British Americans: Difference between revisions
No edit summary |
dab (Welsh) |
||
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
'''British Americans''' are [[citizen]]s of the [[United States]] of [[United Kingdom|British]] or partial-British ancestry. British Americans commonly have [[England|English]], [[Scotland|Scottish]], [[Scotch-Irish]] ([[Ulster]]), or [[Welsh]] family heritages. [[Irish-American]]s are not considered British descent and most do not think of themselves as of British descent (even though [[Ireland]] was united under the British crown from the [[12th Century]] until 1922). |
'''British Americans''' are [[citizen]]s of the [[United States]] of [[United Kingdom|British]] or partial-British ancestry. British Americans commonly have [[England|English]], [[Scotland|Scottish]], [[Scotch-Irish]] ([[Ulster]]), or [[Wales|Welsh]] family heritages. [[Irish-American]]s are not considered British descent and most do not think of themselves as of British descent (even though [[Ireland]] was united under the British crown from the [[12th Century]] until 1922). |
||
== British American or American? == |
== British American or American? == |
||
Revision as of 23:50, 3 June 2005
British Americans are citizens of the United States of British or partial-British ancestry. British Americans commonly have English, Scottish, Scotch-Irish (Ulster), or Welsh family heritages. Irish-Americans are not considered British descent and most do not think of themselves as of British descent (even though Ireland was united under the British crown from the 12th Century until 1922).
British American or American?
Many British Americans have ancestry in America that dates back to colonial times in the 17th and 18th centuries. With their roots being in America for such a long period, many British Americans have begun to think of themselves ancestrally simply as "Americans". Worldwide that line of thinking is often found. For instance, today's southern Italians don't consider themselves Greeks or partially Greek because their ancestors came from Greece, and today's English don't consider themselves to be Germans because their ancestors were Anglo-Saxons from continental Europe. But in American society, hyphenated-Americanism prevails because so much of the population has relatively recent roots elsewhere.
Many other Americans have forgotten the origins of their distant ancestors, or prefer to identify with the ethnicity of ancestors who arrived more recently, which provide more distinctive folkways than the general American culture. People of English ancestry are especially predominant in much of coastal New England, Upstate New York, and the Tidewater areas of the South from Virgina to Georgia.
Many Americans with a Scottish or Welsh background identify with those "nations" and not with Britain as a whole and so do not refer to themselves as British.
Number of British Americans
In the 2000 Census, 57.6 million Americans reported British ancestry. These include:
- 24.5 million English
- 20.6 million American (the overwhelming majority of those who answered "American" as their ancestry are of British ancestry)
- 4.9 million Scottish
- 4.3 million Scotch-Irish (Ulster)
- 1.7 million Welsh
- 1 million British (answered "British" as ancestry on the Census)
- 600,000 Canadian (the overwhelming majority of those who answered "Canadian" as their ancestry are of British ancestry)
These figures make British Americans the largest ethnic group in the U.S. when counted collectively (although the Census Bureau does not count them collectively, as each of the above is a separate ethnic group i.e. English or Scottish). The Germans and Irish are the largest self-reported ethnic groups in the nation but British ancestry is considered the most common by experts.