Is “expanding definition of whiteness” a real thing?

[Person Man]

I’ve often heard of the phenomenon of “expanding definition of whiteness”- meaning that overtime, the exact groups that are considered “white” has been growing. For example, some people claim that originally in the USA, only WASPs were considered white, and them overtime more and more groups were brought into the “white” fold- Italians, Irish, Slavs, Catholics, Jews, etc. And therefore, it can be assumed that who is considered “white” will continue to grow in the future.

To be honest, I’m not very knowledgeable on this, but I’m not sure if this supposed phenomenon is real. For one, were people like Italians, Irish, and Poles, ever actually not considered “white” in the United States? I understand they may have still faced discrimination, but was that for not being “white”? For example, would a marriage between an Italian and an English person have been considered an “interracial marriage”?

Secondly, it seems like in recent times, certain groups have been identifying as “white” less, not more. For example, in the 2010 census, over 50% of Hispanic and Latino Americans identified as “white”, while in 2020, only around 20% did. This implies that people on the fringes of “white” or “person of color” are becoming more likely to identify with the latter, not the other way around.

Finally, I stumbled upon an article today about the ethnic identity of Arab Christians linked below. According to the study, published sometime in the 2010s, 68% of Arab Christians older than 50 thought of themselves as white, while only 47% of those under the age of 50 thought of themselves as white. This implies that the more recently one has developed their ethnic identity, the more likely they are to think of themselves as non-white, indicating the the definition of white is arguably shrinking. Also, the Arab Christians most likely to identify as non-white were “activists and academics”, typically thought of as people who are “forward thinking”, indicating that they have a more “modern” view of race.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14755610.2017.1402797

TL;DR Historically, I’m not sure if “white” was actually limited only to WASPs. In more recent years, Latinos and Arabs- groups on the fringes of being white- seem less likely to identify as white than they would have in recent decades. This casts doubt on the whole “expanding definition of whiteness” to me.

I would like to know this "for a friend", actually. I remember asking the forum a long time ago whether or not I was "multiracial".

[Person Man]

Sort of, but it appears that way because of a misconception.

The American racial divide is not white/nonwhite, it's nonblack/black.

So what do you think of the other poster saying that “Whiteness” is expanding to include African Americans, while Latinos and Asians may be the ones feeling most out of the mainstream?

Categorically false.

This narrative could be different based on the part of country, who actually lives there, and who is controlling the narrative. For example, a ethnically diverse state where movement nationalists and traditionalists control the narrative, you better believe that the narrative a question of whether someone is black or not.