Westward expansion integrated the Creoles and Cajuns of Louisiana and the Hispanos of the Southwest and brought close contact with the culture of Mexico. Large-scale immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries from Southern and Eastern Europe introduced a variety of elements. Immigration from Asia, Africa, and Latin America has also had impact. A cultural melting pot, or pluralistic salad bowl, describes the way in which generations of Americans have celebrated and exchanged distinctive cultural characteristics.

In addition to the United States, Americans and people of American descent can be found internationally. As many as three to seven million Americans are estimated to be living abroad, and make up the American diaspora.
Racial and ethnic groups

The United States is a diverse country, racially and ethnically. Six races are officially recognized by the U.S. Census Bureau for statistical purposes: White, American Indian and Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, and people of two or more races. "Some other race" is also an option in the census and other surveys. The United States Census Bureau also classifies Americans as "Hispanic or Latino" and "Not Hispanic or Latino", which identifies Hispanic and Latino Americans as a racially diverse ethnicity that composes the largest minority group in the nation.

White and European Americans

People of European descent or whites constitute the majority of the 308 million people living in the United States, with 74.8% of the population in the 2010 United States Census. They are considered people who trace their ancestry to the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa.[52] Of those reporting to be White American, 7,487,133 reported to be Multiracial; with largest combination being White and Black. Additionally, there are 29,184,290 White Hispanics or Latinos. Non-Hispanic Whites are the majority in 46 states. There are four minority-majority states: California, Texas, New Mexico, and Hawaii. In addition, the District of Columbia has a non-white majority. The state with the highest percentage of non-Hispanic White Americans is Maine.

The largest continental ancestral group of Americans are that of Europeans who have origins in any of the original peoples of Europe. This includes people via African, North American, Caribbean, Central American or South American and Oceanian nations that have a large European diaspora.

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 person of European descent born in what is now the United States. Twenty-one years later, Virginia Dare born 1587 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%), and English Americans (9.0%) were the three largest self-reported ancestry groups in the United States, collectively comprising 37.4% of the 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.

Hispanic and Latino Americans

Hispanic or Latino Americans (of any race) make up the largest ethnic minority in the United States and form the second largest group after non-Hispanic Whites in the United States, making up 16.3% of the population, according to the 2010 United States Census.

Hispanic/Latino Americans are very racially diverse, and as a result form an ethnic category, rather than a race.

People of Spanish or Hispanic descent have lived in what is now the United States since the founding of St. Augustine, Florida in 1565 by Pedro Menendez de Aviles. In the State of Texas, Spaniards first settled the region in the late 1600s and formed a unique cultural group known as Tejanos.

Hispanics have served with distinction in the United States military since the American Revolution when General Bernardo de Gálvez provided arms and rations to the Continental Army and afterwards engaged in military campaigns against the British.

Black and African Americans

African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans or Afro-Americans, and formerly as American Negroes) are citizens or residents of the United States who have origins in any of the black populations of Africa. According to the Office of Management and Budget, the racial category include those who self-identify as African American, Sub-Saharan Africans, and Afro-Caribbeans. According to the 2009 American Community Survey, there were 38,093,725 blacks in the United States, which represented 12.4% of the population. In addition, there were 37,144,530 non-Hispanic blacks, which represented 12.1% of the population. This number increased to 42 million according to the 2010 United States Census, when including Multiracial African Americans, making up 14% of the total population of the United States. African Americans make up the second largest race in the United States, but the third largest group after White Americans and Hispanic or Latino Americans (of any race); the majority of the population (55%) live in the South, while compared to 2000 Census there is a decrease of African Americans in the Northeast and Midwest.

Most African Americans are the direct descendants of captive Africans who survived the slavery era within the boundaries of the present United States, although some are—or are descended from—immigrants from African, Caribbean, Central American or South American nations. As an adjective, the term is usually spelled African-American. More recent immigrants from Africa may, or may not, self-identify as "African-American"; and may experience conflict with American-born African-Americans.

The first African slaves were brought to Jamestown, Virginia in 1619. The English settlers treated these captives as indentured servants and released them after a number of years. This practice was gradually replaced by the system of race-based slavery used in the Caribbean. All the American colonies had slavery, but it was usually the form of personal servants in the North (where 2% of the people were slaves), and field hands in plantations in the South (where 25% were slaves);by the beginning of the American Revolutionary War 1/5th of the total population was enslaved. During the revolution, some would serve in the Continental Army or Continental Navy, while others would serve the British Empire in Lord Dunmore's Ethiopian Regiment, and other units. By 1804, the northern states (north of the Mason-Dixon Line) had abolished slavery. However, slavery would persist until the end of the American Civil War and the passage of the thirteenth amendment. Following the end of the Reconstruction Era, which saw the first African American representation in Congress, African Americans became subject to Jim Crow laws, legislation that would persist until the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act due to the Civil Rights Movement.

Asian Americans

Another significant population is the Asian American population, comprising 17.3 million in 2010, or 5.6% of the U.S. population. California is home to 5.6 million Asian Americans, the greatest number in any state. In Hawaii, Asian Americans make up the highest proportion of the population (57 percent). Asian Americans live across the country, yet are heavily urbanized, with significant populations in the Greater Los Angeles Area, New York metropolitan area, and the San Francisco Bay Area.

They are by no means a monolithic group. The largest sub-groups are immigrants or descendants of immigrants from Cambodia, Mainland China, India, Japan, Korea, Laos, Pakistan, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. Asians overall have higher income levels than all other racial groups in the United States, including whites, and the trend appears to be increasing in relation to those groups.Additionally, Asians have a higher education attainment level than all other racial groups in the United States. For better or worse, the group has been called a model minority.

While Asian American have been in what is now the United States since before the Revolutionary War, relatively large waves of Chinese, Filipino, and Japanese immigration did not begin until the mid-to-late 19th century. Immigration and significant population growth continue to this day. Due to a number of factors, Asian Americans have been stereotyped as "perpetual foreigners"

American Indians and Alaska Natives

According to the 2010 Census, there are 5.2 million people who are American Indian or Alaska Native alone, or in combination with one or more races; they make up 1.7% of the total population. According to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), a "American Indian or Alaska Native" is a person whose ancestry have origins in any of the original peoples of North, Central, or South America. 2.3 million individuals who are American Indian or Alaskan Native are multiracial; additionally the plurality of American Indians reside in the Western United States (40.7%). Collectively and historically this race has been known by several names; as of 1995, 50% of those who fall within the OMB definition prefer the term "American Indian", 37% prefer "Native American" and the remainder have no preference or prefer a different term altogether.

Native Americans, whose ancestry are indigenous to the Americas, originally migrated to the two continents between 10,000-45,000 years ago. These Paleoamericans spread throughout the two continents and evolved into hundreds of distinct cultures during the pre-Columbian era. Following the first voyage of Christopher Columbus, the European colonization of the Americas began, with St. Augustine, Florida becoming the first permanent European settlement in the continental United States. From the 16th through the 19th centuries, the population of Native Americans declined in the following ways: epidemic diseases brought from Europe; genocide and warfare at the hands of European explorers and colonists, as well as between tribes; displacement from their lands; internal warfare, enslavement; and intermarriage.

Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders

As defined by the United States Census Bureau and the Office of Management and Budget, Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders are "persons having origins in any of the original peoples of Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, or other Pacific Islands." Previously called Asian Pacific American, along with Asian Americans beginning in 1976, this was changed in 1997. As of the 2010 United States Census there are 1.2 million who reside in the United States, and make up 0.4% of the nation's total population, of whom 56% are multiracial. 14% of the population have at least a bachelors degree, and 15.1% live in poverty, below the poverty threshold. As compared to the 2000 United States Census this population grew by 40%; and 71% live in the West; of those over half (52%) live in either Hawaii or California, with no other states having populations greater than 100,000. The largest concentration of Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders, is Honolulu County in Hawaii, and Los Angeles County in the continental United States.

Religion

Religion in the United States has a high adherence level, compared to other developed countries, and diversity in beliefs. The First Amendment to the country's Constitution prevents the Federal government from making any "law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted this as preventing the government from having any authority in religion. A majority of Americans report that religion plays a "very important" role in their lives, a proportion unusual among developed countries, although similar to the other nations of the Americas. Many faiths have flourished in the United States, including both later imports spanning the country's multicultural immigrant heritage, as well as those founded within the country; these have led the United States to become the most religiously diverse country in the world.

The majority of Americans (76%) identify themselves as Christians, mostly within Protestant and Catholic denominations, accounting for 51% and 25% of the population respectively. Non-Christian religions (including Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism), collectively make up about 4% to 5% of the adult population. Another 15% of the adult population identifies as having no religious belief or no religious affiliation.According to the American Religious Identification Survey, religious belief varies considerably across the country: 59% of Americans living in Western states (the "Unchurched Belt") report a belief in God, yet in the South (the "Bible Belt") the figure is as high as 86%.

Several of the original Thirteen Colonies were established by settlers who wished to practice their own religion without discrimination: the Massachusetts Bay Colony was established by English Puritans, Pennsylvania by Irish and English Quakers, Maryland by English and Irish Catholics, and Virginia by English Anglicans. Although some individual states retained established religious confessions well into the 19th century, the United States was the first nation to have no official state-endorsed religion. Modeling the provisions concerning religion within the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, the framers of the Constitution rejected any religious test for office, and the First Amendment specifically denied the federal government any power to enact any law respecting either an establishment of religion or prohibiting its free exercise, thus protecting any religious organization, institution, or denomination from government interference. The decision was mainly influenced by European Rationalist and Protestant ideals, but was also a consequence of the pragmatic concerns of minority religious groups and small states that did not want to be under the power or influence of a national religion that did not represent them.

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans