Population Facts of Italian-Americans

[Jovialis]

15,767,630 (4.8%) alone or in combination

5,953,262 (1.8%) Italian alone

2021 estimates, self-reported[1]
17,285,619 (2015)[2]
17,566,693 (2010)[3]
17,829,184 (2006)[4]
16,688,000 (2000)[5]
14,664,550 (1990)[6]

12,183,692 (1980)[7]

Numbers are from a study conducted by the census in October 2022.

I knew there were about 15 million Italians (with at least partially ancestry. But the 5.95 million Italian alone number is new to me.

https://www.census.gov/newsroom/stories/italian-american-heritage-culture-month.html

 

[Malaparte]

Is the population decline of roughly 2 million since 2006 accurate?

Also, in looking over the numbers, I very much doubt that more Americans carry German ancestry (42,220,180) than English ancestry (31,825,171). Rather, this reflects a failure of Anglo-Saxon self-consciousness among Americans. It's the invisible ethnicity because the founding stock.

 

[Jovialis]

I was surprised by that 2 million decline as well. I don't know how it could have changed so much.

However, I've see the statistics that German followed by Irish are indeed more prevalent than English, in the past.

Just from an acedoteal experience, most of the White Americans in my area I've met are German and/or Irish and sometimes and/or Italian.

 

[Rusty]

Different surveys give different results. The figures linked to in this post were drawn from the American Community Survey, a monthly survey that the Census Bureau has been conducting for (I think) about 20 years. The According to the 2020 Census, about 6.6 million Americans claimed Italian ancestry alone, with 16.8 million claiming full or partial Italian ancestry.

The 2020 Census also differed from previous Census Bureau surveys in that it showed English rather than German as the most common ancestry among White Americans, with 46.6 million people reporting English ancestry compared to 45 million reporting German ancestry.

Census Bureau Releases 2020 Census Population for More Than 200 New Detailed Race and Ethnicity Groups

The Census Bureau releases official population counts for more than 200 new detailed race and ethnicity groups.

www.census.gov

 

[Vitruvius]

Different surveys give different results. The figures linked to in this post were drawn from the American Community Survey, a monthly survey that the Census Bureau has been conducting for (I think) about 20 years. The According to the 2020 Census, about 6.6 million Americans claimed Italian ancestry alone, with 16.8 million claiming full or partial Italian ancestry.

The 2020 Census also differed from previous Census Bureau surveys in that it showed English rather than German as the most common ancestry among White Americans, with 46.6 million people reporting English ancestry compared to 45 million reporting German ancestry.

Census Bureau Releases 2020 Census Population for More Than 200 New Detailed Race and Ethnicity Groups

The Census Bureau releases official population counts for more than 200 new detailed race and ethnicity groups.

www.census.gov

2% of Americans claiming Italian ancestry alone is actually quite surprising to me. Most white Americans are simply combinations of various European ethnicities. They tend to be dominated by combinations of English and German ancestors of protestant backgrounds where as other ethnic groups such as Italians are much less common. The fact that ~6 million Americans today still claim fully Italian ancestry was not something I expected. I figured the number was far lower.

 

[lynxbythetv]

I was surprised by that 2 million decline as well. I don't know how it could have changed so much.

However, I've see the statistics that German followed by Irish are indeed more prevalent than English, in the past.

Just from an acedoteal experience, most of the White Americans in my area I've met are German and/or Irish and sometimes and/or Italian.

Isn't this the case of the Scots Irish thinking they are Irish instead of English Scots who came out from Ireland. I've always found it a tad peculiar how the Irish have been given more kudos in regards to the ancestry of the average white American when it was mainly the English settled right across all American states. Same goes for Germans, they can't rival British ancestry.

Are you sure those "Irish" are actually of Irish descent.

 

[Vallicanus]

Isn't this the case of the Scots Irish thinking they are Irish instead of English Scots who came out from Ireland. I've always found it a tad peculiar how the Irish have been given more kudos in regards to the ancestry of the average white American when it was mainly the English settled right across all American states. Same goes for Germans, they can't rival British ancestry.

Are you sure those "Irish" are actually of Irish descent.

Ironically, the Protestant Ulster settlers in the Appalachians and neighbouring areas referred to themselves as "Scots-Irish" from the mid-19th century to set themselves apart from the Catholic Irish immigration to the USA following the Irish Famine.

The Scots Irish were originally Presbyterians from Southern, and especially Southwestern, Scotland (Ayrshire, Galloway,etc) with a few Northern English additions (Cumberland etc).

 

[Malaparte]

Going back to the original chart, the nearly 18,000,000 who identify as American likely have high English admixture.

 

[Rusty]

Isn't this the case of the Scots Irish thinking they are Irish instead of English Scots who came out from Ireland. I've always found it a tad peculiar how the Irish have been given more kudos in regards to the ancestry of the average white American when it was mainly the English settled right across all American states. Same goes for Germans, they can't rival British ancestry.

Are you sure those "Irish" are actually of Irish descent?

Yes, a significant percentage of Americans who identify as "Irish" on their Census forms are Scots Irish who are actually of Scottish and English descent. This is obvious when we look at the breakdown across different parts of the U.S. Irish ancestry is claimed by large numbers of people in all sections of the country, even in areas that never experienced any Irish Catholic immigration. For example, much of the Southern Appalachian Mountains was settled by the Scots Irish in the 18th century and has never had any significant immigration since that time, but I have seen figures claiming that people in these areas have significant Irish ancestry today. My guess is that many people do not know the difference between Irish and Scots-Irish, and simply identify their ancestry as Irish because there is a family tradition that that where their ancestors came from.

Similarly, we often hear that half of the U.S. Presidents have been, at least partially of Irish ancestry. However, when you look at the list of Presidents closely, most of these have been of Scots-Irish ancestry. Not until John F. Kennedy did the U.S. have a President of Irish descent, although there were 13 Presidents before him who could claim to be of Scots Irish heritage.

US Presidents with Irish Heritage

Did you know 23 US Presidents boast Irish heritage? From Andrew Jackson to Barack Obama, here are some facts to mark US Presidents' Day.

epicchq.com

 

[Vallicanus]

Yes, a significant percentage of Americans who identify as "Irish" on their Census forms are Scots Irish who are actually of Scottish and English descent. This is obvious when we look at the breakdown across different parts of the U.S. Irish ancestry is claimed by large numbers of people in all sections of the country, even in areas that never experienced any Irish Catholic immigration. For example, much of the Southern Appalachian Mountains was settled by the Scots Irish in the 18th century and has never had any significant immigration since that time, but I have seen figures claiming that people in these areas have significant Irish ancestry today. My guess is that many people do not know the difference between Irish and Scots-Irish, and simply identify their ancestry as Irish because there is a family tradition that that where their ancestors came from.

Similarly, we often hear that half of the U.S. Presidents have been, at least partially of Irish ancestry. However, when you look at the list of Presidents closely, most of these have been of Scots-Irish ancestry. Not until John F. Kennedy did the U.S. have a President of Irish descent, although there were 13 Presidents before him who could claim to be of Scots Irish heritage.

US Presidents with Irish Heritage

Did you know 23 US Presidents boast Irish heritage? From Andrew Jackson to Barack Obama, here are some facts to mark US Presidents' Day.

epicchq.com

The Scots-Irish were quite happy to be seen as "Irish" when they moved from Ulster to the US frontier areas in and around the Appalachians in the eighteenth century.

However, as staunch Presbyterians of southern Scottish (and Border North English) origin, they did not wish to be associated with the Catholic Irish migration from the 1840s onward and began to call themselves "Scotch-Irish" or "Scots-Irish".

The Catholic Irish came mostly from southern and south-western Ireland not Ulster in the north.

 

[Joey37]

I am all those ethnicities-English, German, Irish, Italian-but I choose the largest, English, which makes up about 7/16 of my pedigree (German and Irish both make up 3/16, and Italian 1/8), mostly because I was close to my maternal grandfather, who was entirely of English descent, and quite proudly English. With self-identification as ethnically English being rare among the mostly colonial-descended English-Americans, I was therefore not surprised to find my grandfather had three great-grandparents having been born in England, rare for English-Americans, whose stock is overwhelmingly colonial; having recent ancestry from a European country does increase identification with it.

 

[lynxbythetv]

Ironically, the Protestant Ulster settlers in the Appalachians and neighbouring areas referred to themselves as "Scots-Irish" from the mid-19th century to set themselves apart from the Catholic Irish immigration to the USA following the Irish Famine.

The Scots Irish were originally Presbyterians from Southern, and especially Southwestern, Scotland (Ayrshire, Galloway,etc) with a few Northern English additions (Cumberland etc).

Interesting. I thought quite alot came from Ireland hence why they called themselves Scots Irish but where actually Scots and English who were granted land by Cromwell or something along those lines. In my family there's a woman who's from Ireland but she actually has a Scottish surname.

 

[norbert]

Interesting. I thought quite alot came from Ireland hence why they called themselves Scots Irish but where actually Scots and English who were granted land by Cromwell or something along those lines. In my family there's a woman who's from Ireland but she actually has a Scottish surname.

How do you tell Irish and Scottish surnames apart, especially if they are from the Highlands in the case of the latter? If you go back far enough, you'll find that those "Mac" surnames are Old Irish as is the Scottish Gaelic language. As was already mentioned, the Protestants come from the Scottish Lowlands where Scots is spoken, an Anglic variety that developed from Northumbrian Old English. So when one talks about Scottish surnames, the question is whether their origin is Scots/Old English or anglicised Gaelic.

The Ulster Scots were part of the 17th century plantation policy to suppress and neutralise Gaelic resistance to English conquest. The Gaelic nobility was dispossessed and their confiscated lands given to the Protestant colonisers from Scotland and to a lesser extent England. If I remember correctly, Belfast is the only town/city in Northern Ireland that was founded by these colonisers, despite its name being Irish in origin (Béal Feirsde). It is kind of odd that these settlers identify as Irish (or Northern Irish) or British and Irish simultaneously. There is also the curiosity of the Protestant Anglo-Irish in the south. Some of them (like Wolfe Tone) were the founding fathers of Irish republicanism.