Racial and Ethnic Groups in the United States

Abstract

This article provides an overview of the demographic condition of racial and ethnic groups in the United States. Drawing on the racial and ethnic classifications used by the United States Census Bureau, it provides coverage of Whites, Blacks, Latino/as, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, as well as those populations who are multiracial or who select "other" as their race on the Census. Additionally, it considers the role of ethnic groups that are not part of the Census classifications, such as Irish, Jews, and Arabs. The article considers the current population, geographical distribution, and population trends of the various groups, as well as their standing on educational, economic, and other indicators. Collecting such data on race and ethnicity is controversial, and the article concludes by summarizing the debate over collecting data on race.

Keywords Census; Demography; Ethnicity; Mulatto; One-Drop Rule; Race; Social Construction; Stratification

Race & Ethnicity > Racial & Ethnic Groups in the United States

Overview

Racial and ethnic groups are groups that share a common racial or ethnic identity. While the terms "race" and "ethnicity" are often used interchangeably, they do have slightly different meanings. Racial groups are groups defined by the presence of real or imaginary physical differences between groups, such as skin color. While people may or may not identify with their race, most people have little choice about the racial group to which they are seen to belong. Ethnic groups, on the other hand, are groups defined by the presence of a real or imagined common history or culture. People can generally choose the ethnic group with which they will identify and which they will be seen to belong.

In the United States, the Census Bureau's questions on race and ethnicity provide a common understanding of which groups are the most significant racial and ethnic groups. The census question on race asks people to indicate whether they are White, Black, a specific Asian ethnicity (such as Chinese or Asian Indian), Native American, or Other. A second question asks people to indicate whether or not they are of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin. The race and ethnicity questions also provide people with the option of indicating their membership in certain Asian American, Native American, or other ethnic groups; a question on ancestry provides further opportunities to indicate ethnic ancestry.

In the year 2014, an estimated 77.5% of Americans were White, 13.2% were Black, 1.2% were Native American, 5.4% were Asian, and 2.5% were two or more races. Hispanics/Latinos, who may be of any race, accounted for 17.4%. The ancestry question on the census provides the most useful information on ethnic ancestry. While there are dozens of ethnic ancestries reported by at least 100,000 Americans, only a handful ancestries were reported by more than 10 million people each. In descending order, the most common ancestries claimed are German, Irish, Mexican, English, "American," and Italian (in the past, African American and Mexican have fit into this group, but are now counted as part of race).

Whites

Individuals who are considered White in the United States have ancestry in Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa. While there has been some pressure both from Arab American civil rights groups and anti-Arab groups to classify Arabs separately from Whites, Arabs remain part of the White racial group as of the 2010 Census. In 2014, more than 245 million people, or 77.5% of the U.S. population, were White. While the total number of Whites in the United States is growing, the proportion of the population that is White is declining; this is partially due to changes in the Census itself and partially due to the fact that fewer Whites are immigrating to the United States. The Census Bureau projects that by 2060, the percentage of the population that indicates a White racial identity and no other race or Latino/a origin will be 68.5%.

Whites are concentrated in the Southern and Midwestern portions of the country. While Whites on average have higher salaries than other racial groups and do better on economic and educational indicators than all other groups except Asians, these figures mask substantial disparities within the White population. About 13% of Whites live in poverty, for instance.

Blacks

Individuals who are classified as Black are those who have ancestry in Africa. Racially Black individuals include those who are ethnically African American and primarily the descendants of slaves, as well as more recent immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean. In 2014, 42 million Americans indicated Black racial identity, 13.2% of all Americans. While the proportion of the population that is Black is growing, it is not growing as fast as the proportion that is Asian or Latino/a. The Census Bureau projects that by 2060, the percentage of the population that indicates Black racial identity will be 14.3%.

The states with Black populations include New York State and Texas, while the District of Columbia and Mississippi have the highest proportion. Compared to other racial groups, Blacks are much more likely to live in poverty and have significantly lower incomes and less wealth. They are less likely to marry, partially because a higher percentage of Black men are in prison. While Blacks are almost as likely as Whites to graduate from high school, they are less likely to earn college degrees. Blacks are more likely to work in service occupations and less likely to work in managerial or professional jobs than are Whites.

Asian Americans

Individuals who are classified as Asian American are those who have ancestry on the Asian continent, including South Asians, Southeast Asians, East Asians, and Filipinos. In 2014, 17 million Americans, or 5.4% of the total population, indicated Asian alone racial identity;roughly 20 million people indicated Asian racial identity either alone or in combination with some other race. The Census Bureau projects that by 2060 the percentage of the population that indicates Asian American racial identity will be 9.3%; this increase is due both to continuing immigration as well as to the fact that the Asian population is younger than the population as a whole. California, New York, and Hawaii have the largest Asian American populations. People with Chinese ethnic ancestry are the largest proportion of Asian Americans; Filipinos and Asian Indians are the next largest groups of Asians.

Asians, particularly Asian Indians, are highly represented in professional and managerial occupations. Asians have higher household incomes and more education on average than do other racial groups, but these figures mask substantial differences among different Asian groups. For instance, Vietnamese American workers are concentrated in service and production jobs. Other Asian American groups such as Hmong and Laotians are even less likely to have achieved educational or financial success. As of the 2010 census, fewer than 40 percent of Laotian, Cambodian, or Hmong adults aged twenty-five or older had completed high school or a general equivalency diploma.

Until the 2000 Census, many Pacific Islanders, such as Native Hawaiians and Guamanians, would have chosen the Asian racial option; beginning in 2000, though, a separate category was provided for Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, and, in 2010, 674,625 people, or 0.2% of the U.S. population, chose this category alone or in combination with some other race. As of 2014, this population was estimated at 1.5 million, or 0.5% of the US population. These figures do not include Pacific Islanders who reside in the American territories in the Pacific, such as Guam, Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The majority of Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders live in Hawaii and California. Most Pacific Islanders were born in the United States, they tend to speak English well, and many speak a language other than English at home.

Native Americans

On the census, Native Americans choose the category "American Indian and Alaska Native." This category represents people with origins in any of the original indigenous peoples of North, Central, or South America and who maintain a tribal identity. In 2014, 3.96 million Americans, or 1.2% of the population, were of Native American racial identity alone or in combination with some other race. As of 2015, the Census Bureau projects that 1.3% of the population will select Native American racial identity in 2060.

Native Americans are concentrated in the Western and Southern portions of the country. The largest numbers of Native Americans live in California, Oklahoma, Arizona, Texas, New York, New Mexico, Washington, North Carolina, Florida, Michigan, Alaska, Oregon, Colorado, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota. The states with the largest percentage of their population identifying as Native American are Alaska, Oklahoma, and New Mexico. As of 2010, slightly over 20 percent of Native Americans lived on reservations, trust lands, or other designated tribal areas. The tribes with the largest reported memberships for the 2010 census were Cherokee, Navajo, Choctaw, Sioux, and Chippewa (Ojibwa); 120,000 people reported Mexican American Indian as their tribal affiliation.

Latino/as

The Latino/a ethnicity question asks people if they identify as Spanish, Hispanic, or Latino/a and provides the option for identifying a specific ethnic identity such as Mexican, Puerto Rican, or Cuban. In 2014, 55.4 million Americans, or 17.4% of the U.S. population, indicated Hispanic or Latino origin; the largest subgroup was Mexican, with 64% identifying as Mexican as of the 2012 American Community Survey. Hispanic or Latinos in the United States continue to be concentrated in the Southern and Western regions of the country, though more Latino/as have made their way north. As of 2013, New Jersey, New York, and Illinois all had Latino populations of one million or more. While many Latino/as are immigrants, there is a significant population of Latino/as who have been in the United States since the areas in which they lived became part of the country. This is particularly true for Latino/as in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Southern California, portions of which all were once part of the Mexican nation. The Latino/a population is projected to continue growing as more immigrants arrive in the United States; additionally, Latino/as are younger on average than the United States population.

Latino/as in the United States are less likely to graduate from high school or to earn a college degree than is the population as a whole. However, Latinos are more likely to be in the labor force than are males in the population as a whole (Latinas are less likely to be in the labor force than women generally). Latino/a workers are concentrated in service and construction occupations; they earn significantly lower incomes than U.S. workers on average and are significantly more likely to be in poverty.

Other Ethnic Groups

There are many ethnic groups that have played an important role in the United States. For instance, in 2014, 33.1 million Americans claim Irish ethnicity, more than seven times as many as people who live in Ireland. While Irish Americans historically faced discrimination, they do better financially and educationally than the population as a whole. Data tends to be less available for many individual ethnic groups than it is for racial groups. For example, the Census Bureau considers Jews to be a religion rather than an ethnic group, despite the fact that many Jews identify as ethnically Jewish. In addition, the separation of church and state has led the government to believe it should not collect data on religion. Therefore, little data is available on the Jewish ethnic group.

Because of the controversy mentioned above about the proper categorization of Arabs, however, data is available on the Arab population of the United States. The Census Bureau defines the Arab population as people with ethnic origins in Arabic-speaking parts of the world. As of 2014, the government estimated there were 1.8 Americans of Arab ethnicity. Arabs in the U.S. have ancestry in more than twenty countries including Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt. The population of Arabs in the United States has been rapidly growing since 1980, with the Egyptian proportion growing the fastest. As of the 2010 census, Arabs were concentrated in California, Illinois, Michigan, New York, and the District of Columbia. Arabs are more highly educated than the U.S. population as a whole and are concentrated in managerial, professional, and sales and office occupations; Arabs also tend to do slightly better economically than the population as a whole.

Applications

The Multiracial Population

As noted above, the 2000 Census provided individuals with the opportunity to indicate multiple races for the first time. However, 2000 was not the first time that data was collected on multiracial individuals. Prior to 1970, censuses were conducted by census takers who used their own discretion in allocating individuals among the racial categories. The censuses conducted between 1850 and 1920 did include an option of "mulatto" for those who had mixed Black and White parentage. But given the fact that individuals were placed in this category by observers on the basis of physical characteristics rather than actual identity, the results of these censuses are dubious.

Modern multiracial classification, however, allows for self-identification. In 2014, an estimated 2.5% of the population was of two or more races. In the 2010 census, the most common multiracial classifications were White and Black (20%), White and Asian (18%), and White and American Indian/Alaska Native (16%). Given the history of interracial childbearing in the United States, particularly the practice of White male slave owners impregnating their Black female slaves, it is likely that the percentage of people who claim a multiracial ancestry is lower than the percentage of people who have ancestors of different races. However, the history of the One-Drop Rule in the United States makes Blacks likely to identify as Black rather than multiracial even when there is White ancestry in their families.

Viewpoints

Collecting Data on Race

In order to collect the data necessary to write an article like this, the Census Bureau and other governmental and non-governmental researchers need to collect data on race. However, the act of collecting data on race is very controversial. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the federal government office charged with creating and maintaining data-collection policies for the United States government, understands the controversy around collecting data on race. In its revisions to the standards on collecting such data, the OMB laid out a set of criteria for ensuring that data is collected in ways that respond to popular concerns. For instance, the OMB requires that individuals be able to indicate their own racial and ethnic identities without reference to observations or particular qualifications and that racial and ethnic categories not be used to establish eligibility for benefits. The Census Bureau and the OMB see the collection of such data as vital to demographic research and monitoring discrimination.

The American Sociological Association (ASA) has similarly defended the importance of collecting data on race. Despite the fact that most sociologists see race as a socially constructed phenomenon, race has real consequences for individuals' lives. Therefore, the ASA issued a statement in 2003 on the importance of collecting data on race that argues that such data is vital for understanding and combating racial stratification processes. This 2003 statement was issued in response to Proposition 54, a California ballot initiative that would have prohibited all state and local government offices and officials, including public higher education employees, from collecting data on race or ethnicity. While Proposition 54 did not pass, 36% of California voters voted in favor of it. A sizable minority of the United States population continues to oppose initiatives to collect racial or ethnic data.

Terms & Concepts

American Sociological Association (ASA): The American Sociological Association, or ASA, is the professional disciplinary association that represents sociologists in the United States.

Census: A census is a periodic count of the population. Unlike a survey, which samples a proportion of the population, a census aims to count every single member of the population. In the United States, the Census is conducted every ten years by the United States Census Bureau. In intervening periods, surveys like the Current Population Survey and the American Community Survey collect more detailed information about the population.

Demography: Demography is the study of population characteristics such as size, growth, or decline rates; age structures; and distribution. Individuals who work in the field of demography are called demographers.

Ethnicity: A shared identity based on some notion of common culture, experience, or history. Ethnicities are actively chosen and maintained by the people who hold them.

Mulatto: A term for an individual with both White and Black parentage. Strictly speaking, a "mulatto" was someone with ½ Black and ½ White ancestry, while someone with ¼ Black ancestry was a "quadroon" and someone with 1/8 Black ancestry was an "octoroon." All of these terms are generally considered derogatory and are rarely used in modern discussions of race.

One-Drop Rule: A colloquial term referring to the historical practice in the United States of classifying any individual with any discernible trace of Black ancestry as Black.

Race: A system of stratification based on real or imagined physical differences between groups that are believed to be essential and permanent. Most sociologists believe that race is not based on biology, but rather on socially constructed categories that are imposed on people from the outside.

Social Construction: Social construction refers to the process by which an invented idea or phenomenon takes on a reality in the social world. More broadly, social construction is the idea that our conceptions of the world around us are created and constructed through social life.

Stratification: The arrangement of groups into a hierarchical pattern, or the system of such arrangements. Stratification is often used to refer to systems of class, race, or gender.

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Colby, S.L., & Ortman, J.M. (2015, March). Projections of the size and composition of the U.S. population: 2014 to 2060. Washington, D.C.: United States Census Bureau. Retrieved January 26, 2016, from http://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2015/demo/p25-1143.pdf

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Hixson, L., Hepler, B.B., & Kim, M.O. (2012). The White population: 2010. Washington, D.C.: United States Census Bureau. Retrieved November 7, 2013 from http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-05.pdf

Hoeffel, E.M., Rastogi, S., Kim, M.O., & Shahid, H. (2012). The Asian population: 2010. Washington, D.C.: United States Census Bureau. Retrieved November 7, 2013 from http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-11.pdf

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Suggested Reading

Fitzgerald, K. (2014). Recognizing race and ethnicity: Power, privilege, and inequality. New York: Westview Press. Retrieved November 7, 2013 from EBSCO online database eBook Collection. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=788929&site=ehost-live

Glazer, N., & Moynihan, D. P. (1970). Beyond the melting pot: The Negroes, Puerto Ricans, Jews, Italians, and Irish of New York City (2nd ed.). Cambridge, MA: The M.I.T. Press.

Heaton, T. B., Chadwick, B. A., & Jacobson, C. K. (2000). Statistical handbook on racial groups in the United States. Phoenix, AZ: Oryx Press.

Khanna, N. (2011). Ethnicity and race as 'symbolic': The use of ethnic and racial symbols in asserting a biracial identity. Ethnic & Racial Studies, 34, 1049–1067. Retrieved November 7, 2013 from EBSCO online database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=60703778&site=ehost-live

Morning, A. (2000). Who is multiracial? Definitions and decisions. Sociological Imagination, 37, 209-229.

Morning, A. & Sabbagh, D. (2005). From sword to ploughshare: Using race for discrimination and antidiscrimination in the United States. International Social Science Journal, 57, 57-73.

Smith, R. C. (2014). Black Mexicans, conjunctural ethnicity, and operating identities: Long-term ethnographic analysis. American Sociological Review, 79, 517–548. Retrieved January 15, 2015, from EBSCO online database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=97191071&site=ehost-live&scope=site