Ethnic Groups and Discrimination

I have never given a great deal of thought in regards to my ethnic background.   I cannot recall any of my family members ever discussing any issues of how whether or not any of our ancestors came to America from other countries.   I have heard that on my mother’s side of the family there is a distant relationship to President Martin VanBuren, but the authenticity of that has never been validated.   I never knew anyone on my father’s side of the family; his mother and step-father were killed in an automobile accident when I was an infant.   While my dad never knew his biological father we do know that his ethnic background was English and I have chosen to research this part of my ethnic background.
    Most of the research I was able to locate on English American immigrants indicated that the English were basically the first non-Native Americans to settle in areas which would later become the United States.   The first permanent English settlement was Jamestown, VA which was founded in 1607 and later Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay in 1620-1622 (Hanft, S. 2009).   Native Americans often attacked the new settlers and between the years of 1622-1644 some 850 colonists were killed.   (Chao & Spencer, 1990)   This information might cause an individual to imagine what the prejudice, segregation, and racism must have been like between the Native Americans and the English settlers.
    I did not find any definite indications that the English immigrants were directly affected by any forms of discrimination.   The majority of the research indicated that many Englishmen came to America to exercise their own religion while others seemed to be drawn by the economic opportunities and cheap land. (Hanft, S. 2009)   The English immigrants brought a wide variety of tradesmen, craftsmen, and merchants to America.   In later years, after the revolution here in the United States, the English seemed to experience less difficulty adapting to American life.  
    In 1606, a group of puritan...