EUROPEAN WHITE AMERICANS

European White American

European White American

Introduction

White Americans are one of the five racial designations defined by the U.S. government, the others being Black/African American, Asian, Native American/Alaskan Native, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander (and Other). Whites are defined by the U.S. government as comprising people of European, Middle Eastern, or North African descent. The U.S. Census conducted in 2000 found that 77.1% of the American population indicated that they were White, alone or in combination with another race, with 75.1 % reporting that they were White only (Frankenburg, 1993).

Discussion

Whites also had the opportunity to indicate their family ancestry, the most commonly reported being German (with 15.2% of the total population), followed by Irish (10.8%) and English (8.7%). With regard to place of residence, Whites are distributed fairly evenly throughout the United States, with the largest total numbers of Whites living in the South (34%) and the Midwest (25%) relative to the West (21%) and the Northeast (20%). The highest concentrations of Whites can be found, however, in the populations of the Midwest (85%) and the Northeast (79%).

The Culture of White Americans

Many White Americans would be surprised by the idea that they have a culture. The notion of culture is often associated in the minds of Whites with people of color and the ways in which their ethnic traditions, food, and music are seen as different or exotic. In fact, White Americans do have cultural traditions and norms, even though they are largely invisible as such to Whites themselves. This invisibility derives from the fact that Whites tend to see White culture not as a culture at all but as “just the way things are”—as the standards, customs, and values that describe the essential human experience (Doane, 2003). White culture, then, gains power through its invisibility, in that it becomes the ...