1. Ethnicity describes shared culture including practices, values, beliefs, language, religion and traditions among a group. Like race, the term ethnicity is difficult to define and has changed over time. 2. The U.S. Census categories have changed over time to reflect changing views of race/ethnicity and political conflicts over these views, and in turn helped shape later discussions. Relatively minor phenotypical or customs differences are used to categorize groups and attach socially constructed meanings to them. 3. Ethnic and racial identities are shaped by both external ascription and internal identification, though some groups like whites have more choice than minorities with identifiable physical or name markers.

1. CHAPTER 5 - ETHNICITY
Reflections: “How Ethnic”

2. ►Ethnicity: Ethnicity is a term that
describes shared culture—the practices,
values, and beliefs of a group. This
might include shared language, religion,
and traditions, among other
commonalities. Like race, the term
“ethnicity” is difficult to describe, and its
meaning has changed over time.

4. ETHNICITY AND SOCIAL STATUSES:
❑ Changes in the U.S. Census categories over time reflect changes in the ways in
which Americans think about race and ethnicity as well as political conflicts over
these views.
❑ Changes in official classifications in turn helped shape the discussion of race and
ethnicity in subsequent decades. Within the paradigm of social constructionism,
racial and ethnic groups are understood as socially created, rather than biologically
given, realities.
❑ Relatively trivial (and even overlapping) phenotypical differences or group customs
are used to categorize groups, and then society proceeds to attach a socially
constructed meaning to these differences.
❑ The socially constructed meaning of racial/ethnic groups most often takes an
evaluative tone. Given their social origins, racial and ethnic identities continually
change over time and with varying circumstances.
❑ Changes are a result of forces from both outside and within the racial/ethnic group.
Cornell and Hartmann employ the terms assertion and assignment to illustrate this
interaction of forces shaping identities.

5. ❑ They conclude that racial and ethnic identities “involve not only circumstances
but active responses to circumstances by individuals and groups” (Cornell and
Hartmann, 1998, p. 77). Nagel (1996, p. 21) agrees, stating, “ethnic identity is,
then, a dialectic between internal identification and external ascription.” Of
course, the relative influence of assignment and assertion varies by group.
❑ Waters (1990) demonstrates that white ethnics have a great degree of choice
about their ethnic identity. They can choose a particular identity to highlight,
and this choice can fluctuate across time and situations.
❑ However, she notes that many members of racial and ethnic minority groups do
not have this degree of choice. For these individuals, identity is heavily
ascribed by society.
❑ This is especially the case for individuals who have “markers” that associate
them with a particular racial and/or ethnic group. These markers can be
physical such as skin color, or they can involve surnames or accents.

7. ETHNIC GROUPS/NATIONS AND NATIONALITY
❑ The first United States Census in 1790 classed residents as free white people (divided by
age and sex), all other free persons (reported by sex and color), and enslaved people. The
2000 Census officially recognized six racial categories including people of two or more
races.
❑ In the 2000 Census and subsequent Census Bureau surveys, Americans self-described as
belonging to these racial groups
❑ White American, European American, or Middle Eastern American: those having origins
in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa.
❑ Black or African American: those having origins in any of the native peoples of
sub-Saharan Africa. For the 2000 Census, this "includes people who indicated their race
or races as "Black, Asian American: those having origins in any of the original peoples of
the Far East, Southeast Asia, and the Indian subcontinent.
❑ Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander: those having origins in any of the original
peoples of Polynesia, Melanesia, or Micronesia.

8. STATUS SHIFTING:
►Status shifting/ mobility refers
to the shift in an individual’s
social status from one status to
another. The shift can either be
higher, lower,
inter-generational, or
intra-generational, and it cannot
necessarily be determined if the
change is for good or bad.

9. ❑ Other: respondents wrote how they identified themselves if different from the preceding
categories (e.g., Roma or Aboriginal/Indigenous Australian). However, 95% of the
people who report in this category are Hispanic Mestizos.
❑ Two or more races, widely known as multiracial: those who check off and/or write in
more than one race. There is no option labelled "two or more races" or "multiracial" on
census and other forms; people who report more than one of the foregoing six options
are classified as people of "two or more races" in subsequent processing.
❑ Any respondent may identify with any number of the racial categories.
Each person has two identifying attributes, racial identity and whether they are of
Hispanic ethnicity.
❑ These categories are sociopolitical constructs and should not be interpreted as being
scientific or anthropological in nature. They have been changed from one census to
another, and the racial categories include both "racial" and national-origin groups.

10. ETHNIC TOLERANCE AND ACCOMODATION
❑ Cartoons mocking Prophet Mohammed, bans on public wearing of the burka,
and other restrictions on headgear, sharia law, and halal food at school
lunches are issues no Western democracy confronted 50 years ago. Although
these issues may seem more pointed in Europe than in North America, there
are strong trans-Atlantic parallels.
❑ Some, such as the controversy over the “Groundzero mosque,” are echoes of
9/11. But others are direct analogues to European experiences, as with the
controversies over sharia law in Ontario, religious headgear in Quebec
courtrooms and other public spaces, the prohibition of face covering in
Canadian citizenship ceremonies, and, in the United States, court cases
regarding the wearing of the hijab at work.
❑ They reflect diversity and its discontents, thanks mainly to recent
immigration bringing many new ethnicities into a single polity

12. Cultural assimilation: It is the process in which a minority group or culture comes to
resemble a society's majority group or assume the values, behaviors, and beliefs of
another group whether fully or partially.
❑ Throughout most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Canada sought to
forcibly assimilate aboriginal youngsters by removing them from their homes
and placing them in federally funded boarding schools that prohibited the
expression of native traditions or languages.
❑ Known as Indian Residential Schools, the institutions, which were often
administered by churches, provided neither proper education nor adequate
nutrition, health care, or clothing, and many of the students who passed
through the system—an estimated hundred and fifty thousand children from
the First Nation suffered abuse.
❑ A report released earlier this year by a Canadian Truth and Reconciliation
Commission described what happened in the schools as “cultural genocide.”

13. Plural society:
❑ A plural society is defined by Fredrik Barth as a society combining ethnic
contrasts: the economic interdependence of those groups, and their ecological
specialization (i.e., use of different environmental resources by each ethnic
group).
❑ Canada is a large, very diverse country. It is often called a plural society. This
term reflects the fact that its people have come from many countries and
cultures. While most people share a Canadian identity, many also keep the
traditions of their parents and grandparents.

15. Multiculturalism and Ethnic Identity:
❑ Multiculturalism has emerged to challenge liberalism as an
ideological solution in coping with ethnic diversity in the United
States. The issue of ethnic diversity and national identity in an
immigrant nation such as the USA is a recurrent topic of
debate.
❑ Nearly three-quarters of Americans (74%) say that racial and ethnic
discrimination is a serious problem in the U.S., compared with a
17-public median of 67% who say racial and ethnic discrimination is a
serious problem in their societies. There is wide variation on the item,
however, with just 17% in Taiwan saying racial and ethnic discrimination
is a serious problem and 82% in France and Italy saying the same.

17. Roots of Ethnic Conflicts:
❑ Underlying causes include structural factors, political factors, economic and
social factors, and cultural and perceptual factors.
❑ Minority rights are based on the recognition that minorities are in a
vulnerable situation in comparison to other groups in society, namely the
majority population, and aim to protect members of a minority group from
discrimination, assimilation, prosecution, hostility or violence, because of
their status.
❑ It should be highlighted that minority rights do not constitute privileges, but
act to ensure equal respect for members of different communities.
❑ These rights serve to accommodate vulnerable groups and to bring all
members of society to a minimum level of equality in the exercise of their
human and fundamental rights.

18. ETHNIC CLEANSING: Israel’s strategy during the 1948 Palestinian Nakba, when
they drove 850,000 Palestinians from their homes. Today, Israel continues to
commit ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians
❑ Ethnic cleansing is a policy or political/military strategy that seeks the expulsion,
by force, if necessary, of a particular ethnic group.
❑ In the Palestinian context, ethnic cleansing has been comprised of three stages.
The first was to violently uproot people from their homes. The second stage has
been to erase their history and connection to the land. The third stage is to ensure
that they will never return to their land and homes.
❑ The Zionist movement in historic Palestine used ethnic cleansing to target
Palestinians in 1947-1950, and Israel continues a ‘slow’ ethnic cleansing process
today.

19. ❑ Institutional discrimination: Refers to prejudicial practices and policies
within institutions that result in the systematic denial of resources and
opportunities to members of subordinate groups. This form of
discrimination is maintained by the laws, organizational guidelines, or
traditions of an institution.
❑ Prejudice: is an unjustified and baseless attitude towards an individual
only because of his membership of a social group.
❑ Discrimination: Refers to unjust or negative treatment of a person or a
group from other people because he/she belongs to a particular class,
group or category.