Definition of "white ethnics"

[King of Kensington]

Term is less commonly used today than it was in the past when the differences between the WASP mainstream and white ethnic groups were more salient or noticeable.  Has a rather imprecise definition but it generally includes people of southern and eastern European ancestry.  Sometimes includes Irish Catholics.  Sometimes includes Jews as well, but they have a rather unique socioeconomic and cultural profile and distinctive concerns.

[King of Kensington]

I feel like in NYC, you have very very extreme neighborhood sorting among "ethnic whites" so you have clear Italian, Russian, Jewish, and other neighborhoods.

Very much so.  There was a famous book in the 1960s, Beyond the Melting Pot, that argued that ethnic groups in the city retained their distinctiveness and the melting pot didn't really apply in NYC.

NYC is the "ethnic" city par excellence.  About half of NHWs in the region are Italian American or Jewish.  It's the only metro where a majority of NHWs are not of British Isles or NW European ancestry.  Italian is the top ancestry group in the region.

And it's not limited to the city proper or inner-ring suburbs either.  Italian Americans living in suburban sprawl retain a culturally conservative outlook and distinct voting patterns.  And there's far-flung Orthodox Jewish communities too.

[King of Kensington]

Many white ethnics are now wealthier than WASPs on average, because so many technical WASPs are in Appalachia and the South. So a lot of "white ethnic" communities lost the working class profile that used to define them.

Even in the 1970s I think white Catholics had caught up or even surpassed white Protestants.  Of course white ethnics did not interact with the whites of the South and Appalachia.  The "WASP" moniker was used in places where distinctions among whites exited.

IIRC, Irish Catholics were the most affluent and educated white group after Jews then.  Which makes sense - they had been in the US a long time and they were disproportionately concentrated in the Northeast and few lived in the South and Appalachia.

Some white ethnic continue to be fairly unassimilated and disproportionately poor and working class, including Portuguese Americans, and people from the Balkans.

There are more immigrants among these groups.

[King of Kensington]

Yeah, the term is used most in northeastern and midwestern cities with a history of eastern and southern European immigration and ethnic neighborhoods.  There are fewer "white ethnics" outside this quadrant of the country and those that have such ancestries have generally melted into the broader white population.

[King of Kensington]

It was a book called The American Catholic I think, by Andrew Greeley.  Read it years ago.  It drew on the NORC General Social Survey.