1. German 42,841,569 15.2%
2. Irish 30,524,799 10.8
3. African American1 24,903,412 8.8
4. English 24,509,692 8.7
5. American 20,188,305 7.2
6. Mexican 18,382,291 6.5
7. Italian 15,638,348 5.6
8. Polish 8,977,235 3.2
9. French 8,309,666 3.0
10. American Indian1 7,876,568 2.8
Americans of English ancestry have been a minority since the late 19th century. Even if you ad Irish and Scottish, they are still a minority.
I grew up in the suburbs of NYC and didn't meet one person of English ancestry as a kid.
I remember getting a summer job at a well known power company here in Auckland as a part of my degree requirement. One of the co-interns was also from the same class and he has a German last name. We met one of the permanent staff that had the same German last name as him and it turns out that my friend's great-grandfather is brother (or cousin) of the gentleman's father. They said that there are so few New Zealanders whose ancesters came from Austria that each and every one could be traced to the same three or four migrant families.
"I grew up in the suburbs of NYC and didn't meet one person of English ancestry as a kid."
Have you seen this map?
http://www.missouriscenicrivers.com/ancestrymap.JPG
What you describe illustrates the effects of birth control. In the Northeast, the Catholic immigrants and their second and third generation descendants had large families while the descendants of English and Dutch colonial settlers had small families. As a result, Italian Americans are the largest ethnic group in most of New Jersey and downstate New York while Irish Americans are the majority in most counties of southern New England. Of couse, Catholic birthrates declined after Vatican II.
