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White Americans are a racial or ethnic group of Americans who identify as and are perceived to be white people. White Americans (including White Hispanics) constitute the historical and current majority of the people living in the United States, with 72% of the population identifying as white in the 2010 United States Census. Non-Hispanic whites totaled about 197,181,177 or 60.4% of the U.S. population.[3][4] European Americans are the largest ethnic group of White Americans and have constituted the majority population of the United States since the nation's founding.
The United States Census Bureau defines white people as those "having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East or North Africa."[5] However, people of these regions can be of various racial backgrounds, and the Obama-era Census Bureau had planned to change this definition prior to the election of Donald Trump.[6] Like all official U.S. racial categories, "White" has a "not Hispanic or Latino" and a "Hispanic or Latino" component,[7] the latter consisting mostly of White Mexican Americans and White Cuban Americans. The term "Caucasian" is synonymous with "white", although the latter is sometimes used to denote skin tone instead of race.[8] Some of the non-European ethnic groups classified as white by the U.S. Census, such as Arab Americans,[9] Jewish Americans,[10] and Hispanics or Latinos, may not identify as or may not be perceived to be, white.
The largest ancestries of American whites are: German (17%), Irish (12%), English (9%), Italian (6%), French (4%), Polish (3%), Scottish (3%), Scotch-Irish (2%), Dutch (2%), Norwegian (2%) and Swedish (1%).[11][12][13] However, the English and British Americans' demography is considered a serious under-count as the stock tend to self-report and identify as simply "Americans" (7%), due to the length of time they have inhabited the United States, particularly if their family arrived prior to the American Revolution.[14] The vast majority of white Americans also have ancestry from multiple countries.
Contents
1 Historical and present definitions
1.1 U.S. Census definition
1.2 Social definition
1.3 Critical race theory definition
2 Demographic information
2.1 Geographic distribution
2.2 Income and educational attainment
2.3 Population by state
2.3.1 2000 and 2010 censuses
2.3.2 2016 and 2017 estimates
2.3.2.1 Non-Hispanic population
3 Culture
3.1 Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America
4 Admixture
4.1 Admixture in Non-Hispanic Whites
4.2 Admixture in Hispanic Whites
5 See also
6 Notes
7 References
8 External links
Historical and present definitions
Main article: Definitions of whiteness in the United States
Further information: One-drop rule
Definitions of who is "White" have changed throughout the history of the United States.
U.S. Census definition
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."[15]
The Census question on race lists the categories White or European American, Black or African American, American Indian and Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, Asian, plus "Some other race", with the respondent having the ability to mark more than one racial or ethnic category. The Census Bureau defines White people as follows:
"White" refers to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East or North Africa. It includes people who indicated their race(s) as "White" or reported entries such as German, Italian, Lebanese, Arab, Moroccan, or Caucasian.[5]
In U.S. census documents, the designation White overlaps, as do all other official racial categories, with the term Hispanic or Latino, which was introduced in the 1980 census as a category of ethnicity, separate and independent of race.[16][17] Hispanic and Latino Americans as a whole make up a racially diverse group and as a whole are the largest minority in the country.[18][19]
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