In the last few decades or so, there's been an oft-heated debate over what to call Americans whose ancestors -- or at least some of them -- hail from Africa. Following the demise of the word "Negro," which today sounds quaint at best and racist at worst, have come "Afro-American," "Black" and "African-American." Now the pendulum seems to be swinging back and forth between the last two terms.

Less heated is the question of how Americans of European descent should be designated. Besides the ever-present "White," we have "Caucasian," "European-American" and "Anglo." Which of the four terms fits best?

"Caucasian" falls short on several counts. First, the term arose from the mistaken belief that the "White" race originated in the Caucasus, a region in the southern former Soviet Union which today consists of nations like Georgia (the birthplace of Joseph Stalin) and Azerbaijan. Second, the word "Caucasian" refers not only to Europeans and their direct descendants (the so-called "Whites") but to Arabs, Iranians, Afghans and Asian Indians as well. These peoples, while genetically somewhat similar to Europeans, are obviously very different culturally, so lumping them together with "Whites" under the heading "Caucasian" would probably create even more confusion than there already is in the area of racial classification.

The most hotly contested term for "White" is "Anglo," which stems from the Angles, a Germanic tribe that invaded what is now England and gave it their name and their language. Of course English is the United States' official language and the mother tongue of most Americans, and of all the European nations, England (or Britain, so to speak) is undoubtedly that which has had the most influence on American culture. On the other hand, I'm sure my Irish ancestors who lived under British rule would turn over in their graves at the thought of being named after their colonial masters. And one might ask why a Greek- or Polish-American, whose ancestors had little or nothing to do with England and the Anglo-Saxons, should go by the designation "Anglo."

I'm not completely comfortable with the word "European-American" either. I could easily describe my father, who was born and raised in Italy and came to North America in his twenties, as "European." But it's harder to connect my mother, whose family has been in the United States for three generations, to Europe. Her ties to the "old country" are much more tenuous.

My biggest complaint with "European American," though, lies in the fact that it doesn't include everybody with forebears from Europe. Some Blacks object to being called "African-American" on the grounds that they don't trace all their ancestry to Africa. Most Blacks in the United States possess "White" blood. One of my closest friends, for example, is Portuguese on his father's side and British, Native American and Black on his mother's. Though more than half this man's ancestors hail from Europe, in the United States he would never be designated as "European-American" (he himself identifies as "Portuguese-African"). It seems almost absurd that my friend, whose father after all was born and spent much of his childhood in Portugal, should be considered any less European than someone whose ancestors came to the United States on the Mayflower.

The same goes for Hispanics. Some, like many of the Cubans who fled Fidel Castro's regime, are of unmixed European origin. And even those of mixed blood -- who form the majority of Latin America's population -- derive most of their homeland culture from Europe rather than from Africa or Native America, romantic notions and left- and right-wing ideology notwithstanding. It therefore makes little sense to classify, say, a German-American but not a Mexican-born mestizo as "European." Indeed, I've come to the conclusion that in things like attitudes towards non-marital childbearing, Latin Americans are actually more like Europeans than Americans are.

I recognize the limitations in referring to all Americans with ancestral ties to Europe as "European-American." For instance, it might be pushing it a bit to call a Filipino-American with one great-grandparent from Spain "European." The Philippines is a Westernized, not a Western, country; it belongs in the Asian rather than European cultural sphere. And some people argue that perhaps it's best to drop terms like "European-American," "African-American," "Asian-American" and so on because for many Americans their places of origin have little to do with their lives here and now in the United States.

For lack of a better word, I'll stick to the word "White" if I'm asked to describe myself.

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