Kentucky's Largest Ethnic Groups

Kentucky has a large portion of residents who don't claim an ethnic background: over 1 in 5 residents listed their ancestry as just "American" in 2010.

Rank	Ethnicity	2010 Kentucky Population	As a Percent of Total Kentucky Population
	Total Population	4,346,266	100.00%
1	American	924,814	21.28%
2	German	647,990	14.91%
3	Irish	556,305	12.80%
4	English	467,311	10.75%
5	African-American*	303,417	6.98%
6	Italian	82,483	1.90%
7	Mexican	81,890	1.88%
8	Scottish	76,018	1.75%
9	French, except Basque	72,956	1.68%
10	Scotch-Irish	63,142	1.45%
11	Dutch	53,773	1.24%
12	European	38,586	0.89%
13	Polish	31,671	0.73%
14	African	21,759	0.50%
15	Welsh	21,240	0.49%
16	British	16,418	0.38%
17	Norwegian	14,775	0.34%
18	Swedish	12,797	0.29%
19	Cuban	11,571	0.27%
20	Asian Indian	10,369	0.24%
21	Swiss	9,692	0.22%
22	Puerto Rican	9,617	0.22%
23	Chinese, except Taiwanese	8,752	0.20%
24	Russian	8,508	0.20%
25	Yugoslavian	7,857	0.18%
26	French Canadian	7,405	0.17%
27	Vietnamese	7,105	0.16%
28	Guatemalan	6,007	0.14%
29	Greek	5,499	0.13%
30	Filipino	5,419	0.12%
31	Japanese	5,392	0.12%
32	Hungarian	5,271	0.12%
33	Czech	4,546	0.10%
34	Lebanese	4,360	0.10%
35	Portuguese	4,099	0.09%
36	Ukrainian	4,064	0.09%
37	Danish	3,821	0.09%
38	Salvadoran	3,663	0.08%
39	Korean	3,648	0.08%
40	Scandinavian	3,639	0.08%
41	Canadian	3,208	0.07%
42	Austrian	3,066	0.07%
43	Finnish	2,567	0.06%
44	Cherokee	2,553	0.06%
45	Eastern European	2,498	0.06%
46	Slovak	2,147	0.05%
47	Honduran	2,131	0.05%
48	Spaniard	2,052	0.05%
49	Belgian	1,973	0.05%
50	Pennsylvania German	1,784	0.04%

Source: US Census Bureau, 2010 American Community Survey

1 year estimates, tables: B02001, C02005, B02006, C02007, B03001, B03002, B04006

* African-American is derived as respondents selecting Black as racial group after removing African, West Indian, and Hispanic ethnicities.

A nation of mutts

Make no mistake: America is headed towards a multicultural future.

Ivory tower academics and and liberal media columnists like to paint it in terms of white people versus people of color. Other times, the scenario is dumber down to white folks pitted against immigrants, holding the erroneous notion that all current immigrants are somehow limited to non-whites. Such notions are short- sighted. They fail to take an honest look at the dynamics and history of the immigrant experience, in favor of politicizing race for political advantage.

New York Times columnist David Brooks takes a different approach. Instead everyone divided into categories based on color, he suggests we will become "A Nation of Mutts", and challenges the notions of alliances. Future immigrants who lift themselves by their bootstraps will find more in common with past generations of European-American immigrants than the African-American underclass stuck in the cycle of government assistance. Instead of racial alliances, our future generations of American born kids will mixed to the point where they can't pinpoint one color or ethnicity on Census forms.

Our multicultural future is a good thing. It places the US in a favorable position in the modern world. But it's not about furthering political pet projects. Rather it's about creating a country with a uniquely American sensibility that is attuned to its global roots.

The New England Holocaust Memorial

The New England Holocaust Memorial is located in Carmen Park, on Boston's Freedom Trail. It is one of the more interactive Holocaust tributes in the US, and its' design is rich in symbolism.


Six glass towers rise from the memorial. Six million numbers are etched in the glass, representing the six million Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust.

Each tower represents one of the major Nazi extermination camps: Auschwitz-Birkenau, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor, and Treblinka.

Visitors pass through the towers on a black granite path. A steel grate covers a six foot deep chamber at the base of each tower. Smoke rises from charred embers at the bottom of these pits, evoking thoughts of the gas chambers used in the camps.