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As Aunt B suggests it’s high time someone explore the German problem. On the other hand I’m confused as to what “American” ancestry is, for obvious reasons.
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We always use this map or variants of it in our sociology of Race and Ethnicity classes.
We talk about the issue of American Ethnicity in the class as well. German Americans are by far the largest ethnic group in the US, followed by Irish and then English. I can’t remember what is 4th (maybe African ancestry).
My sense is that most people who identify as American are people whose families have been in the US for hundreds of years. The have mixed European ethnic ancestry, but they are so far removed from it that they don’t feel a connection, and in many cases don’t even know what their ethnicities may be. Most of these people likely have a much stronger racial identity than an ethnic identity. They identify with whiteness, but not the ethnic groups that stem comprise the current definition of whiteness.
I know one thing we are definitely not talking about American Indians………
There is also this big debate about whether or not American is an ethnicity. I tend to think it is becoming one, but I think this country is still young and it has such a multiplicity of ethnic ancestries that much of what exists as American ethnicity is a hodgepodge of ethnic traditions.
It’s those Norwegians up to the north I’M worried about. Who let them in?
Interesting. That map does tend to exaggerate the Germans a bit, because a lot of very German places are pretty sparsely populated.
I’m curious about their methodology, though. Are they going by self-reporting? That would be problematic, since people tend to identify more strongly with some parts of their heritage than others. (People who are part German and part Irish are, in my experience, likely to identify as Irish, since Irish ethnicity is pretty strong in America and German is pretty weak in most places.) And if they’re not, then there are real questions about how you tease out people’s ancestry. Do you count Scots-Irish people as Scottish or Irish? How do you know if someone from Ireland was Scots-Irish or Irish-Irish. (It’s not as simple as you’d think: there’s controversy among historians about how many of those supposedly Scots-Irish people in Appalachia were really Gaelic Irish who converted to Protestantism for one reason or another.) What do you do about shifts in international boundaries? I bet a lot of the reason that Appalachia registers as “American” is that it’s not that easy to tell where people’s ancestors came from.
Why don’t I understand what “American” means, and why it’s only located where it is? Does it mean that only the middle South refuses to identify any further ethnicity, or hwat?
Look out for those wacky Finns in da U.P. eh!
Seriously, this is precisely what I was thinking, too. My own family is a good example. I have a German last name (we think it’s likely a Germanized name originally from eastern Europe), German ancestors on both sides of my family, etc., but the ethnicity that was predominant in terms of identity in our household was Polish; there was never any explicity acknowledgement of German ancestry but the Polish cultural markers that my family found significant were present almost daily. I suspect that might be because the Polish experience in my family was more recent and therefore hadn’t yet faded into a general “Americanism”.
Well, there were also a couple wars that encouraged the damping of German ethnic pride.
Seriously, especially during WWI, people used to kick dachshunds just because they were German dogs (while leaving German shepherds alone, in the way of all bullies). Some towns changed their names or at least pronunciations (Ber-LINN, CT became BER-lin).
Look out for those wacky Finns in da U.P. eh!
Word. How did they wind up being the plurality (not majority; this seems to measure the largest ethnic group rather than majority, since otherwise, black folks would be running the South) in da U.P.?
As someone who is half-Swedish, I demand to know where the Swedes are! Or are they subsumed by the Norwegian title? And that just doesn’t seem fair, cuz you know Norway is a whole different country and all.
Oh and my other half is German. Hess is the patriarch’s name for cryin’ out loud.
I believe that Finns from da U.P. represented a significant portion of American communists (both big and small “c”) in the 1910s and 1920s. They’re actually some pretty interesting folks, if you’re into that kind of thing.
Sorry. I’m a huge ethnicity and immigration nerd. And a pedant.
Here’s the PDF with all the methodology: CensusMap. Everyone who answered was permitted to choose up to two options. “American” was only accepted when repondant didn’t choose anything else. Where respondant picked two, both were used, but only the top slot is shown per count. Most popular combo German-Irish at a mere 2.7% of the population.
Top choice for the ten most populous cities is either African-American or Mexican.
Interesting change over time: fewer people are choosing specific national ancestry, more are choosing regional. I’m English, Scottish, Welch, Northern Irish, French, German, and Cherokee. If I went with proportions, I’d have to choose Northern European twice.
At least now we know why the call it New England.
I’m curious how it would look if there were no national options, only continent.
Hey, ain’t nothin’ wrong with Germans. :-) I got a big jar of sauerkraut fermenting away on my counter. Paternal grandparents were German all the way (all four great-grandparents), but on my mom’s side, I got all sorts of stuff: Nowegian, English, Dutch, Irish, Scottish, and American Indian. I just say that I’m a northern European mutt.
What I found kinda neat was that I could pretty much predict by looking at WHERE the colors were, which colors would correspond to which ethnicities. Just from being an American with stereotypical thinking.
Ditto Rachel (but less articulately), I would guess that “American” probably stands for “screw it, I’ve run out of fingers for counting back how many generations my family have been here/we immigrated well outside living memory/we’re too mixed up to tell.” I fall somewhere in there, and usually default to “american?” (with a shrug) myself. Or else “My people come from the land of WASP.” But West Coasters tend to look at me funny at that point.
I guess it makes sense to have “American” then although I too was confused by that at first. My maternal grandmother’s sister made a family history tracing her father’s family back through the male line. Several centuries ago some French guy named Pierre Brou came to Louisiana. But that’s only one small piece of the family tree and I don’t know the first thing about the rest of it. So I don’t consider myself French. Or anything else really. I guess I’d just be American.
Yes, that’s very true also. Let’s not forget “liberty cabbage” (WWI’s version of “freedom fries”).
Indeed. I knew a couple of Finnish Yoopers, and they told me about their families’ political activism, mostly labor-based, which makes sense due to the fact that a lot of Finnish immigrants worked in the copper and iron ore mines in da U.P., and the mining unions were among the most radical.
“American” = mutt
Probably a Scotch-Irish-German melange
Mexican is an “ethnicity”? Hispanic/Spanish?
Nada.
Uh, also designating all of LA/San Berdo/Riverside/San Diego counties as “Mexican” is just weird… LA especially is host to the largest ex-pat communities in the world (outside their native countries) of Koreans, Armenians, Vietnamese and some others.
I’m so glad I taught my kids to refuse to identify their “race” on any paperwork.
While Chicago has more Polish people than any city outside of Warsaw, we’re mostly African-American.
And I have no honest idea what my lineage is. I know that some adoptive parents several generations back were German Lutheran missionaries and that’s how there is a farm in Oklahoma in the family. But otherwise, I have to look at the names and kinda guess. And since until my father’s generation most people were illiterate in the family, I don’t know how well I can trust that as an indicator. And that only helps me with my paternal mother’s family. My paternal grandfather’s family? No clue. And my maternal grandmother’s family? Also no clue and since we’ve found 4 different spellings for her last name can’t even guess.
So, I’m a mutt but I just go by White American when I have to fill out forms. And deal with the “That’s so sad” looks I get from people when I tell them this. Eh.
I have 4 year old identical twin grandsons…
One grandparent is 1st generation Italian-American, One grandparent is 2nd generation Irish-American, one grandparent (me) is a “mutt”, and one grandparent is Mexican-Irish-American.
So their mom will do what I did… check “other” when registering them for school.
The designating thing can get especially weird in Hawaii. I have a niece and nephew who are Hawaiian-Chinese-Puerto Rican-Irish-Mexican. And this kind of mix isn’t uncommon there.
Mexican is an “ethnicity”? Hispanic/Spanish?
Nada.
Uh, also designating all of LA/San Berdo/Riverside/San Diego counties as “Mexican” is just weird… LA especially is host to the largest ex-pat communities in the world (outside their native countries) of Koreans, Armenians, Vietnamese and some others.
a) you yourself just identified one of your grandsons’ grandparents as part Mexican. And you are probably aware that it’s not a bunch of pureblooded Spaniards running around south of the border — there were a few other folks there before the Spanish found the place. Also, “Hispanic” is a linguistic designation, not a racial/ethnic one.
b) Why is it weird, if that’s the largest single ethnic group there?
zuzu
I identified “Mexican” because that’s where the country the great-grandparents immigrated from. And it is a diverise country. “Hispanic” is not an ethnicity, it’s a regional designation.
So I find it “weird” on many levels.
Indeed, “Jewish” is much more an ethnicity than “Hispanic” and it’s not on the list.
I’m bracing myself for the “If you’re against the Iraq War, you’re an anti-Semite” threadjack.
In my home state of New Mexico, “Hispanic” is most definitely an ethnicity–it’s what most people who might fall under the categories of Mexican-American/Latino/Chicano/Spanish call themselves. It’s a catch-all, with some significant nuances contained within.
In general, I’d say the ethnicities recognized by your average New Mexican are Hispanic, Anglo, Native American, African-American, and Asian-American.
If someone identifies themselves as “Hispanic”, if you press further they’ll probably tell you that they’re one of the following:
Mexican
Mexican-American
Spanish
New Mexican
But if you ask for their race or ethnicity, they first identify as “Hispanic”.
Are they using census data? Because “Jewish” is not a valid answer to the ethnicity question on the census. I believe that’s because Jewish leaders felt that anti-Semites would use census data to argue bad things about Jews. If you answer “Jewish” in the ethnicity section, your answer won’t be counted. (I got the long form in 2000, and I had no idea what to answer, since the only ethnicity with which I identify is Jewish. I think I left it blank.)
Having said that, I’d be really surprised if Jews were the most common ethnic group anywhere in the country. Possibly Manhattan, but even there probably not.
Rox
Please stand down the phasers. I’m only trying to point out the inherent sloppiness when any bureaucracy is trying to categorize people according to ever changing and unscientific definitions.
The map is entitled “Ethnic Ancestory” … ok, self-reported “ethnic” as in cultural? Ethnic as in “race”? (and that begs the question — what is “race”?)
Edward James Olmos is Mexican-American and so is Joanna Kerns.
Mexican culture is the result of the mixing of Southern European and aboriginal Indian cultures. The people of Mexico are, of varying degrees, genetically tied to both.
Jewish is not just a religious designation and certainly falls into the cultural designation. And populations have held those cultural ties close enough that there is, too, genetic populations that overlay that culture.
“Hispanic” is such a null term as to be almost useless… the government uses it for anyone who comes from “Hispanic” labeled countries regardless of ethnic/cultural heritage.
Radio-talkshow host Bill Handel is the son of a Holocaust survivor and a Brazilian mother and since he was born in Brazil and immigrated to this country when he was a child, he can claim per government definition, to be “Hispanic.”
While I personally find geneology fascinating in tracing the migration of populations over time (and learning the roots of family traditions), I’ve always been leery and uncomfortable with the attempts to categorize people according to rather arbitrary and politically shifting designations.
I have for years refused to mark the “race” box on forms and have taught my child to do the same.
“my child” should be “my children”
Here a link to my site that shows
They make a distinction between race and ethnicity. This map is measuring ethnicity, not race. I think your confusing the two Darleen, not that there is a 100% clear distinction.
Sally, They are only picking the largest group. In many cases that group may be less than 1/2 the population, but still be the largest ethnic group.
Also the Census is prohibited by law from asking about religion, which does make me wonder what they do when people fill in the ethnicity slot on the long form with Jewish.
Everybody should keep in mind that this question is only on the long form. The short forms that most of us get don’t include this question. They do ask people to indentify an “enrolled tribe” if they check American Indian, but that’s as close as they get.
Right. But I’m not convinced that Jews are the largest single ethnic group anywhere in the U.S., or at least anywhere big enough to register on that map. I could be totally wrong about that.
From the census webpage on the ancestry question:
So if you write “Jewish,” you get shoved into “other ancestries.” They literally will not count Jews. I know that Jewish leaders were instrumental in keeping the proposed religion question off of the census, and I’m pretty sure that I read somewhere that pressure from Jews is the reason that they won’t count “Jewish” as a valid answer in the ancestry question. There’s a fear that if they cross-tabulate Jewishness with other things, it will lend fodder to anti-Semitic conspiracy theories (since it will reveal that Jews are wealthier and better-educated than the country as a whole, although I believe the fear goes back to the days when Jews worried it would show that they were poorer than the country as a whole), and a lot of Jews have Holocaust-related hang-ups about the government keeping records of who’s Jewish. There was an article in September’s Journal of American History about the controversy about the 1960 religion question.
Or else “My people come from the land of WASP.” But West Coasters tend to look at me funny at that point.
Well, yeah, on the West Coast there’s no such thing as “WASP”; the proper term here is “Anglo.” The part that was weird for me to adjust to, coming from the East, is that it turns out that “Greek-American” is subsumed under “Anglo.” So is “Irish-American,” to the annoyance of some Irish-Americans :-).
And it’s not especially weird to me that the map shows me in the middle of a sea of Mexican, given that it’s picking the plurality ethnic group, and not the absolute majority one (if it went for absolute majority, lots of places wouldn’t have one, including probably most of California).
Sally, Yeah, I think you are right. I doubt Jews are the largest group even in Naussau county Long Island, Kings County (Brooklyn), or Manhattan (in fact my top of the head guess is Italians–now I gotta go look).
That quote is interesting. I’m going to have to read that article. I think it is beyond just the Jewish question because my understanding is that from the very beginning it was agreed that they would not measure religion because of the religious freedom/separation of church and state issue. (Reminds me how much better the US is on religious issues, compared to race.) Nevertheless, I agree with many of your points.
In Manhattan the biggest group on the map is Dominicans, in Brooklyn it’s African-Americans, and in Nassau County it’s Italians.
Jews comprise 20% of the population of Manhattan; I have no idea how many Dominicans there are here, though.
Sally, it’s even more complicated than the more complicated. Scots- or Scotch-Irish is a term used essentially only in the US. Around the world, other folks that pay attention to the Celtic diaspora understand what is meant by Ulster Presbyterians, or less common and slightly different, Ulster Scots. Simple enough; respectively the Presbyterians or the Scots with roots in the Ulster (this includes some of my mother’s people, who were Scots migrated to the Ulster, then back to the Scottish Central Belt, and finally to the US; their religion was mostly Free Presbyterian). In the US, some folks use Scots-Irish as co-extensive with either of these groups, while others limit the use to the descendants of the earliest, 17th century Scots to migrate to Ireland and thence to the New World, which leaves out all those folks that migrated to Ireland from the Highlands in the 18th Century and then left to follow a paycheck.
And anyway, distinguishing between Gaelic Irish who converted to Protestant and Scots from the Ulster is in my view not useful. Many Ulster Presbyterians were Scots Gaelic speakers; their Q-Celtic language very close to Irish and their roots in the same migration of Celtic peoples — as you may know, the “Scots” that were joined to the Picts in the 800s to form Scotland as a united entity were the descendants of the Kingdom of Dal Riada, which the “Scotti” from Ireland founded in the 4th century on the Western shore of Scotland. In the 17th or 18th century, there was more common ground in language and culture between the ragged-arsed crofters and Western Isles lads on the one hand and a fisherman from the rocky shores of the Gaeltacht in Ireland, on the other, than between the same folks and the Scots-speakers of the lowlands. The Wars of Independence created a sort of unity between highlander and lowlander against the big Southern neighbor, but that fell apart for many centuries, culminating in the Jacobite Risings, Culloden and the Clearances (lowlanders were completely complicit with the English there), before Walter Scott and Highland romanticism made the Gaelic culture of the Highlands a collection of national rather than regional symbols.
All that is to say that enthicity isn’t no simple most places. People migrate and religions, languages and tribes mix, assimilate and change. The Basques have been on that patch of ground, as far as anyone can tell, since the last mammoth gave up the ghost, speaking the same language; the same is largely true of Australia’s indiginous people. The rest of us are vagabonds and mutts.