WASP

WASP refers to White Anglo-Saxon Protestants in the United States or Canada, usually in a disparaging reference to their elite status. The "Anglo-Saxon" part means of English descent, though in common usage people from elsewhere in western and northern Europre are includes. By contrast Yankee refers to New Englanders of English descent, regardless of social status, while WASP includes high status white Southerners.

A class factor is implicit, so that working class whites are not usually called WASPs. By the 21st century, less than 25% of the American population is of English descent, yet they continue to have disproportionate influence over American institutions, especially cultural, eduicational and financial.

Usage

People seldom call themselves WASPs; the term is used by outsiders often with a slight negative undertone.

WASP 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.

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 United States. The New England Yankee elite were almost exclusively of English extraction.

WASPs vary in religion, from secular to Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Congregational, Baptist and Methodist. George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush fit the WASP profile exactly. John Forbes Kerry fits the profile except he is Catholic. Catholics, Mormons and Jews are not called WASPs, nor are people of Hispanic or Asian secent.

In the western and southwestern U.S., "Anglo" is often used to contrast Americans of European ancestry from Hispanics of Mexican ancestry.

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" that provides the myths symbols and memories for the modern nation and that WASPs were indeed that core. WASPs still dominate America's prep schools (expensive private high schools, primarily in the Northeast) and to Ivy League universioties and prestigious liberal arts colleges, such as Amherst, Williams, Trinity, Middlebury, Smith, Mt. Holyoke, Wellesley, Wesleyan, Bates, Bowdoin, and Colby Colleges. Those colleges are overwhelmingly meritocratic, but still favor "legacy" alumni. A degrethese 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 20th century, prominent families preserved an attitude toward 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 milieu. This is something that occurs in other cultures as well.

WASP families are sometimes unwarrantedly stereotyped as pursuing traditional British diversions such as squash, golf, tennis, Badminton, riding, 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, New York City's Upper East Side, and Boston's Beacon Hill are notable examples — governed by covenants designed to separate the well-bred from the merely wealthy.

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 books have been written detailing it. [2] Among the reasons often cited is increased competitive pressure as the WASPs themselves opened the doors to competition. The GI Bill and government-supported mortgage 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.

While the white Protestant establishment is no longer the sole elite group in American society, it remains a significant presence throughout the nation. WASPs are still predominantly upper middle to upper class and well educated, as well as occasional members of the 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 but are not necessarily frowned upon.

WASPs in the Northeast, Midwest, and West were once dominant in the Republican Party. Catholics in the Northeast, generally recent Irish or Italian immigrants, dominated that region's Democratic party politics.

WASPS in much of the 20th century tended toward temperamental conservatism (or "noblesse oblige" progressivism). The old style "Rockefeller Republican" wing of the party favored by WASPs weakened, as most recent successful Republican politicians in the Northeast have been Catholics, such as George Pataki. Five of the six New England states have recently become reliably Democratic in their presidential voting, with the exception of New Hampshire. 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. [3] Prominent WASPs such as Howard Dean and Ned Lamont have become visible leaders of the contemporary Democratic party.

Bibliography

• Allen, Irving Lewis. Unkind Words: Ethnic Labeling from Redskin to Wasp (1990)
• Cookson, Peter W.; Persell, Caroline Hodges. Preparing for Power: America's Elite Boarding Schools (1985) online edition
• 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.
• King, Florence. WASP, Where is Thy Sting? (1977)
• Pyle, Ralph E. Persistence and Change in the Protestant Establishment (1996)
• Salk, Susanna. A Privileged Life: Celebrating Wasp Style (2007)
• Schrag, Peter. The Decline of the WASP (1970)

External links

• Anglo-Saxons and Britons

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See also Yankee