Describing White-Americans as European American

I have repeatedly come across the term "European-American," as a way to group all whites in the United States into one category. While I understand the origin of the term, I have a hard time accepting it when it comes to discussing multicultural literature. We constantly attempt to identify groups for their unique culture and distinct identity. For example, just in our class alone we have studied Native-American, Asian and Pacific-American, Arab-American, Jewish, and so on. While we have touched upon the fact that it would be impossible to address every group in a semester long course, I think it would be important to recognize the diversity just within the European-American group instead of constantly clumping them together. We have been comparing these other groups against what our society labels as the "norm," in other words "European-Americans." I would just like to address that within that clumped group is another vast range of cultures and identities including but not limited to, Greek, German, Polish, Irish, Italian, French, and I could go on and on. My main point is that I hope that when we discuss the term "European-American," we keep these additional identities in mind, and consider them when discussing the different areas of multicultural literature.