Minorities in the United States
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United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
has a
racially A race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. The term came into common usage during the 1500s, when it was used to refer to groups of variou ...
and
ethnically An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...
diverse population. At the federal level, race and ethnicity have been categorized separately. The most recent United States Census officially recognized five racial categories (
White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on ...
, Black or African American,
Asian Asian may refer to: * Items from or related to the continent of Asia: ** Asian people, people in or descending from Asia ** Asian culture, the culture of the people from Asia ** Asian cuisine, food based on the style of food of the people from Asi ...
, Native American/
Alaska Native Alaska Natives (also known as Alaskan Natives, Native Alaskans, Indigenous Alaskans, Aboriginal Alaskans or First Alaskans) are the indigenous peoples of Alaska and include Iñupiat, Yupik, Aleut, Eyak, Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, and a numbe ...
, and Native Hawaiian/
Pacific Islander Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the list of islands in the Pacific Ocean, Pacific Islands. As an ethnic group, ethnic/race (human categorization), racial term, it is used to describe the original p ...
) as well as people of two or more races. The Census Bureau also classified respondents as "Hispanic or Latino" or "Not Hispanic or Latino", identifying Hispanic and Latino as an ''ethnicity'', which comprises the largest minority group in the nation. The census also asked an "Ancestry Question," which covers the broader notion of ethnicity, in the 2000 census long form and the 2010
American Community Survey The American Community Survey (ACS) is a demographics survey program conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. It regularly gathers information previously contained only in the long form of the decennial census, such as ancestry, citizenship, educati ...
; the question worded differently on "origins" will return in the 2020 census. As of 2020,
White Americans White Americans are Americans who identify as and are perceived to be white people. This group constitutes the majority of the people in the United States. As of the 2020 Census, 61.6%, or 204,277,273 people, were white alone. This represented ...
are the racial and ethnic majority, with non-Hispanic whites representing 57.8% of the population. Hispanic and Latino Americans are the largest ethnic minority, comprising 18.7% of the population, while Black or African Americans are the second largest racial minority, making up 12.1%. White Americans are the majority in every census-defined region (Northeast, Midwest, South, and West) and in every state except
Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...
, but contribute the highest proportion of the population in the
Midwestern United States The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. I ...
, at 85% per the
Population Estimates Program The Population Estimates Program (PEP) is a program of the U.S. Census Bureau that publishes annual population estimates and estimates of birth, death, and international migration rates for people in the United States. In addition to publishing tho ...
(PEP) or 83% per the
American Community Survey The American Community Survey (ACS) is a demographics survey program conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. It regularly gathers information previously contained only in the long form of the decennial census, such as ancestry, citizenship, educati ...
(ACS). Non-Hispanic Whites make up 79% of the Midwest's population, the highest proportion of any region. At the same time, the region with the greatest share of White Americans is the
South South is one of the cardinal directions or Points of the compass, compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Pro ...
, which comprise 35%. Currently, 55% of the African American population lives in the South. A plurality or majority of the other official groups reside in the West. The latter region is home to 42% of Hispanic and Latino Americans, 46% of
Asian Americans Asian Americans are Americans of Asian ancestry (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of such immigrants). Although this term had historically been used for all the indigenous people ...
, 48% of American Indians and
Alaska Natives Alaska Natives (also known as Alaskan Natives, Native Alaskans, Indigenous Alaskans, Aboriginal Alaskans or First Alaskans) are the indigenous peoples of Alaska and include Iñupiat, Yupik, Aleut, Eyak, Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, and a numbe ...
, 68% of
Native Hawaiians Native Hawaiians (also known as Indigenous Hawaiians, Kānaka Maoli, Aboriginal Hawaiians, First Hawaiians, or simply Hawaiians) ( haw, kānaka, , , and ), are the indigenous ethnic group of Polynesian people of the Hawaiian Islands. Hawaii ...
and Other Pacific Islanders, 37% of the "two or more races" population (
Multiracial Americans Multiracial Americans are Americans who have mixed ancestry of two or more races. The term may also include Americans of mixed race ancestry who self-identify with just one group culturally and socially (cf. the one-drop rule). In the 2010 Unite ...
), and 46% of those self-designated as "some other race". The five inhabited U.S. territories are ethnically diverse while each is fairly homogeneous
American Samoa American Samoa ( sm, Amerika Sāmoa, ; also ' or ') is an unincorporated territory of the United States located in the South Pacific Ocean, southeast of the island country of Samoa. Its location is centered on . It is east of the International ...
has a high percentage of Pacific Islanders,
Guam Guam (; ch, Guåhan ) is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. It is the westernmost point and territory of the United States (reckoned from the geographic cent ...
and the
Northern Mariana Islands The Northern Mariana Islands, officially the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI; ch, Sankattan Siha Na Islas Mariånas; cal, Commonwealth Téél Falúw kka Efáng llól Marianas), is an unincorporated territory and commonw ...
are mostly Asian and Pacific Islander,
Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and Unincorporated ...
is mostly Hispanic/Latino, and the
U.S. Virgin Islands The United States Virgin Islands,. Also called the ''American Virgin Islands'' and the ''U.S. Virgin Islands''. officially the Virgin Islands of the United States, are a group of Caribbean islands and an unincorporated and organized territory ...
is mostly African American.


Racial and ethnic categories


Racial categories

The first United States census in 1790 classed residents as free White people (divided by age and sex), all other free persons (reported by sex and color), and enslaved people. The 2000 census officially recognized six racial categories including people of two or more races; a category called "some other race" was also used in the census and other surveys, but is not official. In the 2000 census and subsequent Census Bureau surveys, Americans self-described as belonging to these racial groups: *
White American White Americans are Americans who identify as and are perceived to be white people. This group constitutes the majority of the people in the United States. As of the 2020 Census, 61.6%, or 204,277,273 people, were white alone. This represented ...
,
European American European Americans (also referred to as Euro-Americans) are Americans of European ancestry. This term includes people who are descended from the first European settlers in the United States as well as people who are descended from more recent Eu ...
, or
Middle Eastern American Middle Eastern Americans are Americans of Middle Eastern background. According to the United States Census Bureau, the term "Middle Eastern American" applies to anyone of West Asian or North African origin. This includes people whose background is ...
: those having origins in any of the original peoples of
Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
, the
Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...
, or
North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...
. Following consultations with Middle East and North Africa (
MENA MENA, an acronym in the English language, refers to a grouping of countries situated in and around the Middle East and North Africa. It is also known as WANA, SWANA, or NAWA, which alternatively refers to the Middle East as Western Asia (or a ...
) organizations, the Census Bureau announced in 2014 that it would establish a new MENA ethnic category for populations from the
Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...
,
North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...
, and the
Arab world The Arab world ( ar, اَلْعَالَمُ الْعَرَبِيُّ '), formally the Arab homeland ( '), also known as the Arab nation ( '), the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, refers to a vast group of countries, mainly located in Western A ...
. However, this did not occur on the 2020 Census. * Black or African American: those having origins in any of the native peoples of
sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa is, geographically, the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lies south of the Sahara. These include West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the List of sov ...
. For the 2000 Census, this "includes people who indicated their race or races as "Black, African Am., or Negro," or wrote in entries such as African American, Afro American, Nigerian, or Haitian". * American Indian or
Alaska Native Alaska Natives (also known as Alaskan Natives, Native Alaskans, Indigenous Alaskans, Aboriginal Alaskans or First Alaskans) are the indigenous peoples of Alaska and include Iñupiat, Yupik, Aleut, Eyak, Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, and a numbe ...
: those having origins in any of the original peoples of
North North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating Direction (geometry), direction or geography. Etymology T ...
,
Central Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object. Central may also refer to: Directions and generalised locations * Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known as ...
, and
South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...
. *
Asian American Asian Americans are Americans of Asian ancestry (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of such immigrants). Although this term had historically been used for all the indigenous people ...
: those having origins in any of the original peoples of the
Far East The ''Far East'' was a European term to refer to the geographical regions that includes East and Southeast Asia as well as the Russian Far East to a lesser extent. South Asia is sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons. The ter ...
,
Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...
, and the
Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a list of the physiographic regions of the world, physiographical region in United Nations geoscheme for Asia#Southern Asia, Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian O ...
. * Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander: those having origins in any of the original peoples of
Polynesia Polynesia () "many" and νῆσος () "island"), to, Polinisia; mi, Porinihia; haw, Polenekia; fj, Polinisia; sm, Polenisia; rar, Porinetia; ty, Pōrīnetia; tvl, Polenisia; tkl, Polenihia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania, made up of ...
,
Melanesia Melanesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It extends from Indonesia's New Guinea in the west to Fiji in the east, and includes the Arafura Sea. The region includes the four independent countries of Fiji, Va ...
, or
Micronesia Micronesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania, consisting of about 2,000 small islands in the western Pacific Ocean. It has a close shared cultural history with three other island regions: the Philippines to the west, Polynesia to the east, and ...
. * Other: respondents wrote how they identified themselves if different from the preceding categories (e.g.
Roma Roma or ROMA may refer to: Places Australia * Roma, Queensland, a town ** Roma Airport ** Roma Courthouse ** Electoral district of Roma, defunct ** Town of Roma, defunct town, now part of the Maranoa Regional Council *Roma Street, Brisbane, a ...
or Aboriginal/Indigenous Australian). However, 95% of the people who report in this category are
Hispanic The term ''Hispanic'' ( es, hispano) refers to people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or Hispanidad. The term commonly applies to countries with a cultural and historical link to Spain and to Vic ...
Mestizo (; ; fem. ) is a term used for racial classification to refer to a person of mixed Ethnic groups in Europe, European and Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous American ancestry. In certain regions such as Latin America, it may also r ...
s. This is not a standard OMB race category. Responses have included mixed-race terms such as ''
Métis The Métis ( ; Canadian ) are Indigenous peoples who inhabit Canada's three Prairie Provinces, as well as parts of British Columbia, the Northwest Territories, and the Northern United States. They have a shared history and culture which derives ...
'', '' Creole'', and ''
Mulatto (, ) is a racial classification to refer to people of mixed African and European ancestry. Its use is considered outdated and offensive in several languages, including English and Dutch, whereas in languages such as Spanish and Portuguese is ...
'', which are generally considered to be categories of multi-racial ancestry (see below), but, write-in entries reported in the 2000 census also included
nationalities Nationality is a legal identification of a person in international law, establishing the person as a subject, a ''national'', of a sovereign state. It affords the state jurisdiction over the person and affords the person the protection of the ...
(as opposed to ethnicities), such as ''
South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...
n'', ''
Belize Belize (; bzj, Bileez) is a Caribbean and Central American country on the northeastern coast of Central America. It is bordered by Mexico to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and Guatemala to the west and south. It also shares a wate ...
an'', or '' Puerto Rican'', as well as other terms for mixed-race groups like ''
Wesort We-Sorts (also Wesorts) is a name for a group of Native Americans in Maryland who are from the Piscataway tribe. It is regarded as derogatory and a pejorative by some, and rarely used by the current younger generation. The Piscataway were powerf ...
'', '' Melungeon'', ''mixed'', ''interracial'', and others. * Two or more races, widely known as
multiracial Mixed race people are people of more than one race or ethnicity. A variety of terms have been used both historically and presently for mixed race people in a variety of contexts, including ''multiethnic'', ''polyethnic'', occasionally ''bi-ethn ...
: those who check off and/or write in more than one race. There is no option labelled "two or more races" or "
multiracial Mixed race people are people of more than one race or ethnicity. A variety of terms have been used both historically and presently for mixed race people in a variety of contexts, including ''multiethnic'', ''polyethnic'', occasionally ''bi-ethn ...
" on census and other forms; people who report more than one of the foregoing six options are classified as people of "two or more races" in subsequent processing. Any respondent may identify with any number (including all six) of the racial categories. Each person has two identifying attributes, racial identity and whether or not they are of Hispanic ethnicity. These categories are sociopolitical constructs and should not be interpreted as being scientific or anthropological in nature. They have been changed from one census to another, and the racial categories include both "racial" and national-origin groups. In 2007, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission of the U.S. Department of Labor finalized the update of its EEO-1 report format and guidelines concerning the definitions of racial/ethnic categories.


Census-designated ethnicities: Hispanic or Latino origin

The question on Hispanic or Latino origin is separate from the question on race.
Hispanic and Latino Americans Hispanic and Latino Americans ( es, Estadounidenses hispanos y latinos; pt, Estadunidenses hispânicos e latinos) are Americans of Spanish and/or Latin American ancestry. More broadly, these demographics include all Americans who identify as ...
have ethnic origins in a Spanish-speaking country or
Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
. Latin American countries are, like the United States, racially diverse. Consequently, no separate racial category exists for Hispanic and Latino Americans, as they do not constitute a race, nor a national group. When responding to the race question on the census form, each person is asked to choose from among the same racial categories as all Americans, and are included in the numbers reported for those races. Each racial category may contain Non-Hispanic or Latino and Hispanic or Latino Americans. For example: the White or European-American race category contains Non-Hispanic Whites and Hispanic Whites (see White Hispanic and Latino Americans); the Black or African-American category contains Non-Hispanic Blacks and Hispanic Blacks (see Black Hispanic and Latino Americans); the Asian-American category contains Non-Hispanic Asians and Hispanic Asians (see Asian Hispanic and Latino Americans), and likewise for all the other categories. See the section on
Hispanic and Latino Americans Hispanic and Latino Americans ( es, Estadounidenses hispanos y latinos; pt, Estadunidenses hispânicos e latinos) are Americans of Spanish and/or Latin American ancestry. More broadly, these demographics include all Americans who identify as ...
in this article. Self-identifying as both Hispanic or Latino ''and'' not Hispanic or Latino is neither explicitly allowed nor explicitly prohibited.


Ethnicity, national origin, and cultural groups (generally not mentioned in census data)


Social definitions of race

In the United States since its early history, Native Americans, Africans, and Europeans were considered to belong to different races. For nearly three centuries, the criteria for membership in these groups were similar, comprising a person's appearance, their social circle (how they lived), and known non-White ancestry (the single drop rule). History played a part, as persons with known slave ancestors were assumed to be African (or, in later usage, Black), regardless of whether they also had European ancestry. The differences between how Native American and Black identities are defined today ( blood quantum versus one-drop and political assumptions) have been based on different historical circumstances. According to the
anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...
Gerald Sider, such racial designations were a means to concentrate power, wealth, privilege and land in the hands of Whites in a society of White hegemony and privilege (Sider 1996; see also Fields 1990). The differences had little to do with biology and more to do with the history of slavery and its
racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...
, and specific forms of
white supremacy White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White su ...
(the social, geopolitical and economic agendas of dominant Whites ''vis-à-vis'' subordinate Blacks and Native Americans). They related especially to the different social places which Blacks and Amerindians occupied in White-dominated 19th-century America. Sider suggests that the blood quantum definition of Native American identity enabled mixed-race Whites to acquire Amerindian lands during the allotment process. The one-drop rule of Black identity, enforced legally in the early 20th century, enabled Whites to preserve their agricultural labor force in the South. The contrast emerged because, as peoples transported far from their land and kinship ties on another continent, they became reduced to valuable
commodities In economics, a commodity is an economic good, usually a resource, that has full or substantial fungibility: that is, the market treats instances of the good as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to who produced them. The price of a comm ...
as agricultural laborers. In contrast, Amerindian labor was more difficult to control; moreover, Amerindians occupied large territories that became valuable as agricultural lands, especially with the invention of new technologies such as railroads. Sider thinks the blood quantum definition enhanced White acquisition of Amerindian lands in a doctrine of
manifest destiny Manifest destiny was a cultural belief in the 19th century in the United States, 19th-century United States that American settlers were destined to expand across North America. There were three basic tenets to the concept: * The special vir ...
, which subjected Native Americans to marginalization and resulted in numerous conflicts related to American expansionism. The political economy of the race had different consequences for the descendants of aboriginal Americans and African slaves. The 19th-century blood quantum rule meant that it was relatively easier for a person of mixed Euro-Amerindian ancestry to be accepted as White. The offspring of a few generations of intermarriage between Amerindians and Whites likely would not have been considered Amerindian (at least not in a legal sense). Amerindians could have treaty rights to land, but because an individual with only one Amerindian great-grandparent no longer was classified as Amerindian, he lost a legal claim to Amerindian land, under the allotment rules of the day. According to Sider's theory, Whites were more easily able to acquire Amerindian lands. On the other hand, the same individual who could be denied legal standing in a tribe, according to the government, because he was "too White" to claim property rights, might still have enough visually identifiable Amerindian ancestry to be considered socially as a " half-breed" or breed and stigmatized by both communities. The 20th-century one-drop rule made it relatively difficult for anyone of known Black ancestry to be accepted as White. The child of an African-American
sharecropper Sharecropping is a legal arrangement with regard to agricultural land in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on that land. Sharecropping has a long history and there are a wide range ...
and a White person was considered Black by the local communities. In terms of the economics of sharecropping, such a person also would likely become a sharecropper as well, thus adding to the landholder or employer's labor force. In short, this theory suggests that in a 20th-century economy that benefited from sharecropping, it was useful to have as many Blacks as possible. Although some scholars of the Jim Crow period agree that the 20th-century notion of invisible Blackness shifted the color line in the direction of paleness, and "expanded" the labor force in response to Southern Blacks' Great Migration to the North. But, others (such as the historians Joel Williamson,
C. Vann Woodward Comer Vann Woodward (November 13, 1908 – December 17, 1999) was an American historian who focused primarily on the American South and race relations. He was long a supporter of the approach of Charles A. Beard, stressing the influence of un ...
,
George M. Fredrickson George M. Fredrickson (July 16, 1934 – February 25, 2008) was an American author, activist, historian, and professor. He was the Edgar E. Robinson Professor of United States History at Stanford University until his retirement in 2002. After hi ...
, and Stetson Kennedy) considered the one-drop rule a consequence of the need to define Whiteness as being pure and justifying White-on-Black oppression. Over the centuries when Whites wielded power over both Blacks and Amerindiansand believed in their inherent superiority over people of colorthey created a social order of
hypodescent In societies that regard some races or ethnic groups of people as dominant or superior and others as subordinate or inferior, hypodescent refers to the automatic assignment of children of a mixed union to the subordinate group. The opposite pract ...
, in which they assigned mixed-race children to the lower-status groups. They were often ignorant of the systems among Native American tribes of social classification, including kinship and hypodescent. The Omaha people, for instance, who had a
patrilineal Patrilineality, also known as the male line, the spear side or agnatic kinship, is a common kinship system in which an individual's family membership derives from and is recorded through their father's lineage. It generally involves the inheritanc ...
kinship In anthropology, kinship is the web of social relationships that form an important part of the lives of all humans in all societies, although its exact meanings even within this discipline are often debated. Anthropologist Robin Fox says that ...
system, classified all children with White fathers as "White", and excluded them as members of the clans and tribe, unless one was formally adopted by a male member. Tribal members might care for mixed-race children of White fathers but considered them outside the hereditary clan and kinship fundamental to tribal society.Melvin Randolph Gilmore, "The True Logan Fontenelle"
''Publications of the Nebraska State Historical Society,'' Vol. 19, edited by Albert Watkins, Nebraska State Historical Society, 1919, p. 64, at GenNet, accessed August 25, 2011
The hypodescent social construction related to the racial caste that was associated with African slavery and the conditions of the slave societies. It was made explicit by Virginia and other colonies' laws as early as 1662. Virginia incorporated the Roman principle of '' partus sequitur ventrem'' into slave law, saying that children of slave mothers were born into their status. Under English common law for subjects, children's social status was determined by the father, not the mother. But the colonists put Africans outside the category of English subjects. Generally, White men were in positions of power to take sexual advantage of Black women slaves. But, historian Paul Heinegg has shown that most free African-American families listed in the censuses of 1790–1810 were, in fact, descended from unions between White women and African men in colonial Virginia, from the years when working classes lived and worked closely together, and before slavery had hardened as a racial caste. In the United States, social and legal conventions developed over time by Whites that classified individuals of mixed ancestry into simplified racial categories (Gossett 1997), but these were always porous. The decennial censuses conducted since 1790, after slavery was well established in the United States, included classification of persons by race: White, Black, mulatto, and Indian (Nobles 2000). But, the inclusion of
mulatto (, ) is a racial classification to refer to people of mixed African and European ancestry. Its use is considered outdated and offensive in several languages, including English and Dutch, whereas in languages such as Spanish and Portuguese is ...
was an explicit acknowledgement of mixed race. In addition, before the Civil War, Virginia and some other states had a legal definition of "whiteness" that provided for people being classified as White if no more than 1/8 Black. (For example, if not born into slavery,
Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 18 ...
's children by his slave Sally Hemings would have been classified as legally White, as they were 7/8 White by ancestry. Three of the four surviving children entered White society as adults, and their descendants have identified as White.) In the late 18th and 19th centuries, people of mixed race often migrated to frontiers where societies were more open, and they might be accepted as White if satisfying obligations of citizenship. The more familiar " one-drop rule" was not adopted by Virginia and other states until the 20th century, but it classified persons with any known African ancestry as Black (Davis 2001). Passage of such laws was often urged by White supremacists and people promoting "racial purity" through eugenics, having forgotten the long history of multi-racial unions in the South that comprised the ancestry of many families. In other countries in the
Americas The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World. Along with th ...
, where mixing among groups was overtly more extensive, social categories have tended to be more numerous and fluid. In some cases, people may move into or out of categories on the basis of a combination of socioeconomic status, social class, ancestry, and appearance (Mörner 1967). The term ''
Hispanic The term ''Hispanic'' ( es, hispano) refers to people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or Hispanidad. The term commonly applies to countries with a cultural and historical link to Spain and to Vic ...
'' as an
ethnonym An ethnonym () is a name applied to a given ethnic group. Ethnonyms can be divided into two categories: exonyms (whose name of the ethnic group has been created by another group of people) and autonyms, or endonyms (whose name is created and used ...
emerged in the 20th century, with the rise of migration of laborers from Spanish-speaking countries of the western hemisphere to the United States. It includes people who may have been considered racially distinct (Black, White, Amerindian or other mixed groups) in their home countries. Today, the word "Latino" is often used as a synonym for "Hispanic". Even if such categories were earlier understood as racial categories, today they have begun to represent ethnolinguistic categories (regardless of perceived race). Similarly, " Anglo" is now used among many Hispanics to refer to non-
Hispanic The term ''Hispanic'' ( es, hispano) refers to people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or Hispanidad. The term commonly applies to countries with a cultural and historical link to Spain and to Vic ...
White American White Americans are Americans who identify as and are perceived to be white people. This group constitutes the majority of the people in the United States. As of the 2020 Census, 61.6%, or 204,277,273 people, were white alone. This represented ...
s or
European American European Americans (also referred to as Euro-Americans) are Americans of European ancestry. This term includes people who are descended from the first European settlers in the United States as well as people who are descended from more recent Eu ...
s, most of whom speak the English language but are not of primarily
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
descent. A similar phenomenon of ethnolinguistic identity can historically (and in some cases contemporarily) be seen in the case of the
Louisiana Creole people Louisiana Creoles (french: Créoles de la Louisiane, lou, Moun Kréyòl la Lwizyàn, es, Criollos de Luisiana) are people descended from the inhabitants of colonial Louisiana before it became a part of the United States during the period of bo ...
, who may be of any race but share certain cultural characteristics, although they tend to attract little attention on a national level.


Historical trends and influences

The
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
is a racially diverse country. The growth of the Hispanic population through
immigration Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...
and high birth rates is noted as a partial factor for the US' population gains in the last quarter-century. The 2000 census revealed that Native Americans had reached their highest documented population, 4.5 million, since the US was founded in 1776. The
immigrants Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...
to the
New World The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 3 ...
came largely from widely separated regions of the
Old World The "Old World" is a term for Afro-Eurasia that originated in Europe , after Europeans became aware of the existence of the Americas. It is used to contrast the continents of Africa, Europe, and Asia, which were previously thought of by the ...
. In the Americas, the immigrant populations began to
mix Mix, mixes or mixing may refer to: Persons & places * Mix (surname) ** Tom Mix (1880-1940), American film star * nickname of Mix Diskerud (born Mikkel, 1990), Norwegian-American soccer player * Mix camp, an informal settlement in Namibia * Mix ...
among themselves and with the indigenous inhabitants of the continents. In the United States, for example, most people who identify as African American have some European ancestors, as revealed by genetic studies. In one analysis of those genetic markers that have differing frequencies between continents, European ancestry ranged from an estimated seven percent for a sample of Jamaicans to about 23 percent for a sample of African Americans from New Orleans, where there was historically a large class of mixed-race people (Parra ''et al.'' 1998). In the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
since its early history, Native Americans, African Americans, and European Americans were classified as belonging to different races. For nearly three centuries, the criteria among Whites for membership in these groups were similar, comprising physical appearance, assumption of non-European ancestry, and social circle. The criteria for membership in these races diverged in the late 19th century. During and after
Reconstruction Reconstruction may refer to: Politics, history, and sociology *Reconstruction (law), the transfer of a company's (or several companies') business to a new company *''Perestroika'' (Russian for "reconstruction"), a late 20th century Soviet Union ...
, after the emancipation of
slaves Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
after the Civil War, in the effort to restore
white supremacy White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White su ...
in the South, Whites began to classify anyone with "one drop" of "Black blood", or known African ancestry, to be Black. Such a legal definition was not put into law until the early 20th century in most southern states, but many established racial segregation of facilities during the Jim Crow era, after White Democrats regained control of state legislatures in the South. Efforts to track mixing between groups led to an earlier proliferation of historical categories (such as "
mulatto (, ) is a racial classification to refer to people of mixed African and European ancestry. Its use is considered outdated and offensive in several languages, including English and Dutch, whereas in languages such as Spanish and Portuguese is ...
" and "
octaroon In the colonial societies of the Americas and Australia, a quadroon or quarteron was a person with one quarter African/ Aboriginal and three quarters European ancestry. Similar classifications were octoroon for one-eighth black (Latin root ''oc ...
" among persons with partial African descent) and "blood quantum" distinctions, which became increasingly untethered from self-reported ancestry. In the 20th century, efforts to classify the increasingly mixed population of the United States into discrete categories generated many difficulties (Spickard 1992). By the standards used in past censuses, many mixed-race children born in the United States were classified as of a different race than one of their biological parents. In addition, a person may change personal racial identification over time because of cultural aspects, and self-ascribed race can differ from the assigned race (Kressin ''et al.'' 2003). Until the 2000 census, Latinos were required to identify as one race, and none was Latino. Partly as a result of the confusion generated by the distinction, 33% (U.S. census records) of Latino respondents in the 2000 census ignored the specified racial categories and checked "some other race". (Mays ''et al.'' 2003 claim a figure of 42%.) Historical trends influencing the ethnic demographics of the United States include: * Patterns of original settlement ** settlement of the Americas by a variety of Native American peoples, including
Alaska Natives Alaska Natives (also known as Alaskan Natives, Native Alaskans, Indigenous Alaskans, Aboriginal Alaskans or First Alaskans) are the indigenous peoples of Alaska and include Iñupiat, Yupik, Aleut, Eyak, Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, and a numbe ...
. ** settlement of Pacific islands by Polynesian people, including
Native Hawaiians Native Hawaiians (also known as Indigenous Hawaiians, Kānaka Maoli, Aboriginal Hawaiians, First Hawaiians, or simply Hawaiians) ( haw, kānaka, , , and ), are the indigenous ethnic group of Polynesian people of the Hawaiian Islands. Hawaii ...
,
Samoans Samoans or Samoan people ( sm, tagata Sāmoa) are the indigenous Polynesian people of the Samoan Islands, an archipelago in Polynesia, who speak the Samoan language. The group's home islands are politically and geographically divided between th ...
in
American Samoa American Samoa ( sm, Amerika Sāmoa, ; also ' or ') is an unincorporated territory of the United States located in the South Pacific Ocean, southeast of the island country of Samoa. Its location is centered on . It is east of the International ...
, and the Chamorros in
Guam Guam (; ch, Guåhan ) is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. It is the westernmost point and territory of the United States (reckoned from the geographic cent ...
and the
Northern Mariana Islands The Northern Mariana Islands, officially the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI; ch, Sankattan Siha Na Islas Mariånas; cal, Commonwealth Téél Falúw kka Efáng llól Marianas), is an unincorporated territory and commonw ...
. ** settlement of
Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and Unincorporated ...
by the
Taíno people The Taíno were a historic indigenous people of the Caribbean whose culture has been continued today by Taíno descendant communities and Taíno revivalist communities. At the time of European contact in the late 15th century, they were the pri ...
. ** settlement of the
United States Virgin Islands The United States Virgin Islands,. Also called the ''American Virgin Islands'' and the ''U.S. Virgin Islands''. officially the Virgin Islands of the United States, are a group of Caribbean islands and an unincorporated and organized territory ...
by the
Arawak The Arawak are a group of indigenous peoples of northern South America and of the Caribbean. Specifically, the term "Arawak" has been applied at various times to the Lokono of South America and the Taíno, who historically lived in the Greater ...
, Ciboney, and
Kalinago The Kalinago, also known as the Island Caribs or simply Caribs, are an indigenous people of the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean. They may have been related to the Mainland Caribs (Kalina) of South America, but they spoke an unrelated language ...
. * Colonization ** Colonization of what is now eastern Canada and the area between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River as
New France New France (french: Nouvelle-France) was the area colonized by France in North America, beginning with the exploration of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Great Britain and Spai ...
. Historical events, including the Expulsion of the Acadians, influenced the ethnic mix, especially in
Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...
, northern
New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...
, and
New York State New York, officially the State of New York, is a state in the Northeastern United States. It is often called New York State to distinguish it from its largest city, New York City. With a total area of , New York is the 27th-largest U.S. stat ...
. ** Colonization of the
Thirteen Colonies The Thirteen Colonies, also known as the Thirteen British Colonies, the Thirteen American Colonies, or later as the United Colonies, were a group of Kingdom of Great Britain, British Colony, colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America. Fo ...
by the English/British, Dutch, and later immigrants such as Germans from Northern Europe. **
Spanish colonization of the Americas Spain began colonizing the Americas under the Crown of Castile and was spearheaded by the Spanish . The Americas were invaded and incorporated into the Spanish Empire, with the exception of Brazil, British America, and some small regions ...
, including Florida, the Southwest, and Puerto Rico, later acquired by the US. ** Denmark and other historical colonial powers influenced the ethnic makeup of what are now the
United States Virgin Islands The United States Virgin Islands,. Also called the ''American Virgin Islands'' and the ''U.S. Virgin Islands''. officially the Virgin Islands of the United States, are a group of Caribbean islands and an unincorporated and organized territory ...
. *
Penal transportation Penal transportation or transportation was the relocation of convicted criminals, or other persons regarded as undesirable, to a distant place, often a colony, for a specified term; later, specifically established penal colonies became their ...
to the Americas of
felons A felony is traditionally considered a crime of high seriousness, whereas a misdemeanor is regarded as less serious. The term "felony" originated from English common law (from the French medieval word "félonie") to describe an offense that resul ...
under British rule. *
Indentured servitude Indentured servitude is a form of labor in which a person is contracted to work without salary for a specific number of years. The contract, called an "indenture", may be entered "voluntarily" for purported eventual compensation or debt repayment, ...
, usually from Ireland, was common in
British America British America comprised the colonial territories of the English Empire, which became the British Empire after the 1707 union of the Kingdom of England with the Kingdom of Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain, in the Americas from 16 ...
until the late 18th century. * The
Atlantic slave trade The Atlantic slave trade, transatlantic slave trade, or Euro-American slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas. The slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and i ...
, bringing millions of Africans to the South, Caribbean, and Latin America. * Severe reduction of Native American populations in the contiguous United States, mostly because of new infectious diseases carried by European colonists, combined with genocidal warfare * Forced migration ** Deportation and flight of
United Empire Loyalist United Empire Loyalists (or simply Loyalists) is an honorific title which was first given by the 1st Lord Dorchester, the Governor of Quebec, and Governor General of The Canadas, to American Loyalists who resettled in British North America duri ...
s to Canada, the Caribbean and Britain after the
American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolut ...
** Forced removal of more than one million African Americans in the domestic slave trade from the Upper South to the Deep South during the early 19th century as Americans developed new lands for plantations ** Territorial conflict with Native Americans and the
Indian removal Indian removal was the United States government policy of forced displacement of self-governing tribes of Native Americans from their ancestral homelands in the eastern United States to lands west of the Mississippi Riverspecifically, to a de ...
policy of the 19th century displaced many remaining native populations from east of the Mississippi River to territories to the west, especially to what is now Oklahoma. * Immigration ** Historical immigration to the United States from all countries of the world and throughout the history of the country, for religious, political and economic reasons. Since the late 19th century, the History of laws concerning immigration and naturalization in the United States and
illegal immigration to the United States Illegal immigration to the United States is the process of migrating into the United States in violation of federal immigration laws. This can include foreign nationals (aliens) who have entered the United States unlawfully, as well as thos ...
have influenced the ethnic balance of that immigration. Various groups have been denied entry due to discrimination, economic protectionism, and political conflict with their nation of origin. Other groups have received favored status, such as refugees and nationals of allied nations. ** Transatlantic migrations from Europe, especially in the 19th century, created ethnic enclaves in many eastern cities and settling many rural areas east of the Mississippi ** Immigration from Asia has had the most influence on Hawaii and the West Coast, but has also created predominantly Asian neighborhoods in many major cities across the country. ** Immigration from Mexico and other existing Latino populations has strongly influenced the Southwest. *
Westward expansion of the United States The United States of America was created on July 4, 1776, with the U.S. Declaration of Independence of thirteen British colonies in North America. In the Lee Resolution two days prior, the colonies resolved that they were free and independent ...
** The
Royal Proclamation of 1763 The Royal Proclamation of 1763 was issued by King George III on 7 October 1763. It followed the Treaty of Paris (1763), which formally ended the Seven Years' War and transferred French territory in North America to Great Britain. The Procla ...
restricted the western boundary of European settlement to the watershed east of the Appalachian Mountains; despite the Confederation Congress Proclamation of 1783 and Nonintercourse Acts prohibiting private purchase of Native American lands, the territory between the Mississippi River and Appalachian Mountains granted to the United States by the
Treaty of Paris (1783) The Treaty of Paris, signed in Paris by representatives of George III, King George III of Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain and representatives of the United States, United States of America on September 3, 1783, officially ended the Ame ...
was gradually opened to White settlers through public purchase of Indian lands. ** The Homestead Act promoting settlement west of the Mississippi after the
Louisiana Purchase The Louisiana Purchase (french: Vente de la Louisiane, translation=Sale of Louisiana) was the acquisition of the territory of Louisiana by the United States from the French First Republic in 1803. In return for fifteen million dollars, or app ...
** Settlement of Utah by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints **
California Gold Rush The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) was a gold rush that began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California fro ...
**
Oregon Trail The Oregon Trail was a east–west, large-wheeled wagon route and Westward Expansion Trails, emigrant trail in the United States that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon. The eastern part of the Oregon Trail spanned part of what ...
** Klondike Gold Rush promoting settlement of Alaska * Internal migration ** African Americans escaped from slavery, sometimes via the
Underground Railroad The Underground Railroad was a network of clandestine routes and safe houses established in the United States during the early- to mid-19th century. It was used by enslaved African Americans primarily to escape into free states and Canada. T ...
, reaching the free North before the
American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
. ** The
American Industrial Revolution The technological and industrial history of the United States describes the United States' emergence as one of the most technologically advanced nations in the world. The availability of land and literate labor, the absence of a landed arist ...
, promoted urbanization of what was previously a largely agrarian society ** Especially as transportation systems have improved over the centuries, it has become relatively easy for many Americans to move from one part of the country to another, given the lack of internal borders and dominance of English in most areas. Many do so for reasons of economic opportunity, climate, or culture. ** In the 20th century, to seek jobs and escape racial violence, African Americans left the South in the Great Migration and
Second Great Migration In the context of the 20th-century history of the United States, the Second Great Migration was the migration of more than 5 million African Americans from the South to the Northeast, Midwest and West. It began in 1940, through World War II, and ...
, moving to Northern, Midwestern, and Western cities, where they had to compete with recent European immigrants. **
Railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...
s, promoting migration westwards and
streetcar suburb A streetcar suburb is a residential community whose growth and development was strongly shaped by the use of streetcar lines as a primary means of transportation. Such suburbs developed in the United States in the years before the automobile, when ...
s, created significant ethnic shifts in urban areas. ** Economics and natural disasters have driven migration, for example during the Dust Bowl,
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, and since the decline of the
Rust Belt The Rust Belt is a region of the United States that experienced industrial decline starting in the 1950s. The U.S. manufacturing sector as a percentage of the U.S. GDP peaked in 1953 and has been in decline since, impacting certain regions and ...
** Suburbanization period after World War II, with "
white flight White flight or white exodus is the sudden or gradual large-scale migration of white people from areas becoming more racially or ethnoculturally diverse. Starting in the 1950s and 1960s, the terms became popular in the United States. They refer ...
" to new housing and away from later social unrest, followed by " Black flight" ** The majority of
Native Hawaiians Native Hawaiians (also known as Indigenous Hawaiians, Kānaka Maoli, Aboriginal Hawaiians, First Hawaiians, or simply Hawaiians) ( haw, kānaka, , , and ), are the indigenous ethnic group of Polynesian people of the Hawaiian Islands. Hawaii ...
who moved to the mainland U.S. have settled in California. ** Air conditioning has promoted migration from northern areas to the
Sun Belt The Sun Belt is a region of the United States generally considered to stretch across the Southeast and Southwest. Another rough definition of the region is the area south of the 36th parallel. Several climates can be found in the region — des ...
. The Jet Age promoted vacationing and part-time living in warmer areas (Snowbird (people), snowbirding). In some cases, immigrants and migrants form ethnic enclaves; in others, mixture creates ethnically diverse neighborhoods.


Racial makeup of the U.S. population

For demographics by specific ethnic groups rather than general race, see "Ancestry" below.


White and European Americans

White and European Americans are the majority of people living in the United States. White people are defined by the United States Census Bureau as those "having origins in any of the original peoples of
Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
, the
Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...
, or
North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...
." Like all official U.S. racial categories, "White" has a Non-Hispanic Whites, "not Hispanic or Latino" and a White Hispanic and Latino Americans, "Hispanic or Latino" component, the latter consisting mostly of White Mexicans, White Mexican Americans and White Cubans, White Cuban Americans. As of 2019,
White Americans White Americans are Americans who identify as and are perceived to be white people. This group constitutes the majority of the people in the United States. As of the 2020 Census, 61.6%, or 204,277,273 people, were white alone. This represented ...
are the majority in 49 of the 50 states (plus
Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and Unincorporated ...
)White Americans are not a majority in
Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...
, the District of Columbia,
American Samoa American Samoa ( sm, Amerika Sāmoa, ; also ' or ') is an unincorporated territory of the United States located in the South Pacific Ocean, southeast of the island country of Samoa. Its location is centered on . It is east of the International ...
,
Guam Guam (; ch, Guåhan ) is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. It is the westernmost point and territory of the United States (reckoned from the geographic cent ...
, the
Northern Mariana Islands The Northern Mariana Islands, officially the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI; ch, Sankattan Siha Na Islas Mariånas; cal, Commonwealth Téél Falúw kka Efáng llól Marianas), is an unincorporated territory and commonw ...
, and the
U.S. Virgin Islands The United States Virgin Islands,. Also called the ''American Virgin Islands'' and the ''U.S. Virgin Islands''. officially the Virgin Islands of the United States, are a group of Caribbean islands and an unincorporated and organized territory ...
.


As of 2019, non-Hispanic Whites are a majority in 44 statesthey are not a majority in California,
Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...
, Maryland, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, the District of Columbia,
American Samoa American Samoa ( sm, Amerika Sāmoa, ; also ' or ') is an unincorporated territory of the United States located in the South Pacific Ocean, southeast of the island country of Samoa. Its location is centered on . It is east of the International ...
,
Guam Guam (; ch, Guåhan ) is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. It is the westernmost point and territory of the United States (reckoned from the geographic cent ...
, the
Northern Mariana Islands The Northern Mariana Islands, officially the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI; ch, Sankattan Siha Na Islas Mariånas; cal, Commonwealth Téél Falúw kka Efáng llól Marianas), is an unincorporated territory and commonw ...
,
Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and Unincorporated ...
, and the
U.S. Virgin Islands The United States Virgin Islands,. Also called the ''American Virgin Islands'' and the ''U.S. Virgin Islands''. officially the Virgin Islands of the United States, are a group of Caribbean islands and an unincorporated and organized territory ...
.



(See Majority minority). In 2017, demographer Dudley L. Poston Jr. argued that "Whites are now the numerical minority in a half dozen states, and they will be the nation's numerical minority in a little more than 25 years (referring to non-Hispanic Whites only). And now, for the first time ever, there are fewer White than non-White children under 10 years of age." The non-Hispanic White percentage of the 50 states and District of Columbia (60.1% in 2019) has been decreasing since the mid-20th century as a result of changes made in immigration policy, most notably the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, Hart–Celler Act of 1965. If current trends continue, non-Hispanic Whites will drop below 50% of the overall U.S. population by 2043. White Americans overall (non-Hispanic Whites together with White Hispanics) are projected to continue as the majority, at 73% (or 303 million out of 420 million) in 2005, from currently 77%. Although a high proportion of the population is known to have multiple ancestries, in the 2000 U.S. census, the first with the option to choose more than one, most people still identified with one racial category. In the 2000 census, self-identified German Americans made up 17% of the U.S. population, followed by Irish Americans at 12%, as reported in the 2000 census. This makes German and Irish the largest and second-largest self-reported ancestry groups in the United States. Both groups had high rates of Immigration to the United States, immigration to the U.S. beginning in the mid-19th century, triggered by the Great Famine (Ireland), Great Famine in Ireland and the failed German revolutions of 1848–49, 1848 Revolution in Germany. However, English Americans and British Americans are still considered the largest ethnic group due to a serious undercount following the 2000 census whereby many English and British Americans self-identified under the new category entry 'American' considering themselves 'indigenous' because their families had resided in the US for so long or, if of mixed European ancestry, identified with a more recent and differentiated ethnic group.Mary C. Waters, ''Ethnic Options: Choosing Identities in America'' (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), p. 36. 7.2% of the population listed their ancestry as American on the 2000 census (see American ancestry). According to the United States Census Bureau, the number of people in the U.S. who reported American and no other ancestry increased from 12.4 million in 1990 to 20.2 million in 2000. This change in reporting represented the largest "growth" of any ethnic group in the United States during the 1990s, but it represented how people reported themselves more than growth through birth rates, for instance, and certainly did not reflect immigration. Most French Americans are believed to be descended from colonists of Catholic
New France New France (french: Nouvelle-France) was the area colonized by France in North America, beginning with the exploration of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Great Britain and Spai ...
; exiled Huguenots, much fewer in number and settling in the eastern English colonies in the late 1600s and early 1700s, needed to assimilate into the majority culture and have intermarried over generations. Some Louisiana Creole people, Louisiana Creoles, including the Isleños in Louisiana, Isleños of Louisiana, and the Hispanos of the Southwestern United States, Southwest have had, in part, direct Spanish ancestry; most self-reported White Hispanics are of Mexican Americans, Mexican, Puerto Ricans in the United States, Puerto Rican, Cuban Americans, Cuban, and Salvadoran American, Salvadoran origins, each of which are multi-ethnic nations. Hispanic immigration has increased from nations of Central and South America. There are a substantial number of White Americans who are of Eastern and Southern European descent; such as Russian Americans, Russian, Polish Americans, Polish, Italian Americans, Italian, and Greek Americans. Eastern Europeans immigrated to the United States more recently than Western Europeans. Arab Americans, Arabs, Turkish Americans, Turks, Iranian Americans, Iranians, Israeli Americans, Israelis, Armenian Americans, Armenians, and other Western Asians are reported as White in the United States census, even though most do not identify as European and/or White.


Hispanic and Latino Americans

Hispanic and Latino Americans Hispanic and Latino Americans ( es, Estadounidenses hispanos y latinos; pt, Estadunidenses hispânicos e latinos) are Americans of Spanish and/or Latin American ancestry. More broadly, these demographics include all Americans who identify as ...
constitute 59.8 million people or 18.3% of the total U.S. population in 2018. It includes people who are of full or partial Hispanic or Latino origin. They chiefly have origins in the Spanish-speaking nations of Latin America. Very few also come from other places, for example: 0.2% of Hispanic and Latino Americans were born in Asia. The group is heterogeneous in race and national ancestry. The Census Bureau defines "Hispanic or Latino origin" thus: Per the 2019
American Community Survey The American Community Survey (ACS) is a demographics survey program conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. It regularly gathers information previously contained only in the long form of the decennial census, such as ancestry, citizenship, educati ...
, the leading ancestries for Hispanic Americans are Mexican Americans, Mexican (37.2 million) followed by Stateside Puerto Ricans, Puerto Rican (5.83 million), Cuban Americans, Cuban (2.38 million), and Salvadoran Americans, Salvadoran (2.31 million). In addition, there are 3.19 million people living in Puerto Rico who are excluded from the count (see Puerto Ricans). 62.4% of Hispanic and Latino Americans identified as White. 30.5% identified as "some other race" (other than the ones listed). According to the PEP 91.9% of Latinos are White, as these official estimates do not recognize "some other race". In the official estimates, Black or African American Hispanics are the second-largest group, with 1.9 million, or 4.0% of the whole group. The remaining Hispanics are accounted as follows, first per the PEP: 1.6% American Indian and Alaska Native, 1.5% two or more races, 0.7% Asian, and 0.03% Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander. Per the ACS: 3.9% two or more races, 1.9% Black or African American, 1.0% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.4% Asian, and 0.05% Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander. In the United States, the Hispanic and Latino population has reached 58& million in 2016. According to Pew Research Center, the Latino population has been the principal driver of United States demographic growth since 2000. Mexicans make up most of the Hispanic and Latino population 35,758,000. There is also a growth of Hispanics who are receiving a college education in 2015, 40% of Hispanics age 25 and older have had a college experience. In 2000, the percentage was at a low 30%. Among U.S. states, California houses the largest population of Latinos. In 2019, 15.56 million Hispanics lived in California. As of 2019, the U.S. state/territory with the largest percentage of Hispanics/Latinos is
Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and Unincorporated ...
(98.9% Hispanic or Latino). The Hispanic or Latino population is young and fast-growing, due to immigration and higher birth rates. For decades it has contributed significantly to U.S. population increases, and this is expected to continue. The Census Bureau projects that by 2050, one-quarter of the population will be Hispanic or Latino. The United States also has a large Dominican Americans, Dominican, Guatemalan Americans, Guatemalan, Colombian Americans, Colombian, Honduran Americans, Honduran, Spanish Americans, Spanish, Ecuadorian Americans, Ecuadorian, Peruvian Americans, Peruvian, Nicaraguan Americans, Nicaraguan, Venezuelan Americans, Venezuelan, Argentine Americans, Argentine, and Panamanian Americans, Panamanian population.


Black and African Americans

Black and African Americans are citizens and residents of the United States with origins in
sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa is, geographically, the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lies south of the Sahara. These include West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the List of sov ...
. 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 who may alternatively identify as Black or some other written-in race versus African American given they were not part of the historic US slave system. In this case, the grouping is thus based on the geography of the individual, and may contradict or misrepresent their self-identification, for instance not all immigrants from Sub-Saharan Africa are "Black". Among these racial outliers are persons from Cape Verde, Madagascar, various Afroasiatic languages, Hamito-Semitic populations in East Africa and the Sahel, and the Afrikaners of Southern Africa including such notable figures as the inventor Elon Musk and actress Charlize Theron. 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 people, Black populations of Africa. According to the 2009 American Community Survey, there were 38,093,725 Black and African Americans in the United States, representing 12.4% of the population. There were 37,144,530 non-Hispanic Blacks, which comprised 12.1% of the population.United StatesACS Demographic and Housing Estimates: 2009
. Factfinder.census.gov. Retrieved December 9, 2010.
This number increased to 42 million according to the 2010 United States census, when including Multiracial Americans, Multiracial African Americans, making up 13% of the total U.S. population. Black and African Americans make up the second largest group in the United States, but the third largest group after White Americans and Hispanic or Latino Americans (of any race). The majority of the population (55%) lives in the
South South is one of the cardinal directions or Points of the compass, compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Pro ...
; compared to the 2000 Census, there has also been a decrease of African Americans in the Northeast United States, Northeast and Midwest United States, Midwest. The List of U.S. states and territories by African-American population, U.S. state/territory with the highest percentage of African Americans is the
U.S. Virgin Islands The United States Virgin Islands,. Also called the ''American Virgin Islands'' and the ''U.S. Virgin Islands''. officially the Virgin Islands of the United States, are a group of Caribbean islands and an unincorporated and organized territory ...
(76% African-American as of 2010).
American FactFinder. 2010 U.S. Virgin Islands Demographic Profile Data. Retrieved November 29, 2019.
Most African Americans are the direct descendants of captives from West Africa, who survived the Slavery in the United States, slavery era within the boundaries of the present United States. As an adjective, the term is usually written ''wikt:African-American, African-American''. The first West Africans were brought to Jamestown, Virginia in 1619. The English settlers treated these captives as Indentured servitude, indentured servants and released them after a number of years. This practice was gradually replaced by the system of race-based slavery used in the Caribbean. All the Thirteen Colonies, American colonies had slavery, but it was usually the form of personal servants in the North (where 2% of the people were slaves), and field hands in plantations in the South (where 25% were slaves); by the beginning of the American Revolutionary War 1/5th of the total population was enslaved. During the revolution, some would serve in the Continental Army or Continental Navy, while Black Loyalist, others would serve the British Empire in Ethiopian Regiment, Lord Dunmore's Ethiopian Regiment, and other units. By 1804, the Northern United States, northern states (north of the Mason–Dixon line) had Abolitionism in the United States, abolished slavery. However, slavery would persist in the Southern United States, southern states until the end of the
American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
and the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, Thirteenth Amendment. Following the end of the Reconstruction Era of the United States, Reconstruction Era, which saw the first List of African-American officeholders during the Reconstruction, African American representation in United States Congress, Congress, African Americans became Suffrage, disenfranchised and subject to Jim Crow laws, legislation that would persist until the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 due to the civil rights movement. According to US Census Bureau data, very few African immigration to the United States, African immigrants self-identify as "African-American" (as "African-American" is usually referring to Blacks with deeply rooted ancestry dating back to the US slave period as discussed in the previous paragraph.) On average, less than 5% of African residents self-reported as "African-American" or "Afro-American" in the 2000 US census. The overwhelming majority of African immigrants (~95%) identified instead with their own respective ethnicities. Self-designation as "African-American" or "Afro-American" was highest among individuals from West Africa (4–9%), and lowest among individuals from Cape Verde, East Africa and Southern Africa (0–4%). Nonetheless, African immigrants often develop very successful professional and business working-relationships with African Americans. Immigrants from some Caribbean, Central American, and South American nations and their descendants may or may not also self-identify with the term "African American". Recent Black immigrants in the United States were born in Jamaica, Haiti, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Dominican Republic, Ghana, Trinidad and Tobago, Kenya, Guyana, and Somalia.


Asian Americans

A third significant minority is the
Asian American Asian Americans are Americans of Asian ancestry (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of such immigrants). Although this term had historically been used for all the indigenous people ...
population, comprising 19.36 million in 2019, or 5.9% of the U.S. population. In 2019, 6.12 million Asian Americans lived in California. As of 2019, approximately 532,300 Asians live in
Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...
, where they compose the plurality, at 37.6% of the islands' people. This is their largest share of any state. Historically first concentrated on
Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...
and the West Coast, Asian Americans now live across the country, living and working in large numbers in New York City, Chicago, Boston, Houston, and other major urban centers. There are also many Asians living in two Pacific Ocean, Pacific U.S. territories (
Guam Guam (; ch, Guåhan ) is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. It is the westernmost point and territory of the United States (reckoned from the geographic cent ...
and the
Northern Mariana Islands The Northern Mariana Islands, officially the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI; ch, Sankattan Siha Na Islas Mariånas; cal, Commonwealth Téél Falúw kka Efáng llól Marianas), is an unincorporated territory and commonw ...
)as of 2010,
Guam Guam (; ch, Guåhan ) is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. It is the westernmost point and territory of the United States (reckoned from the geographic cent ...
's population was 32.2% Asian, and the population of the
Northern Mariana Islands The Northern Mariana Islands, officially the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI; ch, Sankattan Siha Na Islas Mariånas; cal, Commonwealth Téél Falúw kka Efáng llól Marianas), is an unincorporated territory and commonw ...
was 49.9% Asian.
Their histories are diverse. As with the new immigration from central and eastern Europe to the East Coast from the mid-19th century on, Asian immigration to the United States, Asians started immigrating to the United States in large numbers in the 19th century. This first major wave of immigration consisted predominantly of Chinese American, Chinese and Japanese American, Japanese laborers, but also included Korean Americans, Korean and South Asian Americans, South Asian immigrants. Many immigrants also came during and after this period from the Philippines, which was History of the Philippines (1898–1946), a US colony from 1898 to 1946. Exclusion laws and policies largely prohibited and curtailed Asian immigration until the 1940s. After the US changed its immigration laws during the 1940s to 1960s to make entry easier, a much larger new wave of immigration from Asia began. Today the largest self-identified Asian American sub-groups according to census data are Chinese Americans, Filipino Americans, Indian Americans, Vietnamese Americans, Korean Americans, and Japanese Americans, Demographics of Asian Americans, among other groups. Not all of Asian Americans' ancestors directly migrated from their country of origin to the US. For example, more than 270,000 people from Guyana, a South American country, reside in the US. But a predominant number of Guyanese people are Indo-Guyanese, or are of Indian descent.


American Indians and Alaska Natives

Indigenous peoples of the Americas, particularly Native Americans, made up 0.8% of the population in 2008, numbering 2.4 million. An additional 2.3 million persons declared part- American Indian or
Alaska Native Alaska Natives (also known as Alaskan Natives, Native Alaskans, Indigenous Alaskans, Aboriginal Alaskans or First Alaskans) are the indigenous peoples of Alaska and include Iñupiat, Yupik, Aleut, Eyak, Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, and a numbe ...
ancestry. Levels of Native American ancestry (distinct from Native American identity) differ. The genomes of self-reported African Americans averaged to 0.8% Native American ancestry, those of
European American European Americans (also referred to as Euro-Americans) are Americans of European ancestry. This term includes people who are descended from the first European settlers in the United States as well as people who are descended from more recent Eu ...
s averaged to 0.18%, and those of Hispanic and Latino Americans, Latinos averaged to 18.0%. The legal and official designation of who is Native American has aroused controversy by demographers, tribal nations, and government officials for many decades. Federally recognized tribes and state recognized tribes set their own membership requirements; tribal enrollment may require residency on a reservation, documented lineal descent from recognized records, such as the Dawes Rolls, and other criteria. Some tribes have adopted the use of blood quantum, requiring members to have a certain percentage. The federal government requires individuals to certify documented blood quantum of ancestry for certain federal programs, such as education benefits, available to members of recognized tribes. But Census takers accept any respondent's identification. Genetics, Genetic scientists estimated that more than fifteen million other Americans, including African Americans and Hispanic Americans (specifically those of Mexican heritage), may have up to one quarter of American Indian ancestry. Once thought to face extinction as a race or culture, Native Americans of numerous tribes have achieved revival of aspects of their cultures, together with asserting their sovereignty and direction of their own affairs since the mid-20th century. Many have started language programs to revive use of traditional languages; some have established Tribal colleges and universities, tribally controlled colleges and other schools on their reservations, so that education is expressive of their cultures. Since the late 20th century, many tribes have developed Native American gaming, gaming casinos on their sovereign land to raise revenues for economic development, as well as to promote the education and welfare of their people through health care and construction of improved housing. Today, more than 800,000 to one million persons claim Cherokee descent in part or as full-bloods; of these, an estimated 300,000 live in California; 160,000 in Oklahoma (the majority are Cherokee Nation citizens) and 16,000 in the United Keetoowah Band; and 15,000 in North Carolina in ancestral homelands who are members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. The second largest tribal group is the Navajo people, Navajo, who call themselves Diné and live on a 16million-acre Indian reservation covering northeast Arizona, northwest New Mexico, and southeast Utah. It is home to half the 450,000 Navajo Nation members. The third largest group are the Lakota people, Lakota (Sioux) Nation, with distinct federally recognized tribes located in the states of Minnesota, Nebraska, Montana, Wyoming; and North Dakota, North and South Dakota.


Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders

Native Hawaiians Native Hawaiians (also known as Indigenous Hawaiians, Kānaka Maoli, Aboriginal Hawaiians, First Hawaiians, or simply Hawaiians) ( haw, kānaka, , , and ), are the indigenous ethnic group of Polynesian people of the Hawaiian Islands. Hawaii ...
and other Pacific Islanders numbered approximately 656,400 in 2019, or 0.2% of the population. Additionally, nearly as many individuals identify as having partial Native Hawaiian ancestry, for a total of 829,949 people of full or part Native Hawaiian ancestry. This group constitutes the smallest minority in the United States. More than half identify as "full-blooded", but historically most Native Hawaiians on the island chain of
Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...
are believed to have admixture with Asian and European ancestries. But, the Census takes reporting by individuals as to how they identify. Some demographers believe that by 2025, the last full-blooded Native Hawaiian will die off, leaving a culturally distinct, but racially mixed population. The total number of persons who have identified as Native Hawaiian in 2008 was more than the estimated Hawaiian population when the US annexed the islands in 1898. Native Hawaiians are receiving ancestral land reparation (legal), reparations. Throughout Hawaii, they are working to preserve and assert adaptation of Native Hawaiian customs and the Hawaiian language. They have cultural schools solely for legally Native Hawaiian students. (See also, ''Hawaiian Renaissance'' and ''Hawaiian sovereignty movement''.) There are significant
Pacific Islander Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the list of islands in the Pacific Ocean, Pacific Islands. As an ethnic group, ethnic/race (human categorization), racial term, it is used to describe the original p ...
populations living in three Pacific Ocean, Pacific U.S. territories (
American Samoa American Samoa ( sm, Amerika Sāmoa, ; also ' or ') is an unincorporated territory of the United States located in the South Pacific Ocean, southeast of the island country of Samoa. Its location is centered on . It is east of the International ...
,
Guam Guam (; ch, Guåhan ) is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. It is the westernmost point and territory of the United States (reckoned from the geographic cent ...
, and the
Northern Mariana Islands The Northern Mariana Islands, officially the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI; ch, Sankattan Siha Na Islas Mariånas; cal, Commonwealth Téél Falúw kka Efáng llól Marianas), is an unincorporated territory and commonw ...
). As of 2010,
American Samoa American Samoa ( sm, Amerika Sāmoa, ; also ' or ') is an unincorporated territory of the United States located in the South Pacific Ocean, southeast of the island country of Samoa. Its location is centered on . It is east of the International ...
's population was 92.6% Pacific Islander (mostly Samoan people, Samoan),
Guam Guam (; ch, Guåhan ) is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. It is the westernmost point and territory of the United States (reckoned from the geographic cent ...
's population was 49.3% Pacific Islander (mostly Chamorro people, Chamorro), and the population of the
Northern Mariana Islands The Northern Mariana Islands, officially the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI; ch, Sankattan Siha Na Islas Mariånas; cal, Commonwealth Téél Falúw kka Efáng llól Marianas), is an unincorporated territory and commonw ...
was 34.9% Pacific Islander. Out of all U.S. states/territories, American Samoa has the highest percentage of Pacific Islanders.


Middle Easterners and North Africans

According to the Arab American Institute (AAI), countries of origin for Arab Americans include Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, State of Palestine, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. There are an estimated 9–10 million Middle Eastern Americans according to the U.S. Census, including both Arab and non-Arab Americans, comprising 0.6% of the total U.S. population; however, the Arab American Institute estimates a population closer to 3.6 million. U.S. Census population estimates are based on responses to the ancestry question on the census, which makes it difficult to accurately count Middle Eastern Americans. Though Middle Eastern American communities can be found in each of the 50 states, the majority live in just 10 states with nearly "one third of the total liv[ing] in California, New York, and Michigan". More Middle Eastern Americans live in California than any other state, with ethnic groups such as Arabs, Persians, and Armenians being a large percentage, but Middle Eastern Americans represent the highest percentage of the population of Michigan. In particular, Dearborn, Michigan has History of the Middle Eastern people in Metro Detroit, long been home to a high concentration of Middle Eastern Americans. The United States Census Bureau is presently finalizing the ethnic classification of MENA populations. Middle Eastern Americans are counted as White on the census. In 2012, prompted in part by post-9/11 discrimination, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee petitioned the Department of Commerce's Minority Business Development Agency to designate the MENA populations as a minority/disadvantaged community."Lobbying for a 'MENA' category on U.S. Census"
Wiltz, Teresea. USA Today. Published October 7, 2014. Accessed December 14, 2015.
Following consultations with MENA organizations, the U.S. Census Bureau announced in 2014 that it would establish a new MENA ethnic category for populations from the
Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...
,
North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...
, and the
Arab world The Arab world ( ar, اَلْعَالَمُ الْعَرَبِيُّ '), formally the Arab homeland ( '), also known as the Arab nation ( '), the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, refers to a vast group of countries, mainly located in Western A ...
, separate from the "white" classification that these populations had previously sought in 1909. The expert groups felt that the earlier "White" designation no longer accurately represents MENA identity, so they successfully lobbied for a distinct categorization. This process does not currently include ethnoreligious groups such as Sikhs, as the Bureau only tabulates these groups as followers of religions rather than members of ethnic groups. As of December 2015, the sampling strata for the new MENA category includes the Census Bureau's working classification of 19 MENA groups, as well as Turkish American, Turkish, Sudanese American, Sudanese, Somali American, Somali, Mauritanian American, Mauritanian, Armenian Americans, Armenian, Cypriot Americans, Cypriot, Afghan Americans, Afghan, Iranian Americans, Iranian, Azerbaijani Americans, Azerbaijani, and Georgian Americans, Georgian groups.


Two or more races

Self-identified
multiracial Mixed race people are people of more than one race or ethnicity. A variety of terms have been used both historically and presently for mixed race people in a variety of contexts, including ''multiethnic'', ''polyethnic'', occasionally ''bi-ethn ...
Americans numbered 7.0 million in 2008, or 2.3% of the population. They have identified as any combination of races (White, Black or African American, Asian, American Indian or Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, "some other race") and ethnicities. The U.S. has a growing multiracial identity movement. While the colonies and southern states protected White fathers by making all children born to slave mothers be classified as slaves, regardless of paternity, they also banned miscegenation or interracial marriage, most notably between Whites and Blacks. This did little to stop interracial relationships, except as legal, consensual unions. Demographers state that, due to new waves of immigration, the American people through the early 20th century were mostly multi-ethnic descendants of various immigrant nationalities, who maintained cultural distinctiveness until, over time, Cultural assimilation, assimilation, migration and Racial integration, integration took place. The civil rights movement through the 20th century gained passage of important legislation to enforce constitutional rights of minorities. According to James P. Allen and Eugene Turner from California State University, Northridge, by some calculations in the 2000 Census, the multiracial population that is part White (which is the largest percentage of the multiracial population), is as follows: * White/American Indian and Alaskan Native, at 7,015,017, * White/Black at 737,492, * White/Asian at 727,197, and * White/Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander at 125,628.


Genetic admixture

A 2002 study found an average of 18.6% European genetic contribution and 2.7% Native American genetic contribution (with standard errors 1.5% and 1.4% respectively) in a sample of 232 African Americans. Meanwhile, in a sample of 187 European Americans from State College, Pennsylvania, there was an average of 0.7% West African genetic contribution and 3.2% Native American genetic contribution (with standard errors 0.9% and 1.6% respectively). Most of the non-European admixture was concentrated in 30% of the sample, with West African admixture ranging from 2 to 20%, with an average of 2.3%. In 1958, Robert Stuckert produced a statistical analysis using historical census data and immigration statistics. He concluded that the growth in the White population could not be attributed solely to births in the White population and immigration from Europe, but was also due to people identifying as White who were partly Black. He concluded that 21 percent of White Americans had some recent African-American ancestors. He also concluded that the majority of Americans of known African descent were partly European and not entirely sub-Saharan African. More recently, many different DNA studies have shown that many African Americans have European admixture, reflecting the long history in this country of the various populations. Proportions of European admixture in African-American DNA have been found in studies to be 17% and between 10.6% and 22.5%. Another recent study found the average to be 21.2%, with a standard error of 1.2%. The Race, Ethnicity, and Genetics Working Group of the National Human Genome Research Institute notes that "although genetic analyses of large numbers of loci can produce estimates of the percentage of a person's ancestors coming from various continental populations, these estimates may assume a false distinctiveness of the parental populations, since human groups have exchanged mates from local to continental scales throughout history."


Members of other races

In the 2000 census, the non-standard category of "Other" was especially intended to capture responses such as
Mestizo (; ; fem. ) is a term used for racial classification to refer to a person of mixed Ethnic groups in Europe, European and Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous American ancestry. In certain regions such as Latin America, it may also r ...
and
Mulatto (, ) is a racial classification to refer to people of mixed African and European ancestry. Its use is considered outdated and offensive in several languages, including English and Dutch, whereas in languages such as Spanish and Portuguese is ...
, two large multiracial groups in most of the countries of origin of Hispanic and Latino Americans. However, many other responses are captured by the category. In 2008, 15 million people, nearly five percent of the total U.S. population, were estimated to be "some other race", with 95% of them being Hispanic or Latino. Due to this category's non-standard status, statistics from government agencies other than the Census Bureau (for example: the Centers for Disease Control's data on vital statistics (government records), vital statistics, or the FBI's crime statistics), but also the Bureau's own official Population Estimates, omit the "some other race" category and include most of the people in this group in the White population, thus including the vast majority (about 90%) of Hispanic and Latino Americans in the White population. For an example of this, see The World Factbook, published by the Central Intelligence Agency.


Ancestry

The ancestry of the people of the United States, United States of America is widely varied and includes descendants of populations from around the world. In addition to its variation, the ancestry of people of the United States is also marked by varying amounts of interracial marriage, intermarriage between ethnic group, ethnic and Race (human classification), racial groups. While some Americans can trace their ancestry back to a single ethnic group or population in
Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
, Africa, or Asia, these are often first, second and third-generation Americans. Generally, the degree of mixed heritage increases the longer people's ancestors have lived in the United States (see melting pot). There are several means available to discover the ancestry of the people living in the United States, including genealogy, genetics, Oral history, oral History, and written history, and analysis of United States Census, Federal Population Census schedules; in practice, only few of these have been used for a larger part of the population.


2020 American Community Survey

According to the 2015–2020
American Community Survey The American Community Survey (ACS) is a demographics survey program conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. It regularly gathers information previously contained only in the long form of the decennial census, such as ancestry, citizenship, educati ...
, the thirty largest ancestry groups in the United States were (see above for the OMB self-designation options): However, Demography, demographers regard the reported number of English Americans as a serious undercount, as the index of inconsistency is high and many if not most Americans from English stock have a tendency to identify simply as "American ancestry, Americans"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. or if of mixed European ancestry, identify with a more recent and differentiated ethnic group.


Ancestry maps


Major ancestries

These images display frequencies of self-reported ancestries, as of the United States Census, 2000, 2000 U.S. Census. Regional African ancestries are not listed, though an African American map has been added from another source. File:American1346.gif, Frequency of American ethnicity, American ancestry File:New 2000 asian density.gif, Density of Asian Americans File:New 2000 asian percent.gif, Percent of Asian Americans File:New 2000 black density.gif, Density of African Americans File:New 2000 black percent.gif, Percent of African Americans File:New 2000 hawaiian density.gif, Density of Native Hawaiian Americans File:New 2000 hawaiian percent.gif, Percent of Native Hawaiian Americans File:New 2000 indian density.gif, Density of Native Americans File:New 2000 indian percent.gif, Percent of Native Americans File:New 2000 white density.gif, Density of
White American White Americans are Americans who identify as and are perceived to be white people. This group constitutes the majority of the people in the United States. As of the 2020 Census, 61.6%, or 204,277,273 people, were white alone. This represented ...
s File:New 2000 white percent.gif, Percent of
White American White Americans are Americans who identify as and are perceived to be white people. This group constitutes the majority of the people in the United States. As of the 2020 Census, 61.6%, or 204,277,273 people, were white alone. This represented ...
s File:USA 2000 black density.png, African Americans, African ancestry File:Arab1346.png, Arab Americans, Arab ancestry File:New 2000 hispanic density.gif, Density of Hispanic and Latino Americans, Hispanic ancestry File:New 2000 hispanic percent.gif, Percent of Hispanic and Latino Americans, Hispanic ancestry File:Census Bureau Westindians in the United States.png, West Indian ancestry


European-American ancestries

These images display frequencies of self-reported
European American European Americans (also referred to as Euro-Americans) are Americans of European ancestry. This term includes people who are descended from the first European settlers in the United States as well as people who are descended from more recent Eu ...
ancestries as of the United States Census, 2000, 2000 U.S. Census. File:Czech1346.gif, Czech American, Czech ancestry File:Distribution of Danish Americans according to 2000.gif, Danish American, Danish ancestry File:Dutch1346.gif, Dutch American, Dutch ancestry File:English1346.gif, English American, English ancestry File:Pct finnish4.png, Finnish American, Finnish ancestry File:French1346.gif, French American, French ancestry File:Census Bureau French Canadians in the United States.gif, French Canadian ancestry Distribution of Americans claiming German Ancestry by county in 2018.png, German Americans, German ancestry File:Greek1346.gif, Greek American, Greek ancestry Distribution of Americans claiming Hungarian Ancestry by county in 2018.png, Hungarian Americans, Hungarian ancestry File:Census Bureau 2000, Icelandic Americans in the United States.png, Icelandic American, Icelandic ancestry File:Irish1346.gif, Irish American, Irish ancestry File:Lithuanian1346.gif, Lithuanian American, Lithuanian ancestry File:Norwegian1346.gif, Norwegian American, Norwegian ancestry Distribution of Americans claiming Polish Ancestry by county in 2018.png, Polish Americans, Polish ancestry File:Portuguese1346.gif, Portuguese American, Portuguese ancestry File:Romanian1346.gif, Romanian American, Romanian ancestry File:Russian1346.gif, Russian American, Russian ancestry File:Scotch irish1346.gif, Scots-Irish American, Scots-Irish ancestry File:Census Bureau Scottish Americans in the United States.gif, Scottish American, Scottish ancestry File:Slovak1346.gif, Slovak American, Slovak ancestry File:Swedish Americans 2000 Census.svg, Swedish American, Swedish ancestry File:Census Bureau Ukrainians in the United States.gif, Ukrainian American, Ukrainian ancestry File:Welsh1346.gif, Welsh American, Welsh ancestry


See also

* Ethnocultural politics in the United States * Historical racial and ethnic demographics of the United States * Language Spoken at Home * Person of color * Race and crime in the United States * Racism in the United States


Notes


References


External links


American Factfinder; keyword search for "Ancestry", all programs
United States Census Bureau * For additional county-level U.S. maps on a wide range of ethnic and nationality groups, visit th
''Map Gallery of Ethnic Groups in the United States''
, part of the course materials for American Ethnic Geography at Valparaiso University.
American terminology for different racial groups
by sociologist Pamela E. Oliver {{Ethnicity Demographics of the United States Ethnic groups in the United States Race in the United States