Opinion Is "American" an ethnicity? If so, what are its defining characteristics?

[TheComebackKid]

That's odd cause I have always read that the aboriginal people were referred to as "Indians" or "Native Americans" , and American was really only applied to Whites, especially Germanic Whites cause America as a nation was mostly a creation of Anglo Whites.

The more you know. There's alot of things we were taught that isn't true.

 

[spin]

"Ethnic Americans"

Hmm, doesn't sound like something we would call the majority.

Yeah, the ethnic Americans are dead and gone.

 

[Joe265]

I still don’t cleary understand what ethnicity, nationality, race is.

 

[panamaican]

I could see "American" as an ethnicity. We all celebrate Thanksgiving, Halloween, New Year's, 4th of July regardless of religion. We uphold the same cultural values of what America is supposed to represent, even though there are always people who hold fringe perspectives. Our value systems have the same philosophical foundation, even as we practice different religions. Our biggest national sports are sports that are uniquely ours - American football, basketball and baseball. Contrast that with the international sports favorite of soccer.

Of course, it's very reasonable to argue in the other direction.

 

[panamaican]

I still don’t cleary understand what ethnicity, nationality, race is.

2 of the 3 are subjective. Only nationality has a real definition.

Ethnicity is just a bunch of commonalities to define a group of people but there's no set list of commonalities so it could be religion or it could be language or place of origin. Race is often used to describe where most of someone's ancestors are from but it runs into problems when you start dealing with "multi-racial" people. It also have historic problems because we used to call different groups separate races and now we've amalgamated them. For example - the Irish used to be a different race from the Germans, the Chinese would consider themselves a different race from the Japanese. Now, they're just whites and Asians.

Nationality at least is easy - you are formally part of a specific nation.

 

[abiG]

No, it obviously is not an ethnicity, but explaining this to people who are confused about where to go to the bathroom isn't worth my time.

 

[Joe265]

2 of the 3 are subjective. Only nationality has a real definition.

Ethnicity is just a bunch of commonalities to define a group of people but there's no set list of commonalities so it could be religion or it could be language or place of origin. Race is often used to describe where most of someone's ancestors are from but it runs into problems when you start dealing with "multi-racial" people. It also have historic problems because we used to call different groups separate races and now we've amalgamated them. For example - the Irish used to be a different race from the Germans, the Chinese would consider themselves a different race from the Japanese. Now, they're just whites and Asians.

Nationality at least is easy - you are formally part of a specific nation.

Thanks. Also...Nation seems to be used for a particular group of people, as well as a particular place that holds many different groups of ppl. No?

 

[panamaican]

Thanks. Also...Nation seems to be used for a particular group of people, as well as a particular place that holds many different groups of ppl. No?

It depends. German Americans might refer to themselves as German but they don't mean nationality, they mean some variant of ethnicity. Germans who hold German citizenship will call themselves German and mean both, nationality and ethnicity.

It gets interesting with some Native American groups where the nation is the same as the ethnicity but, in those circumstances, they usually have very strict rules about who is allowed to claim the ethnicity that grants access to the nationality.

On top of that there are a bunch of unrecognized nations. Essentially, in the modern world, your nation has to be recognized as a nation by the other countries to get a seat at the table for many of these international organizations. But for whatever reason, some groups that consider themselves a nation do not get international recognition as such. They're still nations, just without any international standing.

 

[Jack V Savage]

I think it is, and we should encourage Americans to think of themselves as ethnically American. There are American foods, a sporting culture, etc. @Lord Coke was recently talking about how Marxists who have wanted workers to identify primarily as workers failed, which has undermined the worker solidarity that they needed. OK, but if people identify primarily as Americans, we can at least have the solidarity to get more common-good policy.

 

[Cuauhtemoc]

Yes because ethnicity is a very open term. It's as much an ethnicity as latino, people that have little to do with each other except language. Of course, it's not a closed endogamous ethnicity.

 

[Cuauhtemoc]

Not yet. But in a couple of hundred years when most Americans are mixed , they will be distinct from Europeans, Asians, Latinos, MidEastern folks. So American will be an ethnicity. Does anyone consider Mestizos (in Mexico) an ethnicity? Or do they identify as either White or Native and not as Mestizo ?

They identify as mestizos. There are also whites and natives, but most of the population is and identify as mestizo in Mexico.

 

[surrealworlds]

Ethnicity
the fact or state of belonging to a social group that has a common national or cultural tradition

 

[Blood and Thunder]

An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a category of people who identify with each other based on similarities such as common ancestry, language, history, society, culture or nation.[1][2] Ethnicity is usually an inherited status based on the society in which one lives. Membership of an ethnic group tends to be defined by a shared cultural heritage, ancestry, origin myth, history, homeland, language or dialect, symbolic systems such as religion, mythology and ritual, cuisine, dressing style, art or physical appearance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_group

ethnicity
[eth-nis-i-tee]
See more synonyms for ethnicity on Thesaurus.com
noun, plural eth·nic·i·ties.

1. an ethnic group; a social group that shares a common and distinctive culture, religion, language, or thelike:Representatives of several ethnicities were present.
2. ethnic traits, background, allegiance, or association:The graph shows class enrollment by gender and ethnicity.https://www.dictionary.com/browse/ethnicity

I see no reason why it would seem unusual to identify as ethnically American.

This ^

It's like saying the British aren't an ethnicity because a high percentage have a lot of German and Scandinavian DNA.

 

[mrsenor]

“In the 16 years that I have been here, what I've noticed is that in America, when people feel like a person is below them, not just in numbers but in general, they will kind of talk you up. But then when you get up to the same level or maybe even higher, they get in attack mode; they are maybe not as supportive. I kind of felt that this time.” Ichiro

 

[mrsenor]

If somebody asks me I tell them that I'm French, Irish, Norwegian, and a pinky toe of Native American, but I consider my self an American first as my family goes back 5 generations. Hell there is even a lake with my last name that was from property my Great Great Grandpa homesteaded in my hometown.

sounds like your h'white

 

[mrsenor]

Black people in US got pretty similar ethnic make up to one another. Same goes for white people.

 

[ObamaPhoneLady]

America's tough because it's so big and home to so many varied cultures.

 

[grizzard2bid]

My family goes back in this country many generations. I likely wouldn't relate to the people they came from 100s of years ago. I know I have Irish and English descent but don't consider myself Irish or English.

I think you're very well onto a very legit point.
I think there are several "American ethnicities".
There are Anglo-Americans, European Americans, African-Americans, Asian Americans, and Hispanic Americans. Most of those ethnicities are significantly different from their original native countries due to geo-location and climate, some degree of diversity in marriage, as well as psychological norms- psychology is a big overlooked part of what makes a person.

American ethnic groups are more diverse in their DNA makeup than their original ancestors were.

 

[grizzard2bid]

America's tough because it's so big and home to so many varied cultures.

It's also tough because it was founded by people who were willing to take a big risk of dropping whatever they had and making an uncertain journey to a new land. That trait was passed on from generation to generation.

 

[NoDak]

I think you're very well onto a very legit point.
I think there are several "American ethnicities".
There are Anglo-Americans, European Americans, African-Americans, Asian Americans, and Hispanic Americans. Most of those ethnicities are significantly different from their original native countries due to geo-location and climate, some degree of diversity in marriage, as well as psychological norms- psychology is a big overlooked part of what makes a person.

American ethnic groups are more diverse in their DNA makeup than their original ancestors were.

Norwegian-Americans. A small group, predominantly concentrated in a specific region. If you are, there's a tremendous probability you're from or live in North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota. NoDak even does that whole freeze your balls off but best quality of life (within the country), state owned bank, sovereign wealth fund, extremely low crime thing.