A European American (also known as a Euro-American) is a citizen or resident of the United States who has origins in any of the original peoples of Europe.
The Spanish were the first Europeans to establish a continuous presence in what is now the United States. Martín de Argüelles born 1566, San Agustín, La Florida, was the first known person of European descent born in what is now the United States. Twenty-one years later, Virginia Dare, born in 1587 on Roanoke Island in present-day North Carolina, was the first child born in the Thirteen Colonies to English parents.
In 2009, German Americans (16.5%), Irish Americans (11.9%), English Americans (9.0%) and Italian Americans (6.4%) were the four largest self-reported ancestry groups in the United States forming 43.8% of the total population.
Overall, as the largest group, European Americans have the lowest poverty rate and the second highest educational attainment levels, median household income, and median personal income of any racial demographic in the nation (following Asian-Americans who rank first in those categories.)
Read more about European American: Origins, Culture, Demographics, European Ancestries Table
Famous quotes containing the words european and/or american:
“When the inhabitants of some sequestered island first descry the “big canoe” of the European rolling through the blue waters towards their shores, they rush down to the beach in crowds, and with open arms stand ready to embrace the strangers. Fatal embrace! They fold to their bosoms the vipers whose sting is destined to poison all their joys; and the instinctive feeling of love within their breasts is soon converted into the bitterest hate.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“[The ladies] must be aware that a great evil cannot for a long time, predominate, without, at least, their connivance. Silence is often as effectual an advocate in a cause as eloquence.”
—“Censor,” U.S. women’s magazine contributor. American Ladies Magazine, pp. 337-340 (August, 1828)