Americans are the citizens and nationals of the United States of America.; ; * U.S. federal law does not equate nationality with race or ethnicity, but rather with citizenship.**
The U.S. has 37 ancestry groups with more than one million individuals. White Americans form the largest racial and ethnic group at 61.6% of the U.S. population, with non-Hispanic whites making up 57.8% of the population. Hispanic and Latino Americans form the second-largest group and are 18.7% of the American population. Black Americans constitute the country's third-largest ancestry group and are 12.4% of the total U.S. population. Asian Americans are the country's fourth-largest group, composing 6% of the American population. The country's 3.7 million Native Americans account for about 1.1%, and some 574 native tribes are recognized by the federal government. People of American descent can be found internationally. As many as seven million Americans are estimated to be living abroad, and make up the American diaspora.
The majority of Americans trace their roots to immigrants who arrived in what is now the United States, starting with European colonization in the 16th century. This includes European American groups such as the English, Irish, Germans, Italians, and others, as well as Africans forcibly brought as slaves during the Atlantic slave trade. However, the Native American population, whose ancestors inhabited the continent for thousands of years before European contact, are a key exception.
Despite its multi-ethnic composition,Adams, J.Q., and Pearlie Strother-Adams (2001). Dealing with Diversity. Chicago: Kendall/Hunt. .Thompson, William, and Joseph Hickey (2005). Society in Focus. Boston: Pearson. . the culture of the United States held in common by most Americans can also be referred to as mainstream American culture—a Western culture largely derived from the traditions of Northern and Western European colonists, settlers, and immigrants. It also includes significant influences of African-American culture.Holloway, Joseph E. (2005). Africanisms in American Culture, 2d ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 18–38. . Johnson, Fern L. (1999). Speaking Culturally: Language Diversity in the United States. Thousand Oaks, California, London, and New Delhi: Sage, p. 116. . Westward expansion integrated the French-speaking Creoles and Cajuns of Louisiana and the Hispanos of the American Southwest, who brought close contact with the culture of Mexico. Large-scale immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries from Eastern and Southern Europe introduced a variety of new customs. Immigration from Africa, Asia, and Latin America has also had impact. A cultural melting pot, or pluralistic salad bowl, describes the way in which generations of Americans have celebrated and exchanged distinctive cultural characteristics.
History The original Indigenous population came to what is now the United States from Siberia via the Bering Strait. For thousands of years prior to European colonization, Native American tribes had been established in what is now the United States. Estimates for their pre-contact population, range from 3 million to 12 million, living in over 600 distinct societies. Indigenous languages and cultures differed by region. European colonization of what is now the United States began in the 16th century after the Spanish conquest of Mexico, with the failed Spanish Narváez expedition in the southwestern territories in 1527. The next to arrive in North America were the French, followed by the Dutch and finally the British who each settled in different parts of North America. Early interactions between European settlers and Indigenous peoples were often amicable; however by the 1630s, as the number of settlers grew as well as increased self-sufficiency, colonists encroached further upon Indigenous lands and imposed Christianity and their culture upon Native peoples. The impact of the European colonization was catastrophic on the Native population, as they introduced diseases, such as smallpox, syphilis, and influenza, that decimated many Native American populations.
Racial and ethnic groups
The United States is a diverse country, both racially and ethnically. Six races are officially recognized by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes: Alaska Native and American Indian, Asian, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, White, and people of two or more races. "Some other race" is also an option in the census and other surveys.
The United States Census Bureau also classifies Americans as "Hispanic or Latino" and "Not Hispanic or Latino", which identifies Hispanic and Latino Americans as a racially diverse ethnicity that comprises the largest minority group in the nation.
White and European Americans
White Americans constitute the majority of the 331 million people living in the United States, with 204,277,273 people or 61.6% of the population in the 2020 United States census. The US census defines "white" as "[a] person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa". Non-Hispanic whites, which only account for 57.8% of the population, or 191,697,647 people, are the majority in 44 states. There are six minority-majority states: California, Texas, Maryland, New Mexico, Nevada, and Hawaii. In addition, the District of Columbia and the five inhabited U.S. territories have a non-white majority. The state with the highest percentage of non-Hispanic white Americans is Maine, while the state with the lowest percentage is Hawaii.
Europe is the largest continent that Americans trace their ancestry to, and many claim descent from various European ethnic groups.Ohio State University. Diversity Dictionary. 2006. September 4, 2006. OSU.edu
The Spaniards were among the first Europeans to establish a continuous presence in what is now the continental United States in 1565 in San Agustín, La Florida then a part of New Spain. Virginia Dare (b. 1587) in Roanoke Island in present-day North Carolina, was the first child born in the original Thirteen Colonies to English parents. The Spaniards also established a continuous presence in what over three centuries later would become a possession of the United States with the founding of the city of San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 1521.
Jewish Americans trace their ancestry primarily to Central and Eastern Europe, with smaller numbers from the Middle East and North Africa. Large numbers of Jewish immigrants arrived in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, fleeing persecution in the Russian Empire and other parts of Eastern Europe. They arrived in cities such as New York City, Chicago, and Philadelphia.
In the 2020 United States census, English Americans 46.5 million (19.8%), German Americans 45m (19.1%), Irish Americans 38.6m (16.4%), and Italian Americans 16.8m (7.1%) were the four largest self-reported European ancestry groups in the United States constituting 62.4% of the white American population. However, the English Americans and British Americans demography is considered a serious under-count as they tend to self-report and identify as simply "Americans" (since the introduction of a new "American" category in the 1990 census) due to the length of time they have inhabited America. This is highly over-represented in the Upland South, a region that was settled historically by the British.Ethnic Landscapes of America – By John A. CrossCensus and you: monthly news from the U.S. Bureau... Volume 28, Issue 2 – By United States. Bureau of the CensusSharing the Dream: White Males in a Multicultural America By Dominic J. Pulera.Reynolds Farley, 'The New Census Question about Ancestry: What Did It Tell Us?', Demography, Vol. 28, No. 3 (August 1991), pp. 414, 421.Stanley Lieberson and Lawrence Santi, 'The Use of Nativity Data to Estimate Ethnic Characteristics and Patterns', Social Science Research, Vol. 14, No. 1 (1985), pp. 44–6.Stanley Lieberson and Mary C. Waters, 'Ethnic Groups in Flux: The Changing Ethnic Responses of American Whites', Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 487, No. 79 (September 1986), pp. 82–86.
Overall, as the largest group, European Americans have the lowest poverty rate and the second highest educational attainment levels, median household income, and median personal income of any racial demographic in the nation, second only to Asian Americans in the latter three categories.
White and European Americans by ethnic origins Rank Ethnic origins % of white population Population 1 English 19.8 46,550,968 2 German 19.1 44,978,546 3 Irish 16.4 38,597,428 4 Italian 7.1 16,813,235 5 Polish 3.7 8,599,601 6 ScottishScots-Irish 3.60.38,422,613 794,478 7 FrenchFrench Canadian 3.40.4 7,994,088933,740 8 Swedish 1.6 3,839,796 9 Norwegian 1.63,836,884 10 Dutch 1.63,649,179 Total White and European American 57.9% 204,277,273
Hispanic and Latino Americans
Hispanic and Latino Americans constitute the largest ethnic minority in the United States. They form the second-largest group in the United States, comprising 62,080,044 people or 18.7% of the population according to the 2020 United States census.
Hispanic and Latino Americans are not considered a race in the United States census, instead forming an ethnic category.
People of Spanish or Hispanic and Latino descent have lived in what is now United States territory since the founding of San Juan, Puerto Rico (the oldest continuously inhabited settlement on American soil) in 1521 by Juan Ponce de León, and the founding of St. Augustine, Florida (the oldest continuously inhabited settlement in the continental United States) in 1565 by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés. In the State of Texas, Spaniards first settled the region in the late 1600s and formed a unique cultural group known as Tejanos.
Hispanic and Latino American population by national origin Rank National origin % of total population Pop. 1 Mexican 10.29% 31,798,258 2 Puerto Rican 1.49% 4,623,716 3 Cuban 0.57% 1,785,547 4 Salvadoran 0.53% 1,648,968 5 Dominican 0.45% 1,414,703 6 Guatemalan 0.33% 1,044,209 7 Colombian 0.3% 908,734 8 Spanish 0.2% 635,253 9 Honduran 0.2% 633,401 10 Ecuadorian 0.1% 564,631 11 Peruvian 0.1% 531,358 All other 2.62% 7,630,835 Hispanic and Latino American (total) 18.7% 62,080,044 2020 United States census
Black and African Americans
Black and African Americans are citizens and residents of the United States with origins in sub-Saharan Africa. According to the Office of Management and Budget, the grouping includes individuals who self-identify as African American, as well as persons who emigrated from nations in the Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa. The grouping is thus based on geography, and may contradict or misrepresent an individual's self-identification since not all immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa are "Black". Among these racial outliers are persons from Cape Verde, Madagascar, various Arab states, and Hamito-Semitic populations in East Africa and the Sahel, and the Afrikaners of Southern Africa. African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans or Afro-Americans, and formerly as American Negroes) are citizens or residents of the United States who have origins in any of the black populations of Africa. According to the 2020 United States census, there were 39,940,338 black and African Americans in the United States, representing 12.4% of the population.United States – ACS Demographic and Housing Estimates: 2009 . Factfinder.census.gov. Retrieved December 9, 2010. Black and African Americans make up the third-largest group in the United States, after white and European Americans, and Hispanic and Latino Americans. The majority of the population (55%) lives in the South; compared to the 2000 United States census, there has also been a decrease of African Americans in the Northeast and Midwest.