European Americans

European AmericansareAmericansofEuropeanancestry.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 largestpanethnic groupin what is now the United States.
TheSpaniardswere the first Europeans to establish a continuous presence in what is now thecontiguous United States, withMartín de Argüelles(b.1566) inSt. Augustine, then a part ofSpanish Florida,and theRussianswere the first Europeans to settle inAlaska, establishingRussian America. The firstEnglishchild born in theAmericaswasVirginia Dare, born August 18, 1587. She was born inRoanoke Colony, located in present-dayNorth Carolina, which was the first attempt, made during the reign ofQueen Elizabeth I, to establish a permanentEnglish settlementin North America.
In the2020 United States census,English Americans(46.6 million),German Americans(45 million),Irish Americans(38.6 million),Italian Americans(16.8 million) andPolish Americans(8.6 million) were the five largest self-reported European ancestry groups in the United States.
The 2020 census was the first census to allow data collection on subtypes of Europeans. During previous surveys, the number of people with British ancestry was considered to be significantly under-counted, as many people in that demographic tended to identify themselves simply as Americans (20,151,829 or 7.2%).A 2015 genetic study of 148,789European Americansconcluded that British ancestry was the most common European ancestry among white Americans, with this component ranging between 20% and 55% of the total population in all 50 states.The same applies to Americans of Spanish ancestry, as many people in that demographic tend to identify themselves asHispanic and Latino Americans(58,846,134 or 16.6%), even though they carry a mean of 65.1% European genetic ancestry, mainly fromSpain.
An increasing number of people ignored the ancestry question or chose no specific ancestral group such as "American or United States". In the2000 censusthis 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".
In 1995, as part of a review of theOffice 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 theWhitegroup,European Americancame a distant third, preferred by only 2.35% of panel interviewees, as opposed toWhite, which was preferred by 61.66%.
The term is sometimes used interchangeably with Caucasian American,White American, andAnglo-Americanin the United States.
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.
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:
Before the arrival of Europeans,Native Americanspredominantly inhabited the United States. The earliest Europeans to colonize North America were the Spaniards. The first Spanish colonization was in 1565 atSt. Augustine, Florida.One of the most significant Spanish explorers wasHernando De Soto, a conquistador who accompaniedFrancisco Pizzaroduring hisconquest 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 fromNew Spainin 1540 in search of the mythicalSeven 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 explorerGiovanni da Verrazanoand FrenchmanJacques Cartierare 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.
Before 1881, the vast majority of immigrants, almost 86% of the total, arrived fromNorthwestern Europe, principallyGreat Britain,Ireland,Germany, andScandinavia, known as "Old Immigration". Between 1881 and 1893, the pattern shifted in the sources of U.S. "New Immigration." Between 1894 and 1914, immigrants fromCentral,Eastern, andSouthern Europeaccounted for 69% of the total.Prior to 1960, the overwhelming majority came from Europe or ofEuropean descentfrom 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.
The figures below show that of the total population of the specified birthplace in the United States, 11.1% were born overseas.
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".
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 theUnited KingdomandIreland, such as theEnglish,Irish,Cornish,Manx,Scotch-Irish,ScottishandWelsh. Colonial ties to theUnited Kingdomspread theEnglish language, legal system and other cultural attributes.
ScholarDavid Hackett Fischerasserts inAlbion's Seed: Four British Folkways in Americathat the folkways of four groups of people who moved from distinct regions of theUnited Kingdomto theUnited Statespersisted and provide a substantial cultural basis for much of the modernUnited States.Fischer explains "the origins and stability of a social system which for two centuries has remained stubbornlydemocraticin its politics,capitalistin its economy,libertarianin its laws andindividualistin its society andpluralisticin its culture."
Much of the European-American cultural lineage can be traced back toWesternandNorthern 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 asItalians,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.
TheAmerican legal systemalso has its roots inFrenchphilosophy with the separation of powers and the federal systemalong withEnglish lawin common law.
Another area of cultural influence areAmerican Patriotic songs:
Before 1931, other songs served as the hymns of American officialdom.
Some European Americans have varying amounts ofNative Americanand NativeAfricanancestry. From the23andMedatabase, about 5 to at least 13 percent of self-identified European American Southerners have greater than 1 percent nativeAfricanancestry.Southern stateswith the highest African American populations tended to have the highest percentages of hidden 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.