Amerikaner Population Map

I wanted to post this map in anticipation of this week’s Manifest Destiny show, which will focus on the “Amerikaner” identity/idea.

The map shows where in the US white people identify as American the most. Not American in the common national sense, but rather in the ethnic (and Volkish?) sense. These are people who check or write in “American”, when they fill out census forms rather than German, English or Irish as most do. It is important to note that phenomenon is relatively recent, per wikipedia;

“In the 1980 census 26% of United States Citizens cited that they were of English ancestry, making them the largest group at the time. Slightly more than half of these individuals would cite that they were of “American” ancestry on subsequent censuses when the option to do so was made available, with areas that “American” ancestry predominates on the 2000 census corresponds to places where “English” predominated on the 1980 census.”

The hotspot for “American” is clearly Eastern Kentucky, a region of the country that reports the highest early death and poverty rates for white people anywhere. So the most destitute and abused whites in the nation are also the ones who identify most with the American identity. Is this simply because there are more ‘old stock’ Americans in these counties or is something else going on? Are they the most Volkish Americans?