White Americans

White Americans are people of the United States who are considered or consider themselves White. The United States Census Bureau defines White people as those " having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa. It includes people who indicated their race(s) as "White" or reported entries such as Irish, German, Italian, Lebanese, Arab, Moroccan, or Caucasian "^[4] and so is a wider group than European American. Like all official U.S. racial categories, "White" has a "Not Hispanic or Latino" and a "Hispanic or Latino" component,^[5] the latter consisting mostly of White Mexican Americans and white Cuban Americans. The term "Caucasian" is often used interchangeably with "White", although the terms are not synonymous.^[6][7]

The ten largest ancestries of American Whites are: German Americans (16.5%), Irish Americans (11.9%), English Americans (9.0%), Italian Americans (5.7%), Mexican Americans (5.4%), French Americans (4%), Polish Americans (3%), Scottish Americans (1.9%), Dutch Americans (1.6%), and Norwegian Americans (1.5%).^[8][9] However, English-Americans and British-Americans demography is considered a serious under-count as the stock tend to self-report and identify as simply 'Americans' due to the length of time they have inhabited America, subsequently they consider themselves indigenous.^{[10][11][12][13]}

Whites (including Hispanics who identified as white) constitute the majority, with a total of 223,553,265, or 72.4% of the population in the 2010 United States Census. Non-Hispanic whites totaled 196,817,552, or 63.7% of the U.S. population.

In the contemporary United States, essentially anyone of European descent is considered white. However, many of the ethnic groups classified as white by the U.S. Census, such as Jewish-Americans, Arab-Americans, and Hispanics may not identify as, and may not be perceived to be, white.^{[22][23][24][25][26][27]}

The definition of white has changed significantly over the course of American history. Even among Europeans those not considered white at some time in American history include Southern Europeans (Spaniards, Greeks, Italians, etc.), Irish people and Central and Eastern Europeans (Germans, Poles, Russians) but mostly notably Polish people due to the Partitions of Poland.^[28][29]

Early on in the United States, white generally referred to those of British ancestry or northern (Nordic) and northwestern (British and French) European descent.^[30]

David R. Roediger argues that the construction of the white race in the United States was an effort to mentally distance slave owners from slaves.^[31] The process of officially being defined as white by law often came about in court disputes over pursuit of citizenship.^[32]