How do you refer to a US-born American of European descent?
The context is that someone is describing a woman who's since become a Japanese citizen, so it's relevant to mention it so people don't think the woman is of Japanese descent.
The person describing the woman used the term "European American". I don't hear the term very often compared to "African-American", so I was unsure if it's the most normal term to use.
Doing a Google search for "European American" gave me a hit for Wikipedia, which probably isn't suitable as it tends to use an academic tone. Urban Dictionary was another hit, but it had a variety of opinions, which probably was the result of the contributors' political leanings rather than an unbiased description. There was also a hit for a white supremacist site, and a couple of sites unrelated to the term, referring to relations between the USA and Europe.
I have a suspicion that some people not only regard people of European descent as the most common group, but the "default" group, such that you only need to mention a person's ethnicity if they're not of European descent. If so, it would explain why I haven't heard the term "European American" much.
What term, if any, should be used in American English in the context of an ordinary non-academic diary entry?
Best Answer
European American is, as the OP suggests, the default, but in the case of an American becoming a Japanese citizen, most people would probably assume it was a Japanese-American.
I'm also assuming the speaker didn't know if the woman was (say) Polish-American or whatever, so that was not an option although it probably would have been best.
She could have said "a white American" or "a Caucasian American," but Americans can be very touchy about race so in this situation I think "a European American" was actually a good solution even though it is not commonly used.