White Anglo-Saxon Protestant

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WASP is a term used in the United States. It is an acronym for White Anglo-Saxon Protestant.

The term does not have a precise definition and can be used to describe greatly differing sociological groups.^[1] The WASP acronym originated in reference to White Americans with a history in the establishment, who are alleged to form a powerful elite.^[1] Some may use the term to describe any white person who does not claim any minority affiliation, regardless of their socio-economic status or actual ancestry.^[1] However working class whites in the U.S. are not necessarily referred to as WASPs, even if they are Protestants of Anglo-Saxon descent.[1] "WASP" is used in Canada in much the same way as it is used in the U.S.A.

Today, in the U.S. the term white Christian male has come into use, as a result of diminished discrimination against Catholics and other non-WASP white males.^[1] The term WASP also includes women, who regardless of ethnic heritage may face some extent of gender-based discrimination.

Strictly speaking, many people now referred to as "WASPs" are not Anglo-Saxon, that is the descendants of some Germanic peoples, who settled in Britain between the 5th century and the Norman Conquest. According to some sources, Anglo-Saxon ancestry is not even dominant in England, which is generally regarded as the Anglo-Saxon heartland.^[2] However, in modern North American usage, WASPs may include other Northern European Protestants, from German, Scottish, Welsh, Dutch, Flemish, Huguenot and Scandinavian backgrounds.[2] Thus, non-Anglo Saxon old families in North America, such as the Du Pont family (who have French Huguenot origins), the Vanderbilts (Dutch) and the Astors (German), are often called WASPs.^[3] The word white is redundant, since Anglo-Saxons — whether in the strict or popular sense of the term — are white unless obviously, they are interracial.

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The term WASP has many meanings. In sociology it reflects that segment of the U.S. population that founded the nation and traced their heritages to ... Western Europe... The term has largely negative connotations... Today... less than 25 percent of the U.S. population [is WASP]. Nevertheless they contine to... have disproportionate influence over... American institutions. The term... has become more inclusive. To many people, WASP now include most 'white' people who are not... members of any minority group (William Thompson & Joseph Hickey, 2005, Society in Focus).[1]

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Usage of the term WASP has grown in other English-speaking countries, such as Australia, which were settled by members of similar ethnic groups. Beyond the English-speaking world, the term is sometimes used in a metaphorical sense, to refer to perceived elite social groups.

Contents 1 Usage 2 Culture attributed to WASPs 3 Usage outside North America 4 Criticism 5 See also 6 Notes 7 References 8 External links

[edit] Usage

The term was popularized by sociologist and University of Pennsylvania professor E. Digby Baltzell in his 1964 book The Protestant Establishment: Aristocracy & Caste in America. However, its first recorded use was by Andrew Hacker in 1957.^[4]

The original use of WASP denoted either an ethnic group, or the culture, customs, and heritage of early Western European settlers in what is today the American. The original WASP designation also may be intended to include persons of German descent as the Rockefellers, Dutch descent, such as the Vanderbilts and Roosevelts, as well as French Huguenot origin. These included the three principal component groups of the Eastern establishment, although the New England Yankee elite were almost exclusively of English extraction. (Some early German immigrants, largely Protestant, arrived in the Dutch colony of New Netherland).

In addition to the Yankee descendants of colonial-era English immigrants, other speakers or writers have intended the term to include people who are descended from immigrants from Scotland and Wales, who were Protestant (i.e. members of the Presbyterian, Congregationalist, Methodist and Episcopal and Baptist churches).

Northeasterners who may be labeled as WASPs may refer to themselves as "Yankees." However, this term does not apply to Canadian northeasterners.[3]

In the deep South, where relatively few immigrants settled after 1860, WASP was less commonly used as there are fewer external groups to make the characterization. Many Southerners who might be seen as WASPS do not qualify in the minds of some, by education and the allegedly Puritanical, self consciously progressive or social elitist attitude that come with the WASP characterization. In the Western United States, "Anglo" is often used to contrast white Americans of European ancestry from Hispanics. It has a broader meaning than WASP, as it is sometimes used to include all English-speaking Whites, no matter their religion or ethnicity.

When using the term, speakers vary widely in terms of which ethnic group they mean to designate, and some even apply it to all Protestants of European descent. For that reason, use of the term WASP has broadened significantly since its first use. Some people use it to refer to any powerful elite, with little regard to actual ethnicity or religion. Others use it only to refer to an ethnic group and its culture.

In the United States, it is most prevalently used today to contrast early arriving, Western European, "old stock" Americans with the descendants of later arriving groups from Southern and Eastern Europe, Catholic Ireland and other parts of the world. The term WASP is also often used in a way which is synonymous with "The Establishment" or for the priviledge that White Protestants allegedly enjoy. It is frequently used today in a derogatory fashion. In fact, many dictionaries warn the term is often "derogatory" or "insulting".

[edit] Culture attributed to WASPs

The original WASP establishment created and dominated the social structure of the United States and its significant institutions when the country's social structure took shape in the 17th century until the 20th century. Many scholars, including researcher Anthony Smith, argue that nations tend to be formed on the basis of a pre-modern ethnic "core" which provides the myths symbols and memories for the modern nation and that WASPs were indeed that core. [4] Many only associate America's elite institutions with WASPs when it has always been a wider, more diverse group. The class is still imagined to dominate America's prep schools and to older universities including those in the Ivy League or small liberal arts colleges, such as Amherst, Williams, Bates and Bowdoin (see the "Little Ivies"). It is true that these elite institutions were important to a certain portion of WASPs, who were taught skills, habits and attitudes and formed connections which carried over to the influential spheres of finance, culture, and politics. While people labeled as WASPs were not a truly insular society, well into the twentieth century, prominent families preserved an attitude towards marriage carried over from the British aristocracy: a desire to marry was carefully scrutinized by the potential groom's and potential bride's families. Marriage was often influenced by the desire to maintain each party in their social and cultural millieu. This is something which can be said to occur in other cultures as well.

WASP families are sometimes, unwarrantedly stereotyped as pursuing traditional British diversions such as squash, golf, tennis, polo and yachting, pursuits that served as a marker of affluence. Social registers and society pages listed the privileged, who mingled in the same private clubs, attended the same churches, and lived in neighborhoods — Philadelphia's Main Line and Boston's Beacon Hill are two notable examples—governed by covenants designed to separate the well-bred from the merely wealthy.

Other stereotypically depicted white Protestants communities include Manhattan's Upper East Side, Greenwich, Connecticut; Middlebury, Connecticut; New Canaan, Connecticut; Newport, Rhode Island; Darien, Connecticut; Wellesley, Massachusetts; Beverly Farms, Massachusetts; West Peabody, Massachusetts; Manchester, Massachusetts; Grosse Pointe, Michigan; and Old Westbury, New York. Some families among the WASP elite, such as the Hearsts and the Hillses, became ensconsed in California's Bay Area.

In truth WASPS have been much more regionally widespread and active in varied pursuits. Nevertheless there has been a marked tendencies towards Anglophile behavior among some WASPS.

It was not until after World War II that the networks of privilege and power in the old Protestant establishment began to lose significance. Many reasons have been attributed to the WASP decline and a great deal of literature has been written detailing it. [5] Among the reasons often cited is increased competitive pressure as the WASPs themselves opened the doors to competition. The GI Bill and government supported home-lending programs brought higher education to the children of poor European immigrants, and the postwar era created ample economic opportunity for a growing new middle class. Nevertheless, white Protestants remain represented in the country's cultural, political, and economic élite.^[5]

While the white Protestants establishment is no longer the sole elite group in American society, they remain a significant presence throughout the nation. They are still predominantly upper middle to upper class and well educated as well as occasional members of elite. Some white Protestants families have jettisoned the notion of marriage as a way to maintain culture, and marriages between WASPs and Jews or Catholics are not altogether rare; marriages between WASPs and other races are less common racial makeup, but are not necessarily frowned upon.

WASPs in the Northeast, Midwest and West were once dominant in the Republican Party and in the South dominated Democratic Party politics until the latter 20th century. Catholics in the Northeast, generally recent Irish or Italian immigrants, populated that region's Democratic party politics. Catholic, or "white ethnic" voters and politicians failed to find favor among WASP voters even in the liberal Northeast. [6] A popular example was the 1952 senate election in Massachusetts between John F. Kennedy and Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., decisively split along sectarian lines (despite JFK's WASPish associations such as Choate, Harvard, Owl Club, Hyannisport). While affluent white, Protestant Northerners tended at one point towards temperamental conservatism, (or noblesse oblige progressivism) trends and demographics have changed these realities. The old style Rockefeller Republicans wing of the party favored by WASPs weakened, as most recent successful Republican politicians in the Northeast have been Catholics, such as George Pataki and Tom Ridge. Five of the six New England states have recently become reliably Democratic in their presidential voting, with the exception of New Hampshire while White Protestants in the South are largely Republicans. Liberalism or Progressivism has also come to define a certain portion of WASP politics, especially in the northeast.[7] Prominent WASPs such as Howard Dean and Ned Lamont have become visible leaders of the contemporary Democratic party.

With the exception of the rise of Evangelicalism among Southern and Midwestern white Protestants, even true believers of mainline Churches strongly consider religious belief to be a private matter. Historically, this may have led to a mild but persistent suspicion of Catholics, who were more likely to openly identify with their religion. While many associate WASPs chiefly with the Episcopal, Presbyterian, Congregationalist, Baptists and Methodist churches, in some cases there is a growing lack of religiosity. [8] The population of religiously at least among active Episcopalians, for instance, does not appear to be growing. One Episcopal Church leader was quoted in 2006 as estimating the church's national membership as 2.2 million and attributing a low birth rate to their higher level of education.^[6] Notwithstanding, White Protestants are still the largest group of Americans with over half of Americans claiming to be Protestants vs. about 25 percent Catholic.[9]

[edit] Usage outside North America

In Australian usage, the word WASP has lost its elite connotations, and has come to have a similar meaning to Anglo-Celtic Australian. For instance, the mass murderer Martin Bryant, shortly before the Port Arthur massacre on April 28, 1996, was heard to say something like: "there are a lot of WASPS ... not a lot of Japs."^[7]

As an example of the broadening of use, consider that in Turkey in 2002, Abdullah Gül called his fellow cadres in AK Parti, the "WASPs of this country", referring to their ethnic Turkish origins, mainstream Sunni Islam beliefs, their "enterprising spirit", which he thought to be comparable to the Protestant work ethic and the party's moderate line.

[edit] Criticism

Some object to the expression because of its inaccuracy and, because the term is bandied about in a casual manner by people who may not understand its full meaning or its imprecision. As noted above, many people now referred to as "WASPs" are not Anglo-Saxon in the sense of being descendants of the Germanic settlers of Britain. In addition some see it as a racial, ethnic, and religious slur showing contempt for European Americans and an attempt to smother European American diversity, since European Americans trace their origins to a large number of European countries with a diverse history and in which a variety of religions are practised, and for whom it is therefore difficult to apply a single catch-all term. Critics see it as perpetuating anti-white stereotypes by association with a negative concept, that of an insect that often aggressively enforces its territory by use of stinging attacks.

In addition some see it as a racial, ethnic, and religious slur showing contempt for white Protestant Americans. As such it can be understood to be a unflattering term that denies White Protestants a positive, unified identity. Others may however use the term WASP as a point of pride in their Northern European, Protestant Heritage and its legacy in American life.

If some see the term only as critical neologism, attempting to disenfranchise, dissuade and ignore white Protestants from particpation as a group and culture competing or existing as an influence in politics and culture, some also see a response or backlash in new Nativism, Evangelicalism, and a rise in Paleoconservatism. [10], [11],[12] ,[13]

If a sense of pride is to be found in modern litery excersise about the theoretical WASPs- this first-established group of non-natives, it may as Wendell Berry wrote, in a grim and sprightly little poem entitled "Anglo-Saxon Protestant Heterosexual Men": "We are the last hope of earth / for we have no excuses, / nobody to blame but ourselves."

[edit] See also

• White Christian male
• Boston Brahmin
• Preppy
• Social Register
• Yankee
• American Dream
• Keeping up with the Joneses
• Gentile
• Critical race theory

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Allen, Irving Lewis: Unkind Words: Ethnic Labeling from Redskin to Wasp (NY: Bergin & Garvey, 1990)
• Cookson, Peter W.; Persell, Caroline Hodges: Preparing for Power: America's Elite Boarding Schools (NY: Basic Books, 1985)
• Davidson, James D.; Pyle, Ralph E.; Reyes, David V.: "Persistence and Change in the Protestant Establishment, 1930-1992"; Social Forces, Vol. 74, No. 1. (September., 1995), pp. 157-175.
• Pyle, Ralph E.: Persistence and Change in the Protestant Establishment (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996)
• Schrag, Peter.: The Decline of the WASP (NY: Simon and Schuster, 1970)

[edit] External links

• Anglo-Saxons and Britons