What is the least "WASP" city in the United States?

[Docere]

The German ancestry share in Philly is higher than one would think - nobody really associates it with Germans - but these are probably largely of colonial roots and part of the (basically WASP) "old stock" in SE PA.

In New York there's some "old stock" Dutch who are basically WASP but a tiny percentage of the population.

New England was the least diverse of the colonies and Yankees are basically all of English ancestry.

[MABottz]

Would every city/metro area in Texas within the perimeter of the El Paso-to-San Antonio-to-the RGV obtuse triangle make such a list?

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

^ damn, the german triangle indeed!

i take it those are MSA numbers and not city proper, right?

and now i want some sauerbraten with spatzle and rotkohl.

i don’t know any white people under 50 in all three of those cities that aren't at least part german (that arent much more recent eastern european, especially in milwaukee (polish) or st. louis (bosnia/albania)). theres scots-irish boomers/silent generation in st. louis/cincy from appalachia/ozarks that typically have married into german-american families...so those regions have actually become more “german” in a way since people tend to identify more with that ancestry for whatever reason in the midwest. it’s historically a very middle-class segment in the german triangle so its also kind of a class identifier too.

[Centropolis]

sort of an addendum here: st. louis did have a boston style WASP elite - think the burroughs and eliot families...often directly from new england that overpowered the creole gentry. i imagine cincy and milwaukee had the same (without the quebecois connections).

[pj3000]

^ pretty much every small, medium, and large city in the northern US had/has that form of New England/Boston WASP elite, with certain families originating from the region maintaining some form of prominence in “society” for around 200 hundred years

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by pj3000

^ pretty much every small, medium, and large city in the northern US had/has that form of New England/Boston WASP elite, with certain families originating from the region maintaining some form of prominence in “society” for around 200 hundred years

true. though in the german triangle especially milwaukee and st. louis the germans “broke through” beyond the upper middle class.

[KennyDubz]

Somebody else said it. Honolulu.

The most farthest from the American WASP ground zero culture.
And with the least WASP-y demographics.

[Shawn]

The only thing WASP-esque about Honolulu is (was) all the Japanese and Korean tourist clogging up the Ala Moana Center's Lacoste and Ted Baker shops.

[bossabreezes]

At this point, I'm pretty sure no big city in the US is 'Waspy'. I think you get pockets of it in places, but no city has a strong waspy or even predominantly white subculture except for some Mountain West cities like Salt Lake City and Boise, ID. (Don't confuse me for saying the cities mentioned are Waspy, I'm just saying they're pretty ''white'' in culture.)

That being said, I think the most waspy area I've experienced in the country is Suburban Washington DC in Northern Virginia. Vineyard Vines and Boat Shoes are a dime a dozen.

[pj3000]

^ Lots of salmon shorts

[SFBruin]

Originally Posted by MABottz

Would every city/metro area in Texas within the perimeter of the El Paso-to-San Antonio-to-the RGV obtuse triangle make such a list?

I totally forgot about San Antonio. It, or El Paso, probably takes the cake for least white anglo-saxon protestant in the continental US.

[wwmiv]

McAllen. End of story. The city is the least white metropolitan area in the United States, and almost all of the whites living there are Catholic descendants of people who migrated from the German Midwest in the 30s and 40s

Hawaii and Honolulu generally are more white and whites there DO contain a highly visible contingent of WASPs. San Antonio also contains a large white WASP contingent, though German of all religious stripes are a strong contingent throughout the Texas Hill County (Austin included). El Paso has a strong argument as well to the title. Still, though, as a member of an ENTIRELY wasp lineage on my fathers side and a handful of scots-Irish on my mother’s from ALL of these areas (my mother was born in Brownsville), I can attest we do still exist here.

And if you’re the type that likes genealogies, my direct male line is Norman, which is decidedly NOT Anglo-Saxon at all.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by bossabreezes

At this point, I'm pretty sure no big city in the US is 'Waspy'. I think you get pockets of it in places, but no city has a strong waspy or even predominantly white subculture except for some Mountain West cities like Salt Lake City and Boise, ID. (Don't confuse me for saying the cities mentioned are Waspy, I'm just saying they're pretty ''white'' in culture.)

That being said, I think the most waspy area I've experienced in the country is Suburban Washington DC in Northern Virginia. Vineyard Vines and Boat Shoes are a dime a dozen.

This might get a bit into the cultural distinction between WASP and "southern white elite" or whatever you want to call it. I understand that Northern VA isn't culturally Southern at this point, but what do you call the overwhelming preppy look/culture in the former confederate states? The Vineyard Vines everywhere, the college bros wearing ties to SEC football games, the Southern belle "don't leave the house without looking done up" legacy?

There are a lot of Episcopalian, Methodist and Presbyterian elites in the Southeast, but it seems a bit different than the Northeastern prep culture.

[3rd&Brown]

Originally Posted by CaliNative

Like New Orleans, Baltimore is pretty low "waspy". Most of the whites are probably Catholic (often Italian, Irish, German, Slavic) and the non- white pop. is high.

The most "waspy" place might be the upper Maine coast, at least in summer. Places like Bar Harbor. The place reeks of old money waspiness, like Newport RI used to (not sure if it still does).

It depends on how you define WASP.

For me, it's an aesthetic and cultural definition and Baltimore, though not the WASP'iest of Northeastern cities is definitely WASPy in it's own right.

The entire built environment of the Baltimore region feels WASPy to me. Red brick. Lush green landscaping. Well tended. Lots of private schools and old institutions.

When I think of WASPs I think of a regions suburbs more than it's core...then I think of the aesthetic. In the Northeast, I'd say Philadelphia and Boston are both waspy-er than New York City, West Chester County excepted.

DC and Baltimore are plenty WASP. And there are wide swaths of what I'd call this aesthetic in Richmond, North Carolina, Charleston, Atlanta, and Nashville (think Belle Meade, Green Hills, Brentwood, Franklin, etc). Even Lancaster PA feels very WASPy to me.

I think once you kind of get west of Nashville in the south and west of the DC Metroplex in the NE it dissipates. There are WASP areas of Chicago (Lake County) but Chicago doesn't really have a wasp aesthetic.

[bossabreezes]

Originally Posted by Crawford

This might get a bit into the cultural distinction between WASP and "southern white elite" or whatever you want to call it. I understand that Northern VA isn't culturally Southern at this point, but what do you call the overwhelming preppy look/culture in the former confederate states? The Vineyard Vines everywhere, the college bros wearing ties to SEC football games, the Southern belle "don't leave the house without looking done up" legacy?

There are a lot of Episcopalian, Methodist and Presbyterian elites in the Southeast, but it seems a bit different than the Northeastern prep culture.

Fair point! NoVa is definitely not really the South as you mentioned, I think everyone can agree on that- however, the style is definitely an updated relic of old southern preppy aesthetic.

I think you only find this in specific areas though, as I don't imagine Roanoke, VA being anywhere as preppy/waspy as say Charleston, SC or Savannah, GA.

I think as a whole the WASP and Southern WASP we are identifying here are strongly related, but possibly slightly different and therefore variants of each other.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by bossabreezes

Fair point! NoVa is definitely not really the South as you mentioned, I think everyone can agree on that- however, the style is definitely an updated relic of old southern preppy aesthetic.

I think you only find this in specific areas though, as I don't imagine Roanoke, VA being anywhere as preppy/waspy as say Charleston, SC or Savannah, GA.

I think as a whole the WASP and Southern WASP we are identifying here are strongly related, but possibly slightly different and therefore variants of each other.

Yeah, Virginia was probably one of the WASPiest places in the country until about the last 20 years. The old southern aristocracy based in the states along the southeast coast was quintessential WASP.

I think the WASP label was less emphasized in the southeast because WASP was used to distinguish between the waves of other Europeans that migrated to the northern industrial cities starting around the Civil War era. Not many from these groups migrated to the South, so there was no real distinction of white needed south of the Mason-Dixon. Whites were also not the overwhelming racial majority in the southern U.S. after slaves were freed, so there was an incentive to consolidate white identity for political power. It was completely different in the northern industrial cities, where the political power struggles where between different white ethnic groups instead of between whites and blacks.

[Quixote]

delete

[Quixote]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

i don’t know any white people under 50 in all three of those cities that aren't at least part german (that arent much more recent eastern european, especially in milwaukee (polish) or st. louis (bosnia/albania)). theres scots-irish boomers/silent generation in st. louis/cincy from appalachia/ozarks that typically have married into german-american families...so those regions have actually become more “german” in a way since people tend to identify more with that ancestry for whatever reason in the midwest. it’s historically a very middle-class segment in the german triangle so its also kind of a class identifier too.

And I suspect this is why a majority of Irish-Americans identify as Protestant (51% vs. 36%, according to Wikipedia). Most self-identified “Irish” likely also have German and/or English ancestry mixed in with it (and as such assimilated into Protestant faith), the result having been a steady erosion of Catholic identity since all other American ethnic groups of “fair-skin” Northern/Western European ancestry are generally Protestant-based, French excepted. Although Franco heritage is heavily concentrated in New England and Louisiana, and on a national scale, the number of French-Americans doesn’t compare to German and English.

The only other explanation is that a good amount of self-identified Irish-Americans are actually Scotch-Irish, but I think this is far less likely of the two.

What’s left are Mediterranean (Italian, Greek, Portuguese, Spanish) and the former Eastern Bloc... these are the true “ethnic whites” in America. The Irish, for the simple fact that they already spoke English, had less assimilating to do. And like German itself, English is a West Germanic language.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Docere

Washington

British/American 11.1%
German 6.6%
Irish 6.1%

How is DC "culturally Northeastern" again?

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Quixote

And I suspect this is why a majority of Irish-Americans identify as Protestant (51% vs. 36%, according to Wikipedia). Most self-identified “Irish” likely also have German and/or English ancestry mixed in with it (and as such assimilated into Protestant faith), the result having been a steady erosion of Catholic identity since all other American ethnic groups of “fair-skin” Northern/Western European ancestry are generally Protestant-based, French excepted. Although Franco heritage is heavily concentrated in New England and Louisiana, and on a national scale, the number of French-Americans doesn’t compare to German and English.

The only other explanation is that a good amount of self-identified Irish-Americans are actually Scotch-Irish, but I think this is far less likely of the two.

What’s left are Mediterranean (Italian, Greek, Portuguese, Spanish) and the former Eastern Bloc... these are the true “ethnic whites” in America. The Irish, for the simple fact that they already spoke English, had less assimilating to do. And like German itself, English is a West Germanic language.

Yeah, outside the NE Irish aren't particularly "ethnic." It's a very common ancestry pretty much everywhere.