When Europeans crossed the Atlantic in the late 15th century, they found two continents inhabited by perhaps 30 million Indians, as the Europeans called them. Their physical and cultural differences were interpreted ethnocentrically by the white invaders as proof of inferiority and lack of civilization. Native Americans believe in communal lands, tribalism, sacredness of the earth, and are suspicious of private property. The first settlers living in Virginia (1607) and Massachusetts (1620) brought to this new world the issue of ethnic groups as they had to first of all make adjustments to their relationships with the Native Americans. At that time, a prominent factor that posed enduring influence on local society was the successfiil trans^andng of the En^ish language and laws, Protestant ethics, European social customs, and economic mechanism.

It was the white population that had the greater numbers, the money and the political power in the new nadon, and therefore this majority soon defined what the dominant culture would be. It was English-speaking, Western European, Protestant, and middle class in character. At the time of the American Revolution, the white population was largely En^ish in origin, Protestant, and middle class. Such Americans are sometimes referred to as WASPs (White An^o-Saxon Protestants). Their characteristics became the standard for judging other groups. Those having a different religion (such as the Irish Catholics), or chose speaking a difFerent language, were in the minority and would be disadvant^ed unless they became assimilated.

The concept of assimilation asserted that all ethnic groups could be incorporated in a new American national identity，with specific shared beliefis and values, and that this would take preference over any previously held system of traditions. Assimilation stressed the denial of ethnic diiference and the forgetting of cultural practices in favor of Americanization which emphasized that one language should dominate as a guard against diverse groups falling outside the sodal concerns and ideological underpinnings of American society. Native Americans and African Americans, as well as immigrants from Europe and elsewhere, were seen as a threat until they were brou^it within the acceptable definitions of w AmericannessM or excluded from it entirely. In the late 1700s, this assimilation occurred without great difficulty. Faced with the dominant En^ish culture, all other ethnic groups had to adjust themselves to these homogeneous standards, althou to some degree, they simultaneously retained their own cultural and social norms.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, immigrants from povcrty-strickcn nations of southern and eastern Europe arrived by millions. They spoke languages other than English, and most of them were Catholics and Jews. Americans at the dme were very fearful of this new flood of immigrants. They were afraid that these people were so accustomed to lives of poverty and dependence that they would not understand such traditional American values as freedom, self-reliance and compeddon. There were so many immigrants that they mi^u even change the basic values of the nation in undesirable way. Americans tried to offer English instruction for the new immigrants and citizenship classes to teach them basic American beliefs.

A Diversified Population

The United States has a total resident population of 308，181，000. It is a very urbanized population, with 81% residing in cities and suburbs as of mid-2005 (the worldwide urban rate was 49%). California and Texas are the most populous states, as the mean center of United States population has consistently shifted westward and southward. The total fertility rate in the United States estimated for 2008 is 2.1 children per woman, which is roughly the replacement level. However, U.S. population growth is among the hi^iest in industrialized countries’ since the vast majority of these have below -replacement ferdlicy races and the U.S. has hi^icr levels of immigration. Accordingly, the United States Census Bureau shows an increase of 0.95% between November 2007 and November 2008 for the resident population. Nonetheless, though high by industrialized country standards, this is below the world average annual rate of 1.19%. People under 20 years of age made up over a quarter of the U.S. population (27.6%)，and people age 65 and over made up one-eighth (12.6%) in 2007. The national median age was 36.7 years. Racially, the U.S. has a majority white population. Minorities compose just over one-third of the population (102.5 million in 2007)，with Hispanic and Latino Americans and African Americans as the largest minority groups, by ethnicity and race, respectively.

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