The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #45951   Message #680083
Posted By: GUEST
31-Mar-02 - 09:17 AM
Thread Name: American ancestry
Subject: RE: American ancestry
A quick read down the US Census Bureau's Ancestry list shows only three designations for the continent of Africa: Ethiopian, Nigerian, and sub-Saharan African.

However, there are many nationalities shared by blacks and whites, listed as ancestries: Barbadian, Belizean, British West Indian, Cape Verdean, Haitian, Jamaican...you get the picture.

Just goes to show how we tend to identify people in the US. First, by race, then by nationality although we choose to label nationality as ancestry. And finally, we push the religious labels under the table altogether.

One thing I do find interesting about the ancestry issue though. Eastern Europeans tend to identify more strongly with ancestry than nationality. For instance, we have one designation for Slovak, one for Slavic, and one for Slovenian.