[Docere]

Originally Posted by Quixote

NYC is the least WASPy city, as you stated in your OP. For me, it’s not explicitly about English ancestry or Protestant faith (both of which NYC metro has smaller shares of), but the presence of primarily Mediterranean and Eastern Bloc ethnic populations, which form the majority of Greater NYC’s white population. Italian and Jewish are the two largest ethnic groups, and that “ethnicity” is heavily played up both in real life and in cultural iconography.

I don’t view Irish Catholic or French Catholic as “white ethnic” to nearly the same degree that I do, say, Italian or Polish. And I’m almost certain that in the psyche of most white Americans whose lineage is primarily an admixture of British Isles and Germanic or French ancestry, someone with pale skin, red hair, and light irises doesn’t come across as “ethnic” the way that someone like, say, Joe Pesci does. That’s why Boston, even with its large Italian, Portuguese, and Greek populations, feels much more “generic American” than NYC. Never mind that Boston also has an outsized portion of people claiming English and American ancestry, and the two combined make it nearly tied with Italian for second largest ancestral group.

I would agree with this. NYC is probably the only city where a majority of whites are not of NW European ancestry. I think around 50% of whites are Italian American or Jewish.