Kiwis what are our thoughts on American being an ethnicity rather than just nationality, similar to what Rousseau types spew? Can you even measure such a thing? Do blacks count, do browns count? Would it only be the Protestant English whites of the colonial era?
I personally just view being “American” as a nationality. Ethnicity is a lot different. A lot of European descended Americans are ethnically Irish, or ethnically German, or ethnically French, or ethnically Italian. You get the point. A lot of mixed ethnicities too. But America is so young that it’s hard to consider being American an ethnicity. However America is most definitely rooted in European identity. Not too dissimilar to Australia or Canada.
I think American ethnicity ultimately is two groups of people, whether or not I wanna admit the second at times: 1) Colonial-Stock/Heritage-American IE Anglo-Protestant, and 2) Black/Slave-descended Protestant.
1) We've obviously tons of Germans, Irish, Italians, etc. migrate over the centuries. But they not only did NOT EVER outnumber the Colonial Stock, but in fact intermarried into it so much that it's a truism is that most "German," "Irish," etc.-Americans are actually mostly Colonial-Stock in blood by now... but their surname originator happened to come from a later point in time.
2) Another truism is even on those most-common ethnicity maps where you, say, see "German" splotched across the Midwest or "Irish/Italian" in the northeast, the amount of "English/American" in
actual numbers is right behind them if you look into most counties' demographics. Considering bullet point 1) above, this means the White population is a lot more related to one another at first glance.
3) Like it or lump it, Blacks have been here almost as long as Colonial-Stock/Heritage. This nation WAS founded by said Colonial-Stock as their own homeland, and they and those assimilated into them should always be a supermajority. But Blacks have and will always be part of the nation. I don't actually mind that, as long as they learn to finally realize Whites extended a hand to them as part of the nation and move on from the horrors of slavery and discrimination of Jim Crow. I know, wishful thinking, but a man can dream.
4) Every time a wave of nativism happens, what's the "root" it ultimately harkens back to? That Colonial-Stock and their culture - English language and Protestantism, the nation started as English colonies, etc. It also urges all "hyphenated-Americans" in such a period to either assimilate or GTFO, and the latter the reserved case when they're ACTUALLY ethnically different, unassimilable. Thus, if this is the deepest root, then it's what "American"
is.
Essentially, American ethnicity to me is: "Colonial-Anglo blood and roots, heartily supplemented by general Euro migrants intermarrying/assimilating into that, with a small peppering of Blacks".
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"American" was never really supposed to be "just" a nationality, but a
people, IE an
ethnos/ethnicity, as well. A people unto their own! The nation has been a supermajority of Colonial-Stock (with a Black minority) for the vast majority of its existence since the colonies were founded, and an American was usually seen to be speaking English, have an English or Anglicized name, and Protestant (whatever sect they felt like), much as we can define, say, Russian as "Slavic descent, speaking Russian with a Russian name, practicing Orthodoxy" or Han Chinese as "Sinitic descent, speaking a Sinitic dialect, practicing Buddhism or folk religion".
It's only been the last sixty years or so with the Civil Rights Act/Hart-Culler Act that this basic no-brainer fact has been tarred upon by leftists/Dems/communists (same thing) attempting to import foreigners and colonizers into our country for their own power plays. I'm glad it's finally being fought against, and I still hope to both see the White population rise back up, and spic/jeet/brownoid horde numbers sink into irrelevancy, forever.
