Race and ethnicity in the United States in the context of "American Community Survey"

Panethnicity is a political neologism used to group various ethnic groups together based on their related cultural origins; geographic, linguistic, religious, or "racial" (i.e. phenotypic) similarities are often used alone or in combination to draw panethnic boundaries. The term panethnic was used extensively during mid-20th century anti-colonial/national liberation movements. In the United States, Yen Le Espiritu popularized the term and coined the nominal term panethnicity in reference to Asian Americans, a racial category composed of disparate peoples having in common only their origin in the continent of Asia.

It has since seen some use as a replacement of the term race; for example, the aforementioned Asian Americans can be described as "a panethnicity" of various unrelated peoples of Asia, which are nevertheless perceived as a distinguishable group within the larger multiracial North American society.

Facilities and services such as housing, healthcare, education, employment, and transportation have been systematically separated in the United States based on racial categorizations. Notably, racial segregation in the United States was the legally and/or socially enforced separation of African Americans from whites, as well as the separation of other ethnic minorities from majority communities. While mainly referring to the physical separation and provision of separate facilities, it can also refer to other manifestations such as prohibitions against interracial marriage (enforced with anti-miscegenation laws), and the separation of roles within an institution. The U.S. Armed Forces were formally segregated until 1948, as black units were separated from white units but were still typically led by white officers.

In the 1857 Dred Scott case (Dred Scott v. Sandford), the U.S. Supreme Court found that Black people were not and could never be U.S. citizens and that the U.S. Constitution and civil rights did not apply to them. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1875, but it was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1883 in the Civil Rights Cases. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of segregation in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), so long as "separate but equal" facilities were provided, a requirement that was rarely met. The doctrine's applicability to public schools was unanimously overturned in Brown v. Board of Education (1954). In the following years, the court further ruled against racial segregation in several landmark cases including Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States (1964), which helped bring an end to the Jim Crow laws.

Hispanic and Latino Americans are Americans who have a Hispanic or Latin American background, culture, or family origin. This demographic group includes all Americans who identify as Hispanic or Latino, regardless of race. According to annual estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, as of July 1, 2024, the Hispanic and Latino population was estimated at 68,086,153, representing approximately 20% of the total U.S. population, making them the second-largest group in the country after the non-Hispanic White population.

"Origin" can be viewed as the ancestry, nationality group, lineage or country of birth of the person, parents or ancestors before their arrival into the United States of America. People who identify as Hispanic or Latino may be of any race, because similarly to what occurred during the colonization and post-independence of the United States, Latin American countries have had populations made up of multiracial and monoracial descendants of settlers from the metropole of a European colonial empire (in the case of Latin American countries, Spanish and Portuguese settlers, unlike the Thirteen Colonies that will form the United States, which received settlers from the United Kingdom). In addition, there are also monoracial and multiracial descendants of Indigenous peoples of the Americas (Native Americans), descendants of African slaves brought to Latin America in the colonial era, and post-independence immigrants from Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia.

African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group who, as defined by the United States census, consists of Americans who have ancestry from "any of the Black racial groups of Africa". African Americans constitute the second largest racial and ethnic group in the U.S. after White Americans. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of Africans enslaved in the United States. According to annual estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, as of July 1, 2024, the Black population was estimated at 42,951,595, representing approximately 12.63% of the total U.S. population.

African-American history began in the 16th century, when African slave traders sold African artisans, farmers, and warriors to European slave traders, who transported them across the Atlantic to the Western Hemisphere. They were sold as slaves to European colonists and put to work on plantations, particularly in the southern colonies. A few were able to achieve freedom through manumission or escape, and founded independent communities before and during the American Revolution. After the United States was founded in 1783, most Black people continued to be enslaved, primarily concentrated in the American South, with four million enslaved people only liberated with the Civil War in 1865.

Asian Americans are Americans with ancestry from the continent of Asia (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of those immigrants). According to annual estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, as of July 1, 2024, the Asian population was estimated at 22,080,844, representing approximately 6.49% of the total U.S. population, making them the fastest growing and fourth largest racial and ethnic group in the United States after African Americans, Hispanic and Latino Americans and non-Hispanic White Americans.

Although this term had historically been used for all the indigenous peoples of the continent of Asia, the usage of the term "Asian" by the United States Census Bureau denotes a racial category that includes people with origins or ancestry from East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Central Asia. It excludes people with ethnic origins from West Asia, who were historically classified as "white" and will be categorized as Middle Eastern Americans starting from the 2030 census. Central Asian ancestries (including Afghan, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Turkmen, and Uzbek) were previously not included in any racial category but have been designated as "Asian" as of 2024.

Bacon's Rebellion was an armed rebellion by Virginia settlers that took place from 1676 to 1677. It was led by Nathaniel Bacon against Colonial Governor William Berkeley, after Berkeley refused Bacon's request to drive Native American Indians out of Virginia. Thousands of Virginians from all classes (including those in indentured servitude and slavery) and races rose up in arms against Berkeley, chasing him from Jamestown and ultimately torching the settlement. The rebellion was first suppressed by a few armed merchant ships from London whose captains sided with Berkeley and the loyalists.

Government forces led by Herbert Jeffreys arrived soon after and spent several years defeating pockets of resistance and reforming the colonial government to be once more under direct Crown control. While the rebellion did not succeed in the initial goal of driving the Native Americans from Virginia, it did result in Berkeley being recalled to England, where he died shortly thereafter.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark U.S. federal statute that prohibits racial discrimination in voting. It was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson during the height of the civil rights movement on August 6, 1965. Congress later amended the Act five times to expand its protections. Designed to enforce voting rights protected by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, the Act sought to secure the right to vote for racial minorities throughout the country, especially in the South. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the Act is considered to be the most effective piece of federal civil rights legislation ever enacted. The National Archives and Records Administration stated: "The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was the most significant statutory change in the relationship between the federal and state governments in the area of voting since the Reconstruction period after the Civil War".

The act contains numerous provisions that regulate elections. Its "general provisions" provide nationwide protections for voting rights. Section 2 is a general provision that prohibits state and local government from imposing any rule that "results in the denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen to vote on account of race or color" or membership in a language minority group. Other provisions outlaw literacy tests and similar devices that were historically used to disenfranchise racial minorities. The act also contains "special provisions" that apply only to certain jurisdictions. A core special provision is the Section 5 preclearance requirement, which prohibits certain jurisdictions from implementing any change affecting voting without first receiving confirmation from the U.S. attorney general or the U.S. District Court for D.C. that the change does not discriminate against protected minorities. Another special provision requires jurisdictions containing significant language minority populations to provide bilingual ballots and other election materials.