Section 4.1: Introduction

Previous to 1,000 A.D., North America was populated solely by Indigenous peoples. Around the year 1000 A.D., the Viking explorer Leif Erikson, son of Erik the Red, sailed to a place he called "Vinland," in what is now the Canadian province of Newfoundland. Erikson and his crew didn't stay long--only a few years before returning to Greenland. Relations between the Vikings and native North Americans were described as hostile.  It wasn't until hundreds of years later, did European colonists land in The Americas.

On August 3, 1492, Columbus set sail from Palos, Spain, with three small ships, the Santa Maria, the Pinta and the Nina. On October 12, the expedition reached land, probably Watling Island in the Bahamas. Later that month, Columbus sighted Cuba, which he thought was mainland China, and in December the expedition landed on Hispaniola, which Columbus thought might be Japan. He established a small colony there with 39 of his men. The explorer returned to Spain with gold, spices, and “Indian” captives in March 1493 and was received with the highest honors by the Spanish court. He was the first European to explore the Americas since the Vikings set up colonies in Greenland and Newfoundland in the 10th century.

During his lifetime, Columbus led a total of four expeditions to the "New World," exploring various Caribbean islands, the Gulf of Mexico, and the South and Central American mainlands, but he never accomplished his original goal—a western ocean route to the great cities of Asia. Columbus died in Spain in 1506 without realizing the scope of what he did achieve: He had discovered for Europe the New World, whose riches over the next century would help make Spain the wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth. He also unleashed centuries of brutal colonization, the transatlantic slave trade and the deaths of millions of Native Americans from murder and disease.

WASP Immigrants from England

The Spanish were among the first Europeans to explore the "New World" and the first to settle in what is now the United States. However, 
By 1650, however, England had established a dominant presence on the Atlantic coast. The first colony was founded at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607.

In 1607, the English founded their first permanent settlement in present-day America at Jamestown in the Virginia Colony. Fleeing religious persecution and seeking religious freedom in the U.S., individuals from the north of England, Scotland, and northern Ireland (Scotch-Irish) constituted most of the migration to the early U.S. colonies with most immigrants coming from England. In 1790, approximately 60% of the 3 million White Americans had English heritage (Schaefer, 2019). The government institutions followed the English mold and adopted the English language, and this group of White Anglo Saxon Protestants (WASP) established themselves as the dominant group in the U.S. Thus, they defined what it meant to be White.

Many of these White Protestant immigrants (which includes Puritans and Quakers) were indentured servants, performing cheap labor for the colonies for a period of typically four to seven years--only to be replaced with the enslaved African population. Even though immigrants from Scotland, Germany and Ireland soon came to outnumber the English, it was those with English heritage who made up the dominant group in society.  

Immigrants from Germany, Ireland and Italy

The first major influx of European immigrants came from Germany (German Confederation at the time) and Ireland, starting in the 1820s.

Germans came both for economic opportunity and to escape political unrest and military conscription, especially after the Revolutions of 1848. Many German immigrants of this period were political refugees: liberals who wanted to escape from an oppressive government. They were well-off enough to make their way inland, and they formed heavily German enclaves in the Midwest that exist to this day. Such settlements displaced many Indigenous populations and contributed to the Dakota War of 1862. The U.S. has experienced steady immigration from Germany, the country with the largest single source of ancestry of people currently residing in the U.S.

The Irish Potato Famine of 1845 led many Irish to flee their homeland as they struggled with poverty and starvation. Irish immigrants settled mainly in the cities of the East Coast, where they were employed as laborers and where they faced significant discrimination. They performed hard, manual labor in the decades in which they were immigrating, thus contributing greatly to the physical infrastructure of the U.S. Though Ireland as a country condemned slavery and many Irish Americans shared the plight at the bottom of the U.S. social hierarchy with African Americans, the Irish immigrants instead distanced themselves from African Americans. The low position the Irish held in the racial hierarchy in Europe was repeated in the U.S., but in pursuit of whiteness, the Irish immigrants began to also distance themselves from their ethnic background. 

Irish immigration continued into the late 1800s and earlier 1900s, at which point the numbers for Southern European immigrants started growing as well. Italians, mainly landless and from the southern part of the country, began arriving in large numbers in the 1880s.

Italian immigrants hailed from diverse ethnic backgrounds; thus, they were not a homogenous cultural group. The influx of newcomers resulted in fierce anti-immigrant sentiment, nativism, among factions of the U.S. "native" born predominantly White Angle Saxon Protestant (WASP) population (read: those with English heritage). The new arrivals were often viewed as unwanted competitors for jobs. The Catholic European immigrants, including the Irish and Italians, faced discrimination for their religious beliefs; though Italians further found discomfort in the Irish American domination of the Catholic Church. The anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic "Know-Nothing" political party of the 1850s attempted to curb immigration. They also called themselves the "Native Americans" in efforts to prevent non-native born Americans from taking political office. 

Immigrants from Eastern Europe

Eastern European immigrants—people from Russia, Poland, Bulgaria, and Austria-Hungary—started arriving around the turn of the 20th century as well, though Polish immigrants were among the early settlers in Jamestown, Virginia in 1608.

Many Eastern Europeans were peasants forced into a difficult existence in their native lands; political unrest, land shortages, and crop failures drove them to seek better opportunities in the United States at the end of the 19th century. Many Polish Americans performed work that others would not do, including laboring in the coal mines of Pennsylvania. While earlier waves of Polish immigrants consisted largely of Catholics, the Eastern European immigration wave also included Jewish people escaping pogroms (anti-Jewish uprisings).

Racial Formation and Whiteness

Sociologists Omi and Winant’s theories of racial formation describes race development as a socio-historical process involving political struggle and that “race is a concept which signifies and symbolizes social conflicts and interests by referring to different types of human bodies" (Omi & Winant, 1994). A central process of racial formation is establishing the racial other.  

In what is now the U.S., the idea of race is based on a Black-White dichotomy, where as Whiteness is central, neutral, and superior, and Blackness is opposite. This dichotomy is the result of centuries of racial formation. In the American case, White is the standard and non-White is the racial other. The nature of racial formation highlights that the definition of race changes over time due to socio-historical phenomena. Today, people with European heritage (Irish-Americans, Italian-Americans, Polish-Americans, etc.) are often considered White, but this hasn't always been the case.

In the context of European colonization and the subsequent waves of immigration from Western, Central, and Eastern Europe, we observe White Anglo Saxon Protestants (the dominant racial group of the time) establishing themselves as what it is to be White and classifying immigrants as racial "others" who are inherently inferior to them. Germans, due to their often affluent backgrounds were seen as "more White" compared to their poor Irish counterparts. Furthermore, Irish immigrants were mostly Catholic (Irish Catholic) which was polarizing to WASPs whose family members had essentially gone against mainstream practices of the Roman Catholic Church.   

Colorism also plays a role in racial formation.  Not only were immigrants from Central and Southern Italy mostly Roman Catholic, they often had darker complexions than their WASP, German, and Irish counterparts. Darker complexions were also had by Eastern European immigrants, though some could "pass" as White. Economic inequality, colorism, and cultural differences established all non-WASPS as racial others, though this concept will change over time.  Germans were close to Whiteness, further were Irish Catholics.  Toward the bottom of the racial hierarchy at the time were Italians and Eastern European immigrants.  

WASP culture continues to be at the center of how Whiteness is defined in the U.S.            

The Immigration Act of 1924

Throughout most of U.S. history, the flow of immigration from Europe to what is now the U.S. was unfettered.

The Immigration Act of 1924 created a quota system that restricted entry to 2 percent of the total number of people of each nationality into the U.S. as of the 1890 national census–a system that favored immigrants from Western Europe–and largely prohibited immigrants from Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe. This legislation served to ensure that the U.S. would remain a largely white nation for decades.

It was not until the Immigration Act of 1965 that the immigration doors opened to the rest of the world, particularly Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa.

Current Demographics

Most people in the 2010 Census identified as White, comprising 76.3% of the U.S. population according to the U.S. Census. Despite a White majority, the White population of the U.S. is declining due to low birth rates compared to Latino and Asian households. Contemporary demographers agree that by 2050, Whites will make up less than 50% of the U.S. population.

Need some inspiration as you consider how we might transition to a racially equitable society? Watch Valarie Kaur's speech Breathe and Push below.