In the United States, the term hyphenated American refers to the use of a hyphen between the name of an ethnicity and the word American in compound nouns, e.g., as in Irish-American. Calling a person a "hyphenated American" was used as an insult alleging divided political or national loyalties, especially in times of war. It was used from 1890 to 1920 to disparage Americans who were of foreign birth or ancestry and who displayed an affection for their ancestral language and culture. It was most commonly used during World War I against Americans from White ethnic backgrounds who favored United States neutrality during the ongoing conflict or who opposed the idea of an American alliance with the British Empire and the creation of what is now called the Special Relationship, even for purely political reasons.

White ethnic is a term used to refer to white Americans who are not Old Stock or White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. They consist of a number of distinct groups and make up approximately 69.4% of the white population in the United States. The term usually refers to the descendants of immigrants from Southern, Central and Eastern Europe, Ireland, the Caucasus and France/Francophone Canada.