WASP
WASP is an acronym standing for "White Anglo-Saxon Protestant", generally considered to have been coined by E. Digby Baltzell as a convenient shorthand in his 1964 book . (An E. B. Palmore is also credited with defining it in a 1962 journal article.) The term as used in the United States generally describes a class of wealthy whites with ties to colonial America, who often have a certain amount of social standing and may or may not be part of the Establishment. Because of the Protestant ascendancy in North America from the 17th century to the 20th century, America became a melting pot of English and other Northern European Protestant faiths, all probably encompassing the WASP idea including: Lutheran, Methodist, Episcopal (Anglican), Congregationalist (Puritan), Dutch Reformed, Quaker, Northern and Southern Baptist, and others. Still, the term is usually used to denote wealthier, educated Protestants, often in the context of society, prep school, or Ivy League level college educations. The East and West Coasts, richer than the Midwest and the South, are often geographies where WASPs have settled and influence culture and society. However, these regions have majority Catholic populations, and are no longer WASP heartlands. The term is less commonly used in the Midwest, where generations of pioneers and farmers settled, though this region remains a Protestant majority heartland for the country. In the South, where class has often played a role, the term is more common, though because the South is majority Southern Baptist, which has a different stress on education and culture, the term does not entirely fit.The term WASP generally is used to distinguish this group from latter-day white immigrants of Catholic, Eastern Orthodox or Jewish descent who are otherwise successful but lack the pedigree the term implies. As such, it is often a negative term tinged by the user in the context of the target and is somewhat racist or race-concious, and anti-semitic. The sociological source of the term remains an acronym, ahistoric etymologically, simplistic and somewhat trite, but is used pervasively to describe a certain set of the American population.
See also: Boston Brahmin, social structure of the United States; Preppy or Preppie
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