"White" ethnicities/races in the 21st century

Jacobson stresses the idea of racial and ethnic fluidity time and time again in his book, and I think this is particularly well-illustrated by comparing modern attitudes towards "whiteness" and the ethnic and racial groups of which it is composed with attitudes from the period of predominately European immigration to the U.S. The trend I noticed most in Jacobson's social history, was the notion that attention to white ethnic differences (e.g. between Anglo-saxons and Armenians), while initially acute (Italians described as swarthy in comparison to those of Nordic descent, for example), waned as immigration of non-whites waxed (e.g. Asian immigration). Because perception of ethnicity is based primarily on those visible differences, it seemed natural that as "color" in the U.S. became more distinctly diverse, the previous differences between white ethnics became comparatively less noticeable.    This, of course, ties in well with the racial dyad of which Jacobson discusses at length as well as his cultural examples such as Jazz Singer and West Side Story, which, despite being already dated, supply a (I think) pretty accurate foundation for ethnic and racial discourse today. For example, we no longer have any problem electing a president of Irish descent, but many took issue in regards to President Obama's background because of the way "being black" superseded "being Irish" or "being Greek" in our historical and cultural imaginations. Ultimately, distinctions between white and black or white and Puerto Rican are more important than distinctions between being of German descent and being of Irish descent--though these examples, for me, raise questions about race versus ethnicity and the labels we use in regards to both (I digress). To answer the question more directly, I would say, no, ethnicity is not as important to white ethnic and racial groups today because of the shifting perceptibilitiies of both concepts--ethnicity and race--that is, how easily it is to distinguish among them. In sum, if there is yet any importance put on white ethnic background, it does not seem to serve as a source of hostility as it so often did in the past but rather as a source of pride (e.g. sports teams with white ethic loyalties like the Celtics and my hometown, a Dutch settlement, whose school district takes the mascot of a Dutchman).

I brought this up in class the other day, but here's a gallery of National Geographic photos about how race is becoming more and more ambiguous in terms of visible perceptions and even personal identity. Perhaps one day the racial dyad paradigm Jacobson addresses will be obsolete. http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/10/changing-faces/schoeller-photography (you can click on each individual face to see how they self-identify and what they check on the census)