Re:US Supreme Court poised to ban affirmative action in univ...
by zugi on Monday October 31, 2022 @08:29PM
(#33415377)
Interesting. I don't have studies but anecdotally many people seem to tie their hyphenated-Americanism to their last name. Of course that just follows one lineage. You could be 60% British, but have an Italian last name, and describe your ancestry as Italian-American.
I think this would be controversial. While a lot of White Americans are proud of their ethnic background (I'm a quarter Irish!, I'm an Italian American), many are not. Maybe because they have mixed backgrounds, don't know where their ancestors came from, or because their ancestors fought or fled wars with those European ancestors. For instance my great-grandfather left Europe in disgust after WWI, and after coming to America told his family that they were going to be simply Americans.
According to wikipedia, 6.6% of Americans self-identify their ancestral origin as simply "American". Most of these are visibly white. Many of them are descended from British people, and quite possibly don't want to self-describe as British-American because America was founded by a war to terminate that connection. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_ancestry