Race in The United States - Historical Trends and Influences

Historical Trends and Influences

The United States is a racially diverse country. The growth of the Hispanic population through immigration and high birth rates is noted as a partial factor for the US’ population gains in the last quarter-century. The 2000 census also found Native Americans at their highest population, 4.5 million, since the U.S was founded in 1776.

The immigrants to the New World came largely from widely separated regions of the Old World. In the Americas, the immigrant populations began to mix among themselves and with the indigenous inhabitants of the continent. In the United States, for example, most people who self-identify as African American have some European ancestors—in one analysis of genetic markers that have differing frequencies between continents, European ancestry ranged from an estimated 7% for a sample of Jamaicans to ~23% for a sample of African Americans from New Orleans (Parra et al. 1998).

Similarly, many people who identify as European American have some African or Native American ancestors, either through openly interracial marriages or through the gradual inclusion of people with mixed ancestry into the majority population. In a survey of college students who self-identified as white in a northeastern U.S. university, ~30% were estimated to have less than 90% European ancestry.

In the United States since its early history, Native Americans, African Americans, and European Americans were classified as belonging to different races. For nearly three centuries, the criteria for membership in these groups were similar, comprising a person’s appearance, his fraction of known non-European ancestry, and his social circle. The criteria for membership in these races diverged in the late 19th century. During and after Reconstruction, after the emancipation of slaves after the Civil War, in the effort to restore white supremacy in the South, conservative whites began to classify anyone with "one drop" of "black blood", or known African ancestry, to be black. Such a legal definition was not put into law until the 20th century in most southern states, but many established racial segregation of facilities during the Jim Crow era, after white Democrats regained control of state legislatures in the South.

In the early 20th century, this notion of "invisible" blackness was made statutory in southern states and many beyond the former Confederacy. Amerindians continued to be defined by a certain percentage of "Indian blood" (called blood quantum) due in large part to efforts at land allotments under the Dawes Act in the late 19th century. Given the financial implications, standards had to be developed to define a person's membership in a tribe or qualification as Native American. For the past century or so, to be white, one had to have "pure" European ancestry.

In the 20th century, efforts to sort the increasingly mixed population of the United States into discrete categories generated many difficulties (Spickard 1992). By the standards used in past censuses, many millions of mixed-race children born in the United States have been classified as of a different race than one of their biological parents. Efforts to track mixing between groups led to a proliferation of categories (such as "mulatto" and "octoroon") and "blood quantum" distinctions, which became increasingly untethered from self-reported ancestry. In addition, a person's racial identity can change over time, and self-ascribed race can differ from assigned race (Kressin et al. 2003).

Until the 2000 census, Latinos were required to identify with a single race, despite the long history of mixing in Latin America. Partly as a result of the confusion generated by the distinction, 32.9% (U.S. census records) of Latino respondents in the 2000 census ignored the specified racial categories and checked "some other race". (Mays et al. 2003 claim a figure of 42%)

Historical trends influencing the ethnic demographics of the United States include:

• Patterns of original settlement
  • Original settlement of the Americas by a variety of Native American peoples, including Alaska Natives.
  • Original settlement of Pacific islands by Polynesian people, including Native Hawaiians, Samoans, the Chamorro people in Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.
  • Original settlement of Puerto Rico by the Taíno people.
  • Original settlement of the United States Virgin Islands by the Ciboney, Carib, and Arawaks.
• Colonization
  • Colonization of the Thirteen Colonies as part of British America.
  • Spanish colonization of the Americas, influencing the later acquisitions of Florida, the Southwest, and Puerto Rico.
  • Colonization of what is now eastern Canada and the area between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River as New France. Historical events, including the Expulsion of the Acadians influenced the ethnic mix especially in Louisiana and northern New England and New York State.
  • The Netherlands and other historical colonial powers influenced the ethnic makeup of what are now the United States Virgin Islands.
  • Spanish, German, and Japanese occupation of the Northern Mariana Islands
• The Atlantic slave trade, bringing many Africans to the South and Caribbean.
• Severe reduction of Native American populations in the contiguous United States by disease brought by European colonists combined with armed conflict with Europeans
• Forced migration
  • Deportation and flight of United Empire Loyalists after the American Revolution
  • Territorial conflict with Native Americans and the Indian removal policy of the 19th century displaced many remaining native populations.
• Immigration
  • Historical immigration to the United States from all countries of the world and throughout the history of the country, usually for economic or political reasons. The History of laws concerning immigration and naturalization in the United States and illegal immigration to the United States have influenced the ethnic balance of that immigration. Various groups have been denied entry due to discrimination, economic protectionism, and political conflict with their nation of origin. Other groups have received favored status, such as refugees and nationals of allied nations.
  • Transatlantic migrations from Europe, especially in the 19th century, created ethnic enclaves in many Eastern cities and settling many rural areas east of the Mississippi
  • Immigration from Asia has had the most influence on the West Coast, but has also created dominantly Asian neighborhoods in many major cities.
  • Immigration from Mexico has strongly influenced the Southwest.
• Westward expansion of the United States
  • The Royal Proclamation of 1763 restricted the western boundary of European settlement to the watershed east of the Appalachian Mountains; despite the Confederation Congress Proclamation of 1783 and Nonintercourse Acts prohibiting private purchase of Native American lands, the territory between the Mississippi River and Appalachian Mountains granted to the United States by the Treaty of Paris (1783) was gradually opened to white settlers through public purchase of Indian lands.
  • The Homestead Act promoting settlement west of the Mississippi after the Louisiana Purchase
  • Mormon settlement of Utah
  • California Gold Rush
  • Oregon Trail
  • Klondike Gold Rush promoting settlement of Alaska
• Internal migration
  • Especially as transportation systems have improved over the centuries, it has become relatively easy for many Americans to move from one part of the country to another, given the lack of internal borders and dominance of English in most areas. Many do so for reasons of economic opportunity, climate, or culture.
  • The Underground Railroad brought African-Americans from enslavement in the South to the free North before the American Civil War.
  • After the abolition of slavery, the Great Migration and Second Great Migration, brought African-Americans to Northern and Western cities from the South.
  • "White flight" during the suburbanization period after World War II, followed by "black flight"
  • The American Industrial Revolution, promoted urbanization of what was previously a largely agrarian society
  • Economic events have driven migration, for example during the Dust Bowl, World War II, the decline of the Rust Belt
  • Railroads, promoting migration westwards and streetcar suburbs that created significant ethnic shifts in urban areas.
  • The majority of Native Hawaiians who moved to the mainland U.S. have settled in California.
  • The advent of air conditioning has promoted migration to the Sun Belt, especially after the opening of the Jet Age which promoted vacationing and part-time living in warmer areas (snowbirding).

In some cases, immigrants and migrants form ethnic enclaves; in others, mixture creates ethnically diverse neighborhoods.