Most Common U.S. Ancestries

The Chinese, Indians, and Native Americans have existed as ethnic groups much longer than 2,000 years. Germans are at least 2,000 years old, and you could make a pretty reasonable argument that Italians have been around since the days of the Roman Republic.

American is never used to mean someone from the Americas. It is always used to mean someone from the United States of America.

Jenkins, you serious? You think that 2,000 years ago there were "Native Americans?" There were people back that that we would today describe as Olmec. We really don't know much about what people were living in most of North America at the time as they had no written language and left little archaeological evidence. There were thousands of different wildly disparate tribes of people all over North America by the time Europeans showed up and started documenting them. They didn't become "Native Americans"- crudely lumped together in a giant all-encompassing group that really just meant people indigenous to North America and had nothing to do with their ethnicity, until after the arrival of Europeans on the continent which made being indigenous something meaningful. Germans are an ethnic group that first arose in the Middle Ages, much less than 2000 years ago. Like many of these European ethnicities they include disparate peoples, united by labels applied by outsiders (Romans in this case).

Qin Shi Huang was the first emperor to unite China. That was little more than 2000 years ago. Today, China is *still* facing the problem of trying to convince all Chinese people that they are actually Chinese. There are tens if not hundreds of millions of people identified as Chinese who don't speak the official language of China, and 56 ethnic groups formally recognized by the government of China even though all of these people are Chinese by nationality, and their descendants in America would likely self-identify as Chinese-American. They get lumped together into the ethnicity of "Chinese" because of contemporary political realities. Chinese did not exist as a meaningful ethnicity for all time, either. and certainly not more than about 2200 years ago. Much longer than being German has meant something, but still not really that much longer than being American has meant something, in the grand scheme. That's all the time for history lessons I've got for today.

"That's all the time for history lessons I've got for today."

Kalbahamut, I give history lessons for a living- five of them of a day, five days a week to honors and AP high school students. We can disagree, but unless you're a PhD with a position at a university, a little humility would be appreciated.

Don't need a PhD to know that "Native American" has not been an ethnic group for 2000 years. No offense or anything but that's simply very wrong.

I apologize if I was coming across as condescending.

gandalf, and we're laughing at you behind yours, or in plain sight as the case may be. I could list all the reasons why but there's a character limit. so, enjoy.

Dunkingandalf, calling ourselves Americans doesn't negate people from two continents. We are all either North Americans or South Americans continentally. The problem is when people are taught that there is only one continent here and it is called America. That is what negates all of our identities.

Native American hasn't been an ethnic group since the first century? I...just...I can't. Also, most South American countries consider using 'American' as 'Usonian' rude.

Kalbahamut, do you really need to have 24 comments on this quiz?

Aesthus, do you really need to have 3? You never seem to add anything relevant or sensical.

In defense of Khalbahamut in regards to the JenkinsEar many professors and educational institutions in North America have a liberal slant and scew in the way they teach their material to students.

I've been a university professor myself. I don't look at things in terms of what's liberal or conservative, but rather what can be demonstrated to be true through evidence and what cannot.

The term "Usonian" exists, although it is rarely used. I think Usamerican has bee suggested too.

Why would anyone feel the need for a change? It's not like people from Canada, Mexico, or South America call themselves American, do they? Or have they started, just in order to invent a new reason to be mad at the USA?

Just had another conversation today with the taxi driver here in Skopje. He asked where I was from. I said "the US." He said what? I said "USA." He's like huh? I said "the states. The United States." He's all "come again?" I said "I'm American. From America." Him finally: "oooooh! America!"

South Americans have been calling themselves Americans for quite a long time. It's considered rude there to use American as a term for U.S. residents, and why shouldn't it be? The Federated States of Micronesia are known as the Federated States because Micronesia means all of the Oceanic island countries, not just them.

i call myself a new englander

Aesthus: yeah, that's total baloney. Source? This is completely fabricated outrage and has only been around for a few decades at best. It's also only become a popular meme in a handful of countries, notably the ones that are most hateful toward the USA in their popular current politics, like Colombia.

Yep, the Scots-Irish are more akin to the Northern Irish/ Ulstermen than either mainland Scots or southern Irish. They were "imported" by the English from Scotland in the 1600s to "colonize" Ireland. When absentee English landlords began raising rents and Anglican clergymen began restricting their Presbyterian faith, the Scots-Irish began to emigrate to the American colonies, particularly the southern Appalachians. There, they began making bourbon and bluegrass.

cool. Thank you for the history lesson. ;-)

*BUT what people call themselves* sorry! Hope this helped, FowlChr!

if you want to be pedantic then all "americans" are immigrants since the "native" americans crossed the bering in around 10,000bc.

In fact outside of some parts of Africa all humans in any place are immigrants.

Many of the so-called African-American people have other ancestors included in their genetic makeup, even the great Muhammad Ali was part Irish. So it is very difficult to itemise their ancestors, although many fully African people (emigrated to USA from Africa) call themselves African-American but are not really so.

If they become American citizens, then they can be African-American whether you think they are or not.

Because the US only has one category for all black people essentially: African American, but of course, this is not indicative of all experiences. E.g. what if you're a black person from the Caribbean and migrate to the US? Or Black British and live in the US?

While I'm not African-American myself, I do find it a bit problematic that all Black people are lumped together like that. While trying to avoid oversimplifying, there are essentially 3 main groups of Black people in America: 1. long-time residents descended from slaves brought directly to the US (the largest group) 2. immigrants from Caribbean countries like Jamaica (a pretty large group) and 3. immigrants from African countries like Nigeria and Ghana (a smaller group but one that's rapidly growing). All these sub-groups of African-Americans have very different cultures and experiences. For example, group 1 tends to be less educated than the average American while group 3 has the highest educational attainment of any group in America, even more so than Asians. The term "African-American" fails to capture the true complexity and diversity of Black communities in the US.

No way TWM03 I CANʻT BELIEVE SOMEONE ELSE KNOWS WHERE WE ACTUALLY CAME FROM OTHER THAN ME