Historical and Present Definitions
Definitions of who is "white" has changed throughout the history of the United States. At different times people of Italian, Irish and Eastern European heritage have been considered non-White, but are now generally considered White. Currently the question of whether people of Hispanic and non-Jewish Middle Eastern descent should be considered White is the topic of some discussion in the US.
Read more about this topic: White American
Famous quotes containing the words historical, present and/or definitions:
“This seems a long while ago, and yet it happened since Milton wrote his Paradise Lost. But its antiquity is not the less great for that, for we do not regulate our historical time by the English standard, nor did the English by the Roman, nor the Roman by the Greek.... From this September afternoon, and from between these now cultivated shores, those times seemed more remote than the dark ages.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Sometimes all you need to do to win clever people over to a principle is to present it in the form of a shocking paradox.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“The loosening, for some people, of rigid role definitions for men and women has shown that dads can be great at calming babies—if they take the time and make the effort to learn how. It’s that time and effort that not only teaches the dad how to calm the babies, but also turns him into a parent, just as the time and effort the mother puts into the babies turns her into a parent.”
—Pamela Patrick Novotny (20th century)