Americans are nationals and citizens of the
United States of America.
Although nationals and citizens make up the
majority of Americans, some dual citizens,
expatriates, and permanent residents, may
also claim American nationality.
The United States is home to people of many
different ethnic origins.
As a result, American culture and law does
not equate nationality with race or ethnicity,
but with citizenship and permanent allegiance.English-speakers,
and even speakers of many other languages,
typically use the term "American" to exclusively
mean people of the United States; this developed
from its original use to differentiate English
people of the American colonies from English
people of England.
The word "American" can also refer to people
from the Americas in general (see Names for
United States citizens).
== Overview ==
The majority of Americans or their ancestors
immigrated to America or are descended from
people who were brought as slaves within the
past five centuries, with the exception of
the Native American population and people
from Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippine
Islands, who became American through expansion
of the country in the 19th century, additionally
America expanded into American Samoa, the
U.S. Virgin Islands and Northern Mariana Islands
in the 20th century.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 influences of African-American
culture.
Westward expansion integrated the Creoles
and Cajuns of Louisiana and the Hispanos of
the Southwest and brought close contact with
the culture of Mexico.
Large-scale immigration in the late 19th and
early 20th centuries from Southern and Eastern
Europe introduced a variety of elements.
Immigration from Asia, Africa, 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.In addition
to the United States, Americans and 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.
== Racial and ethnic groups ==
The United States of America is a diverse
country, racially, and ethnically.
Six races are officially recognized by the
U.S. Census Bureau for statistical purposes:
White, American Indian and Alaska Native,
Asian, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian
and Other Pacific Islander, 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 ===
People of European descent, or White Americans
(also referred to as Caucasian Americans),
constitute the majority of the 308 million
people living in the United States, with 72.4%
of the population in the 2010 United States
Census.
They are considered people who trace their
ancestry to the original peoples of Europe,
the Middle East, and North Africa.
Of those reporting to be White American, 7,487,133
reported to be Multiracial; with largest combination
being white and black.
Additionally, there are 29,184,290 White Hispanics
or Latinos.
Non-Hispanic Whites are the majority in 46
states.
There are four minority-majority states: California,
Texas, New Mexico, and Hawaii.
In addition, the District of Columbia has
a non-white majority.
The state with the highest percentage of non-Hispanic
White Americans is Maine.The largest continental
ancestral group of Americans are that of Europeans
who have origins in any of the original peoples
of Europe.
This includes people via African, North American,
Caribbean, Central American or South American
and Oceanian nations that have a large European
descended population.The Spanish were some
of the first Europeans to establish a continuous
presence in what is now the United States
in 1565.Martín de Argüelles born 1566, San
Agustín, La Florida then a part of New Spain,
was the first person of European descent born
in what is now the United States.
Twenty-one years later, Virginia Dare born
1587 Roanoke Island in present-day North Carolina,
was the first child born in the original Thirteen
Colonies to English parents.
In the 2017 American Community Survey, German
Americans (13.2%), Irish Americans (9.7%),
English Americans (7.1%) and Italian Americans
(5.1%) were the four largest self-reported
European ancestry groups in the United States
forming 35.1% of the total population.
However, the English Americans and British
Americans demography is considered a serious
under-count as they tend to self-report and
identify as simply 'Americans' (since the
introduction of a new ‘American’ category
in the 1990 census) due to the length of time
they have inhabited America.
This is highly overepresented 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.
==== Middle Easterners and North Africans
====
According to the American Jewish Archives
and the Arab American National Museum, some
of the first Middle Easterners and North Africans
(viz. Jews and Berbers) arrived in the Americas
between the late 15th and mid-16th centuries.
Many were fleeing ethnic or ethnoreligious
persecution during the Spanish Inquisition,
and a few were also taken to the Americas
as slaves.In 2014, The United States Census
Bureau began finalizing the ethnic classification
of MENA populations.
According to the Arab American Institute (AAI),
Arab Americans have family origins in each
of the 22 member states of the Arab League.
Following consultations with MENA organizations,
the Census Bureau announced in 2014 that it
would establish a new MENA ethnic category
for populations from the Middle East, North
Africa and the Arab world, 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 new category would also include Jewish
Americans.
The Census Bureau does not currently ask about
whether one is Sikh, because it views them
as followers of a religion rather than members
of an ethnic group, and it does combine questions
concerning religion with race or ethnicity.
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, Sudanese, Djiboutian,
Somali, Mauritanian, Armenian, Cypriot, Afghan,
Azerbaijani and Georgian groups.
In January 2018, it was announced that the
Census Bureau would not include the grouping
in the 2020 Census.
=== Hispanic and Latino Americans ===
Hispanic or Latino Americans (of any race)
constitute the largest ethnic minority in
the United States.
They form the second largest group after non-Hispanic
Whites in the United States, comprising 16.3%
of the population according to the 2010 United
States Census.Hispanic/Latino Americans are
very racially diverse, and as a result form
an ethnic category, rather than a race.People
of Spanish or Hispanic descent have lived
in what is now the United States since 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 (Texanos).
=== Black and African Americans ===
Black and African Americans are citizens and
residents of the United States with origins
in Sub-Saharan Africa.
According to the Office of Management and
Budget, the grouping includes individuals
who self-identify as African American, as
well as persons who emigrated from nations
in the Caribbean and Sub-Saharan Africa.
The grouping is thus based on geography, and
may contradict or misrepresent an individual's
self-identification since not all immigrants
from Sub-Saharan Africa are "Black".
Among these racial outliers are persons from
Cape Verde, Madagascar, various Arab states
and Hamito-Semitic populations in East Africa
and the Sahel, and the Afrikaners of Southern
Africa.African Americans (also referred to
as Black Americans or Afro-Americans, and
formerly as American Negroes) are citizens
or residents of the United States who have
origins in any of the black populations of
Africa.
According to the 2009 American Community Survey,
there were 38,093,725 Black and African Americans
in the United States, representing 12.4% of
the population.
In addition, there were 37,144,530 non-Hispanic
blacks, which comprised 12.1% of the population.
This number increased to 42 million according
to the 2010 United States Census, when including
Multiracial African Americans, making up 14%
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; compared to the 2000 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 West Africa, who survived
the slavery era within the boundaries of the
present United States.
As an adjective, the term is usually spelled
African-American.
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 (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 others would serve the British Empire
in Lord Dunmore's Ethiopian Regiment, and
other units.
By 1804, the northern states (north of the
Mason–Dixon line) 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 US 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 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%).
African immigrants may also experience conflict
with African Americans.
=== Asian Americans ===
Another significant population is the Asian
American population, comprising 17.3 million
in 2010, or 5.6% of the U.S. population.
California is home to 5.6 million Asian Americans,
the greatest number in any state.
In Hawaii, Asian Americans make up the highest
proportion of the population (57 percent).
Asian Americans live across the country, yet
are heavily urbanized, with significant populations
in the Greater Los Angeles Area, New York
metropolitan area, and the San Francisco Bay
Area.They are by no means a monolithic group.
The largest sub-groups are immigrants or descendants
of immigrants from Cambodia, Mainland China,
India, Japan, Korea, Laos, Pakistan, the Philippines,
Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Asians overall have higher income levels than
all other racial groups in the United States,
including whites, and the trend appears to
be increasing in relation to those groups.
Additionally, Asians have a higher education
attainment level than all other racial groups
in the United States.
For better or worse, the group has been called
a model minority.While Asian Americans have
been in what is now the United States since
before the Revolutionary War, relatively large
waves of Chinese, Filipino, and Japanese immigration
did not begin until the mid-to-late 19th century.
Immigration and significant population growth
continue to this day.
Due to a number of factors, Asian Americans
have been stereotyped as "perpetual foreigners".
=== American Indians and Alaska Natives ===
According to the 2010 Census, there are 5.2
million people who are Native Americans or
Alaska Native alone, or in combination with
one or more races; they make up 1.7% of the
total population.
According to the Office of Management and
Budget (OMB), an "American Indian or Alaska
Native" is a person whose ancestry have origins
in any of the original peoples of North, Central,
or South America.
2.3 million individuals who are American Indian
or Alaskan Native are multiracial; additionally
the plurality of American Indians reside in
the Western United States (40.7%).
Collectively and historically this race has
been known by several names; as of 1995, 50%
of those who fall within the OMB definition
prefer the term "American Indian", 37% prefer
"Native American" and the remainder have no
preference or prefer a different term altogether.Native
Americans, whose ancestry is indigenous to
the Americas, originally migrated to the two
continents between 10,000-45,000 years ago.
These Paleoamericans spread throughout the
two continents and evolved into hundreds of
distinct cultures during the pre-Columbian
era.
Following the first voyage of Christopher
Columbus, the European colonization of the
Americas began, with St. Augustine, Florida
becoming the first permanent European settlement
in the continental United States.
From the 16th through the 19th centuries,
the population of Native Americans declined
in the following ways: epidemic diseases brought
from Europe; genocide and warfare at the hands
of European explorers and colonists, as well
as between tribes; displacement from their
lands; internal warfare, enslavement; and
intermarriage.
=== Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders
===
As defined by the United States Census Bureau
and the Office of Management and Budget, Native
Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders are
"persons having origins in any of the original
peoples of Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, or other Pacific
Islands".
Previously called Asian Pacific American,
along with Asian Americans beginning in 1976,
this was changed in 1997.
As of the 2010 United States Census there
are 1.2 million who reside in the United States,
and make up 0.4% of the nation's total population,
of whom 56% are multiracial.
14% of the population have at least a bachelor's
degree, and 15.1% live in poverty, below the
poverty threshold.
As compared to the 2000 United States Census
this population grew by 40%; and 71% live
in the West; of those over half (52%) live
in either Hawaii or California, with no other
states having populations greater than 100,000.
The largest concentration of Native Hawaiians
and other Pacific Islanders, is Honolulu County
in Hawaii, and Los Angeles County in the continental
United States.
=== Two or more races ===
The United States has a growing multiracial
identity movement.
Multiracial Americans numbered 7.0 million
in 2008, or 2.3% of the population; by the
2010 census the Multiracial increased to 9,009,073,
or 2.9% of the total population.
They can be 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 largest population of Multiracial Americans
were those of White and African American descent,
with a total of 1,834,212 self-identifying
individuals.
Barack Obama, 44th President of the United
States, is biracial with his mother being
of English and Irish descent and his father
being of Kenyan birth; however, Obama only
self-identifies as being African American.
=== Some other race ===
According to the 2010 United States Census,
6.2% or 19,107,368 Americans chose to self-identify
with the "some other race" category, the third
most popular option.
Also, 36.7% or 18,503,103 Hispanic/Latino
Americans chose to identify as some other
race as these Hispanic/Latinos may feel the
U.S. Census does not describe their European
and American Indian ancestry as they understand
it to be.
A significant portion of the Hispanic and
Latino population self-identifies as Mestizo,
particularly the Mexican and Central American
community.
Mestizo is not a racial category in the U.S.
Census, but signifies someone who has both
European and American Indian ancestry.
== National personification ==
A national personification is an anthropomorphism
of a nation or its people; it can appear in
both editorial cartoons and propaganda.
Uncle Sam is a national personification of
the United States and sometimes more specifically
of the American government, with the first
usage of the term dating from the War of 1812.
He is depicted as a stern elderly white man
with white hair and a goatee beard, and dressed
in clothing that recalls the design elements
of the flag of the United States – for example,
typically a top hat with red and white stripes
and white stars on a blue band, and red and
white striped trousers.
Columbia is a poetic name for the Americas
and the feminine personification of the United
States of America, made famous by African-American
poet Phillis Wheatley during the American
Revolutionary War in 1776.
It has inspired the names of many persons,
places, objects, institutions, and companies
in the Western Hemisphere and beyond, including
the District of Columbia, the seat of government
of the United States.
== Language ==
English is the de facto national language.
Although there is no official language at
the federal level, some laws—such as U.S.
naturalization requirements—standardize
English.
In 2007, about 226 million, or 80% of the
population aged five years and older, spoke
only English at home.
Spanish, spoken by 12% of the population at
home, is the second most common language and
the most widely taught second language.
Some Americans advocate making English the
country's official language, as it is in at
least twenty-eight states.
Both English and Hawaiian are official languages
in Hawaii by state law.While neither has an
official language, New Mexico has laws providing
for the use of both English and Spanish, as
Louisiana does for English and French.
Other states, such as California, mandate
the publication of Spanish versions of certain
government documents.
The latter include court forms.
Several insular territories grant official
recognition to their native languages, along
with English: Samoan and Chamorro are recognized
by American Samoa and Guam, respectively;
Carolinian and Chamorro are recognized by
the Northern Mariana Islands; Spanish is an
official language of Puerto Rico.
== Religion ==
Religion in the United States has a high adherence
level compared to other developed countries,
as well as a diversity in beliefs.
The First Amendment to the country's Constitution
prevents the Federal government from making
any "law respecting an establishment of religion,
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof".
The U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted this
as preventing the government from having any
authority in religion.
A majority of Americans report that religion
plays a "very important" role in their lives,
a proportion unusual among developed countries,
although similar to the other nations of the
Americas.
Many faiths have flourished in the United
States, including both later imports spanning
the country's multicultural immigrant heritage,
as well as those founded within the country;
these have led the United States to become
the most religiously diverse country in the
world.The majority of Americans (76%) are
Christians, mostly within Protestant and Catholic
denominations; these adherents constitute
51% and 25% of the population, respectively.
Other religions include Buddhism, Hinduism,
Islam, and Judaism, which collectively make
up about 4% to 5% of the adult population.
Another 15% of the adult population identifies
as having no religious belief or no religious
affiliation.
According to the American Religious Identification
Survey, religious belief varies considerably
across the country: 59% of Americans living
in Western states (the "Unchurched Belt")
report a belief in God, yet in the South (the
"Bible Belt") the figure is as high as 86%.Several
of the original Thirteen Colonies were established
by settlers who wished to practice their own
religion without discrimination: the Massachusetts
Bay Colony was established by English Puritans,
Pennsylvania by Irish and English Quakers,
Maryland by English and Irish Catholics, and
Virginia by English Anglicans.
Although some individual states retained established
religious confessions well into the 19th century,
the United States was the first nation to
have no official state-endorsed religion.
Modeling the provisions concerning religion
within the Virginia Statute for Religious
Freedom, the framers of the Constitution rejected
any religious test for office, and the First
Amendment specifically denied the federal
government any power to enact any law respecting
either an establishment of religion or prohibiting
its free exercise, thus protecting any religious
organization, institution, or denomination
from government interference.
The decision was mainly influenced by European
Rationalist and Protestant ideals, but was
also a consequence of the pragmatic concerns
of minority religious groups and small states
that did not want to be under the power or
influence of a national religion that did
not represent them.
== Culture ==
The American culture is primarily a Western
culture, but is influenced by Native American,
West African, Asian, Polynesian, and Latino
cultures.
The United States of America has its own unique
social and cultural characteristics, such
as dialect, music, arts, social habits, cuisine
and folklore.Its chief early European influences
came from English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish
settlers of colonial America during British
rule.
British culture, due to colonial ties with
Britain that spread the English language,
legal system and other cultural inheritances,
had a formative influence.
Other important influences came from other
parts of Europe, especially Germany, France,
and Italy.Original elements also play a strong
role, such as Jeffersonian democracy.
Thomas Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia
was perhaps the first influential domestic
cultural critique by an American and a reactionary
piece to the prevailing European consensus
that America's domestic originality was degenerate.
Prevalent ideas and ideals that evolved domestically,
such as national holidays, uniquely American
sports, military tradition, and innovations
in the arts and entertainment give a strong
sense of national pride among the population
as a whole.American culture includes both
conservative and liberal elements, scientific
and religious competitiveness, political structures,
risk taking and free expression, materialist
and moral elements.
Despite certain consistent ideological principles
(e.g. individualism, egalitarianism, faith
in freedom and democracy), the American culture
has a variety of expressions due to its geographical
scale and demographic diversity.
== Diaspora ==
Americans have migrated to many places around
the world, including Australia, Britain, Brazil,
Canada, Chile, France, Japan, Mexico, New
Zealand and the Philippines.
As of 2016, there were approximately 9 million
U.S citizens living outside of the United
States.A person born in Asia to one American
and one Asian parent is called an Amerasian.
== See also ==
== Footnotes
