The real fastest-growing ancestry group in the U.S. is White Americans not reporting an answer

[King of Kensington]

English first ancestry

2012  17,155,000
2022  22,483,000

+ 5,328,000

American ancestry

2012  20,921,000
2022  15,501,000

- 5,420,000

[RINO Tom]

Virtually no non-immigrant White Americans have a single coherent national/cultural identity. The only ones who do are descendants of post-1900 immigrants who settled in ethnic enclaves in Northern cities and stayed there (Irish in Boston, Italians on Long Island, Poles in Chicago, etc).

Maybe your surname is English/Irish/German/etc but if you actually go back through your family tree that nationality is a mere fraction of the family by virtue of so many generations of people from different backgrounds marrying each other.

It's absurd to expect someone to identify with a country a small sliver of their ancestors came from, where no one in their family has lived for centuries, and that they have probably never even visited or know anything about.

Never said anyone should identify strongly with some European culture, simply that he should avoid being dumb enough to say he’s “ethnically American.”

[Beet]

Maybe all the "woke" stuff since 2012 has resulted in a consolidation of White identity. When people feel they are under attack they tend to unify together.

[King of Kensington]

^ I think for a form like this, somebody should default to his/her surname origin or simply English if he/she is REALLY that unsure of what the plurality ancestral component would be.

The recent increase in English responses corresponds almost perfectly with the decline in "American" responses.

[Biden his time]

Are blank responses more common in the Southern states where there is lower ethnic identity and awareness?

The percentage of people who were "White" as per the above classification (including those who marked "European", "Caucasian", "White" etc. on the ancestry question)

On the five-year 2007-11 American Community Survey (Nationwide average 13.7%):

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On the five-year 2012-16 American Community Survey (Nationwide average 16.6%):

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Will update when the 2017-21 5-year ACS microdata comes out later this month

This data is now available:

On the five-year 2017–21 American Community Survey (Nationwide average 19.7%):

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[Biden his time]

Two maps showcasing the largest primary ancestries over the past decades

Text inside the state refers to the percentage of the population of the state in that ancestry group, and states are also shaded based on the percentage of the population in the largest ancestry group. A lighter shade means a smaller plurality while a darker shade means a bigger one.


Below is the map for the 2007 - 2011 five-year American Community Survey

(13.7%) White / European -  Yellow
(11.2%) German - Red
(10.7%) African American - Blue
(10.0%) Mexican - Green
(7.2%) Irish - Orange
...
(5.9%) English - Gray (only Maine)
(4.3%) Italian - Purple
...
(1.0%) Filipino - Gray (only Hawaii)
...

Image Link


Below is the map for the 2012 - 2016 five-year American Community Survey

(16.6%) White / European -  Yellow
(10.7%) African American - Blue
(10.5%) Mexican - Green
(10.0%) German - Red
(6.8%) Irish - Orange
...
(4.1%) Italian - Purple
...
(1.0%) Filipino - Gray (only Hawaii)
...

Image Link


German, Italian, English, and Irish markers across the Midwest and Northeast give way to apathy about ancestry, meanwhile in the Southern United States stagnant African American populations are overtaken by the regression of the "American" group that begins to be replaced with "Not reported".

Below is the map for the 2017–21 five-year American Community Survey

(19.7%) White / European -  Yellow
(10.6%) African American - Blue
(10.5%) Mexican - Green
(8.9%) German - Red
...
(1.0%) Filipino - Gray (only Hawaii)
...

Image Link

Another precipitous decline for the Irish, Italian, and German ancestry groups as Irish and Italian pluralities in the Northeast disappear entirely. German ancestry identification weakens faster in the Great Plains than it does in the Great Lakes region.

[Biden his time]

Weird to see "White/European" plurality in NYS.

-SNIP-

Update to this previous post with new 2017–21 American Community Survey data:

2007–11 ACS: Italian 11.5%, White 9.5%, African American 9.2%, Irish 8.7%, German 6.8%
2012–16 ACS: White 12.0%, Italian 10.3%, African American 9.1%, Irish 8.0%, German 6.0%
2017–21 ACS: White 15.2%, African American 9.3%, Italian 9.3%, Irish 7.3%, German 5.2%

The number of people who select Italian as their primary ancestry in New York state has dropped behind the number who are African American.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

Virtually no non-immigrant White Americans have a single coherent national/cultural identity. The only ones who do are descendants of post-1900 immigrants who settled in ethnic enclaves in Northern cities and stayed there (Irish in Boston, Italians on Long Island, Poles in Chicago, etc).

Maybe your surname is English/Irish/German/etc but if you actually go back through your family tree that nationality is a mere fraction of the family by virtue of so many generations of people from different backgrounds marrying each other.

It's absurd to expect someone to identify with a country a small sliver of their ancestors came from, where no one in their family has lived for centuries, and that they have probably never even visited or know anything about.

Never said anyone should identify strongly with some European culture, simply that he should avoid being dumb enough to say he’s “ethnically American.”

Why not? New ethnicities have risen up and been destroyed countless times throughout history. What makes defining as ethnically American wrong but defining as ethnically British or French fine?

[Biden his time]

I’m really shocked Hawai’i is Filipino, not Japanese

-SNIP-

Update to this previous post with new 2017–21 American Community Survey data:

2007–11 ACS: Filipino 17.72%, Japanese 17.70%
2012–16 ACS: Filipino 17.74%, Japanese 16.09%
2017–21 ACS: Filipino 17.27%, Japanese 15.21%

The proportion of the population stating Filipino to be their primary ancestry seems to have peaked and now is on the downtrend, while the Japanese population continues dropping.

[Biden his time]

Broward County, Florida top ancestries

2007–2011 ACS (Population 1.74 million)

199K, 11.4% - African American
136K, 7.8% - White / European
113K, 6.5% - Italian
104K, 5.9% - Haitian
92K, 5.3% - Jamaican
85K, 4.9% - Irish
84K, 4.8% - German
82K, 4.7% - American
75K, 4.3% - Cuban
65K, 3.7% - Puerto Rican
63K, 3.6% - Colombian
55K, 3.2% - English
591K, 33.9% of population belonging to a group with less than 50K residents

2007–2011 ACS (Population 1.86 million)

220K, 11.8% - African American
150K, 8.0% - White / European
118K, 6.3% - Haitian
115K, 6.2% - American
106K, 5.7% - Italian
104K, 5.6% - Jamaican
90K, 4.8% - Cuban
79K, 4.2% - Colombian
77K, 4.1% - Irish
76K, 4.1% - Puerto Rican
74K, 4.0% - German
655K, 35.2% of population belonging to a group with less than 50K residents

2017–2021 ACS (Population 1.93 million)

240K, 12.4% - African American
165K, 8.5% - White / European
133K, 6.9% - American
124K, 6.4% - Haitian
109K, 5.7% - Jamaican
107K, 5.5% - Cuban
95K, 4.9% - Italian
81K, 4.2% - Colombian
79K, 4.0% - Puerto Rican
64K, 3.3% - Irish
61K, 3.1% - German
676K, 35.1% of population belonging to a group with less than 50K residents


If you want the numbers for a county sufficiently large enough I can retrieve that info as well.

[RINO Tom]

Virtually no non-immigrant White Americans have a single coherent national/cultural identity. The only ones who do are descendants of post-1900 immigrants who settled in ethnic enclaves in Northern cities and stayed there (Irish in Boston, Italians on Long Island, Poles in Chicago, etc).

Maybe your surname is English/Irish/German/etc but if you actually go back through your family tree that nationality is a mere fraction of the family by virtue of so many generations of people from different backgrounds marrying each other.

It's absurd to expect someone to identify with a country a small sliver of their ancestors came from, where no one in their family has lived for centuries, and that they have probably never even visited or know anything about.

Never said anyone should identify strongly with some European culture, simply that he should avoid being dumb enough to say he’s “ethnically American.”

Why not? New ethnicities have risen up and been destroyed countless times throughout history. What makes defining as ethnically American wrong but defining as ethnically British or French fine?

First of all, I don’t think calling oneself ethically “British” makes much sense either, but that’s neither here nor there and it’s possible you just meant English/Scottish/Welsh/etc.  France I’ll grant you is an interesting case given its history, but it formed as a more traditional ethnostate than the US ever did.  The English were very clearly conscious they were a collection of ethnically similar Germanic peoples and over a WAY longer period of time remained aware of that.  So I don’t really think that’s the same, as the Founders were very clearly aware that they were forming a separate POLITICAL nation of the same dominant ethnicity as England.  We haven’t developed our own language, and our citizens throughout our entire history have remained aware of the fact that they’re not originally from this continent.  It’d be one thing if “we” (like seriously, who even counts here - WHITE people?!  Because that’s really even dumber…) had organically developed as an ethnicity at some point in the last 200 years … but we haven’t.  Our “ethnicities” are largely the same as the 1980s, some people have just stopped thinking it’s important and gotten lazy.  That’s not the same thing as ethnogenesis, IMO.

[bagelman]

A move from "American" to "English" identities is the opposite sort of thing I would expect to happen.

But whites not reporting an answer sounds like they would answer "American" if forced to answer. As our population mixes, European ancestry is muddled up, and "pure" ancestry will get increasingly rare.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

A move from "American" to "English" identities is the opposite sort of thing I would expect to happen.

But whites not reporting an answer sounds like they would answer "American" if forced to answer. As our population mixes, European ancestry is muddled up, and "pure" ancestry will get increasingly rare.

Yeah, I’ll use my mom as an example. As far as we know, she’s an even four-way split between four British/Northern European ethnicities, but there’s nothing really defining her as one above the others. I mean, I suppose you could go off her maiden name? Like I have friends that are part Greek that very much identity as Greek, but my mom (and the rest of my family) is just… well… generically (European-) American.

[RINO Tom]

^ At the end of the day, this is not some huge deal.  However, I do find it interesting to talk about, and I personally wish it was a bit more of a habit for Americans of mixed European ancestry to say "European" rather than "American," or honestly just default to English, haha.

It's also different in various areas of the country, IMO.  I feel there is much more of an awareness of your ancestral background (and probably less "muddled" European ancestries) here in the Midwest, and most of my friends are a lot more "conscious," if you will, of being Irish or German or Polish, etc.  And I guess that makes sense, given that our immigration from Europe of non-English groups took place relatively later in the nation's history, and we got a disproportionate share of the huge German immigration.

[Biden his time]

The percentage of people marking "German" as their first ancestry group

On the five-year 2007–11 American Community Survey (Nationwide average 11.2%):

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On the five-year 2012–16 American Community Survey (Nationwide average 10.0%):

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On the five-year 2017–21 American Community Survey (Nationwide average 8.9%):

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[Biden his time]

The percentage of people marking "English" as their first ancestry group

On the five-year 2007–11 American Community Survey (Nationwide average 5.9%):

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On the five-year 2012–16 American Community Survey (Nationwide average 5.2%):

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On the five-year 2017–21 American Community Survey (Nationwide average 5.6%):

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[King of Kensington]

The low German ancestry in New England and the Deep South is quite clearly shown on the map.

[King of Kensington]

There's been a dropoff in numbers not reporting an ancestry since 1980.  In 1980 the nonresponses were much more concentrated in the South.

Ancestry not reported, 1980

Northeast  7.7%
Midwest  9.2%
South  13.7%
West  8.4%

Ancestry not reported, 2021

Northeast  20.8%
Midwest  21.8%
South  22.1%
West  19.3%