Indian Jews, and Indian Zoroastrians as white, if they solely report their religious heritage without their national origin.
Social definition
According to race scholars such as Karen Brodkin, in the United States, essentially anyone of European descent is considered white and Jews (presumably those of European origin, that is, Ashkenazi Jews) are also today considered white.[11] However, while the census asserts that "race" and "ethnicity" are separate, some Hispanics of primarily European descent may not consider themselves white and may not be considered white by others.[12][13][14] Likewise, while people of Middle Eastern and North African descent are included in the white category in the census, studies have found that Arab American teenagers may sometimes construct identities that distinguish themselves from "white society."[15]
The cultural boundaries separating white Americans from other racial or ethnic categories have changed significantly over the course of American history. Even among Europeans, those not considered white at some time in American history are the Irish, Germans, Ashkenazi Jews, Italians, Spaniards, Slavs, Greeks and other European Mediterranean peoples.[16] David R. Roediger argues that the construction of the white race in the United States was an effort to mentally distance slave owners from slaves.[17] The process of officially being defined as ''white'' by law often came about in court disputes over pursuit of citizenship.[18]
Demographic information
Main articles: United States Census, 2000
White American is the largest racial group counted in the 2000 Census, comprising 77.1 percent of the population. This includes about 2% of the population who self-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.
Geographic distribution
White Americans as percent of population, Census 2000. (Around 8% of white Americans also identify as Hispanic.)
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, and in many urban areas throughout the country. In California, non-Hispanic Whites slipped from 80% of the state's population in 1970 to 43% in 2006.[19]
Overall the highest concentration of non-Hispanic whites, those referred to as ''white'' alone by the Census Bureau was found in the northern Midwest, New England, the Rocky Mountain states, Kentucky, and West Virginia. The lowest concentration of non-Hispanic whites was found in southern and mid-Atlantic states.[20][21][22]
Although all large geographical areas are dominated by white Americans, much larger differences can be seen between specific parts of large cities.
Income and educational attainment
Main articles: Affluence in the United States#Race
Some argue that because white Americans have faced the least discrimination of any racial or ethnic group, they have had time to build up wealth, and that this is a major contributor to economic inequities among races today.[23][24] White Americans have the second highest median household income and personal income levels in the nation. 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 between ages 25 and 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. Among whites, Jewish Americans rank first in household income, personal income and educational attainment among white Americans. In 2005, non-Hispanic white households had a median household income of $48,977, 10.3% above the national median of $44,389. American-born Cuban Americans (half of the Cuban American populace) almost all classify as white, and have a higher median income and educational attainment level than non-Hispanic whites.[25]
Poverty rates for white Americans are the lowest of any racial group, with 8.6% of white individuals living below the poverty line (3% below the national average).[26] However, due to whites' majority status, 48% of Americans living in poverty are white.[27]
Whites' educational attainment are the second-highest in the country, after Asian Americans'. Overall, nearly one-third of white Americans had a Bachelor degree, with the educational attainment for whites being higher for those born outside the United States. Nearly forty percent, 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%.[28]
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, indicating that income inequities seem to run along gender lines more so than along racial lines.[29]
Admixture
:''see also Admixture in the United States''
According to a recent study about one third of all white Americans, 74 million, have between 2 and 20 percent Native American and/or African admixture[30].
References
1. General Demographic Characteristics: 2005
2. Hispanic Origin:by Race in Census 2000
3. Lee, Sandra S. Mountain, Joanna. Barbara, Koening A. The Meanings of Race in the New Genomics: Implications for Health Disparities Research. Yale University. 2001. Accessed October 26, 2006.
4. The U.S. Census Bureau, for example, uses "white" rather than "white American." Racial and Ethnic Classifications Used in Census 2000 and Beyond
5. http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/fedreg/1997standards.html
6. http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/cenbr01-1.pdf Overview of Race and Hispanic Origin: 2000
7. Questions and Answers for Census 2000 Data on Race from U.S. Census Bureau, 14 March 2001. Retrieved 15 October 2006.
8. http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/c2kbr01-4.pdf The White Population: 2000, Census 2000 Brief C2KBR/01-4, U.S. Census Bureau, August 2001.
9. Overview of Race and Hispanic Origin 2000 U.S. Census Bureau
10. Surveilance Epidemology and End Results. Race and Nationality Descriptions from the 2000 US Census and Bureau of Vital Statistics. 2007. May 21, 2007. [1]
11. Karen Brodkin, ''How Jews Became White Folks and What That Says About Race in America'' (New Brunswick NJ, 1998).
12. http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/excerpts/exminbla.html
13. http://www.davidberreby.com/work14.htm
14. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/white_house/jan-june00/census_3-23.html
15. http://caliber.ucpress.net/doi/abs/10.1525/sop.2004.47.4.371
16. John Tehranian, "Performing Whiteness: Naturalization Litigation and the Construction of Racial Identity in America," ''The Yale Law Journal'', Vol. 109, No. 4. (Jan., 2000), pp. 825-827.
17. Roediger, Wages of Whiteness, 186; Tony Horwitz, Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War (New York, 1998).
18. Sweet, Frank W. ''Legal History of the Color Line: The Notion of Invisible Blackness.'' Backintyme Publishers (2005), ISBN 0939479230.
19. The Best Story of Our Lives
20. Census 2000, The Geography of US Diversity, , Cynthia, Brewer, ESRI Press, 2001,
21. Distribution of those identifying as White alone, by state, US Census Bureau
22. US Census Bureau, Whites in the 2000 Census
23. Dealing with Diversity, , J.Q., Adams, Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, 2001, 0-7872-8145-X
24. The African American Odyssey, , Darlene, Hine, Pearson, 2006, 0-12-182217-3
25. Cubans in the United States http://pewhispanic.org/files/factsheets/23.pdf.
26. US Census Bureau, Household income in 2005 by race
27. http://www.ag.iastate.edu/centers/rdev/newsletter/june97/rural-poverty.html
28. US Census Bureau report on educational attainment in the United States, 2003
29. US Census Bureau, Personal income forum, Age 25+, 2005
30. Afro-European Genetic Admixture in the United States, Frank Sweet
See also
External links
★ White Population 2000 from the US Census
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