English American

English American elites, known as "WASPs" (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants), have dominated American society, culture, and politics for most of American history. The majority of presidents of the United States, as well as the majority of sitting U.S. congressmen and congresswomen, were born into families of English ancestry. The majority of the Founding Fathers of the United States were also of English ancestry. Ivy League universities such as Harvard University, Yale University, and Princeton University were established by and have been mostly composed of WASPs. In states such as Texas, New Mexico, Louisiana, and California; former colonies of Spain and France, Anglo-American settlers developed a cohesive identity centered around their Protestantism, English language, and British colonial heritage. The term Anglo-American can be ambiguous and used in several different ways. While it is primarily intended to refer to people of English ancestry, it (along with terms like Anglo, Anglic, Anglophone, and Anglophonic) is also used to denote all people of British or Northwestern European ancestry. Most broadly it is used to include all people of Northwestern European ethnic origin who currently speak English as a mother tongue and their descendants are in the New World, thus including a large assimilated group of mostly Protestant Europeans.