Americans
Americans are the citizens and nationals of the United States. U.S. federal law does not equate nationality with race or ethnicity, but rather with citizenship. The U.S. has 37 ancestry groups with more than one million individuals. White Americans form the largest racial and ethnic group at 61.6% of the U.S. population, with non-Hispanic Whites making up 57.8% of the population. Hispanic and Latino Americans form the second-largest group and are 18.7% of the American population. Black Americans constitute the country's third-largest ancestry group and are 12.4% of the total U.S. population. Asian Americans are the country's fourth-largest group, composing 6% of the American population. The country's 3.7 million Native Americans account for about 1.1%, and some 574 native tribes are recognized by the federal government. People of American descent can be found internationally. As many as seven million Americans are estimated to be living abroad, and make up the American diaspora.
The majority of Americans trace their roots to immigrants who arrived in what is now the United States, starting with European colonization in the 16th century. This includes diverse groups such as the English, Irish, Germans, Italians, and others, as well as Africans forcibly brought as slaves during the Atlantic slave trade. However, the Native American population, whose ancestors inhabited the continent for thousands of years before European contact, are a key exception.
Despite its multi-ethnic composition, the culture of the United States held in common by most Americans can also be referred to as mainstream American culture, a Western culture largely derived from the traditions of Northern and Western European colonists, settlers, and immigrants. It also includes significant influences of African-American culture. Westward expansion integrated the French-speaking Creoles and Cajuns of Louisiana and the Hispanos of the American Southwest, who brought close contact with the culture of Mexico. Large-scale immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries from Eastern and Southern Europe introduced a variety of new customs. Immigration from Africa, Asia, and Latin America has also had impact. A cultural melting pot, or pluralistic salad bowl, describes the way in which generations of Americans have celebrated and exchanged distinctive cultural characteristics.
Racial and ethnic groups
The United States is a diverse country, both racially and ethnically. Six races are officially recognized by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes: Alaska Native and American Indian, Asian, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, White, and people of two or more races. "Some other race" is also an option in the census and other surveys.The United States Census Bureau also classifies Americans as "Hispanic or Latino" and "Not Hispanic or Latino", which identifies Hispanic and Latino Americans as a racially diverse ethnicity that comprises the largest minority group in the nation.
White and European Americans
White Americans constitute the majority of the 331 million people living in the United States, with 204,277,273 people or 61.6% of the population in the 2020 United States census. The US census defines "white" as " person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa". Non-Hispanic Whites, which only account for 57.8% of the population, or 191,697,647 people, are the majority in 44 states. There are six minority-majority states: California, Texas, Maryland, New Mexico, Nevada, and Hawaii. In addition, the District of Columbia and the five inhabited U.S. territories have a non-white majority. The state with the highest percentage of non-Hispanic White Americans is Maine, while the state with the lowest percentage is Hawaii.Europe is the largest continent that Americans trace their ancestry to, and many claim descent from various European ethnic groups.
The Spaniards were among the first Europeans to establish a continuous presence in what is now the continental United States in 1565 in San Agustín, La Florida then a part of New Spain. Virginia Dare in Roanoke Island in present-day North Carolina, was the first child born in the original Thirteen Colonies to English parents. The Spaniards also established a continuous presence in what over three centuries later would become a possession of the United States with the founding of the city of San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 1521.
Jewish Americans trace their ancestry primarily to Central and Eastern Europe, with smaller numbers from the Middle East and North Africa. Large numbers of Jewish immigrants arrived in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, fleeing persecution in the Russian Empire and other parts of Eastern Europe. They arrived in cities such as New York City, Chicago, and Philadelphia.
In the 2020 United States census, English Americans 46.5 million, German Americans 45m, Irish Americans 38.6m, and Italian Americans 16.8m were the four largest self-reported European ancestry groups in the United States constituting 62.4% of the white American population. However, the English Americans and British Americans demography is considered a serious under-count as they tend to self-report and identify as simply "Americans" due to the length of time they have inhabited America. This is highly over-represented in the Upland South, a region that was settled historically by the British.
Overall, as the largest group, European Americans have the lowest poverty rate and the second highest educational attainment levels, median household income, and median personal income of any racial demographic in the nation, second only to Asian Americans in the latter three categories.
Hispanic and Latino Americans
Hispanic and Latino Americans constitute the largest ethnic minority in the United States. They form the second largest group in the United States, comprising 62,080,044 people or 18.7% of the population according to the 2020 United States census.Hispanic and Latino Americans are not considered a race in the United States census, instead forming an ethnic category.
People of Spanish or Hispanic and Latino descent have lived in what is now United States territory since the founding of San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1521 by Juan Ponce de León, and the founding of St. Augustine, Florida in 1565 by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés. In the State of Texas, Spaniards first settled the region in the late 1600s and formed a unique cultural group known as Tejanos.
Black and African Americans
Black and African Americans are citizens and residents of the United States with origins in sub-Saharan Africa. According to the Office of Management and Budget, the grouping includes individuals who self-identify as African American, as well as persons who emigrated from nations in the Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa. The grouping is thus based on geography, and may contradict or misrepresent an individual's self-identification since not all immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa are "Black". Among these racial outliers are persons from Cape Verde, Madagascar, various Arab states, and Hamito-Semitic populations in East Africa and the Sahel, and the Afrikaners of Southern Africa. African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have origins in any of the black populations of Africa. According to the 2020 United States census, there were 39,940,338 Black and African Americans in the United States, representing 12.4% of the population. Black and African Americans make up the third largest group in the United States, after White and European Americans, and Hispanic and Latino Americans. The majority of the population lives in the South; compared to the 2000 United States census, there has also been a decrease of African Americans in the Northeast and Midwest.Most African Americans are the direct descendants of captives from Central and West Africa, from ancestral populations in countries like Nigeria, Benin, Sierra Leone, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, and Angola, who survived the slavery era within the boundaries of the present United States. As an adjective, the term is usually spelled African-American. Montinaro et al. observed that around 50% of the overall ancestry of African Americans traces back to the Niger-Congo-speaking Yoruba of southwestern Nigeria and southern Benin, reflecting the centrality of this West African region in the Atlantic slave trade. Zakharaia et al. found a similar proportion of Yoruba associated ancestry in their African American samples, with a minority also drawn from Mandinka populations, and Bantu populations.
The first West African slaves were brought to Jamestown, Virginia in 1619. The English settlers treated these captives as 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 American colonies had slavery, but it was usually the form of personal servants in the North, and field hands in plantations in the South ; 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 others would serve the British Empire in the Ethiopian Regiment, and other units. By 1804, the northern states had abolished slavery. However, slavery would persist in the southern states until the end of the American Civil War and the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment. Following the end of the Reconstruction era, which saw the first African American representation in Congress, African Americans became 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 due to the civil rights movement.
According to United States Census Bureau data, very few African immigrants self-identify as African American. On average, less than 5% of African residents self-reported as "African American" or "Afro-American" on the 2000 U.S. census. The overwhelming majority of African immigrants identified instead with their own respective ethnicities. Self-designation as "African American" or "Afro-American" was highest among individuals from West Africa, and lowest among individuals from Cape Verde, East Africa and Southern Africa. African immigrants may also experience conflict with African Americans.