Overview
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Chapter 11: Race and Ethnicity Overview |
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CHAPTER REVIEW
THE SOCIAL MEANING OF RACE AND ETHNICITY
A race is a socially constructed category composed of people who share biologically transmitted traits that members of a society consider important. Over thousands of generations, the physical environments that humans lived in created physical variability. In addition, migration and intermarriage spread genetic characteristics throughout the world.
Racial Types During the nineteenth century biologists developed a three-part scheme of racial classification, including Caucasian, Negroid, and Mongoloid. Research confirms, however, that no pure races exist.
Ethnicity Ethnicity is a shared cultural heritage. While race is a biological concept, ethnicity is a cultural one. However, the two overlap.
Minorities A racial or ethnic minority is a category of people distinguished by physical or cultural traits and socially disadvantaged. Minorities have two major characteristics: they maintain a distinctive identity and they are subordinated through the social stratification system.
Prejudice is a rigid and irrational generalization about an entire category of people. Prejudices are prejudgments that can be positive or negative. Prejudices often takes the form of stereotypes.
Racism Racism is the belief that one racial category is innately superior or inferior to another.
Scapegoat Theory The scapegoat theory suggests that frustration leads to prejudice. It further suggests that prejudice is likely to be more common among people who are themselves disadvantaged. A scapegoat is a person or category of people, typically with little power, whom people unfairly blame for their own troubles.
Authoritarian personality theory The authoritarian personality theory, first suggested by T.W. Adorno at the end of World War II, holds that extreme prejudice is a personality trait linked to persons who conform rigidly to cultural norms and values.
Cultural Theory Cultural theory suggests that some prejudice takes the form of widespread cultural values. Emory Bogardus developed the concept of social distance to measure how close or distant people feel toward different racial and ethnic categories.
Conflict Theory Conflict theory argues that prejudice results from social conflict among categories of people. Prejudice is used as an ideology to legitimate the oppression of certain categories of people.
Discrimination refers to treating various categories of people unequally. While prejudice concerns attitudes and beliefs, discrimination involves behavior. The interrelationship between prejudice and discrimination is addressed by Robert Merton.
Institutional prejudice and discrimination refers to bias inherent in the operation of society's institutions. For example, until the Supreme Court's Brown decision in 1954, the principle of "separate but equal" legally justified discrimination in education.
Prejudice and Discrimination: The Vicious Cycle It is argued that prejudice and discrimination in our society persist because they are mutually reinforcing. The Thomas theorem relates to this situation. Prejudice does not produce innate inferiority, but rather social inferiority.
MAJORITY AND MINORITY: PATTERNS OF INTERACTION
Pluralism Pluralism is a state in which racial and ethnic minorities are distinct but have social parity. Three barriers exist in our society, which result in only limited pluralism. First, only a small proportion of our people wish to live in an enclave exclusively with their "own kind." Second, our tolerance for social diversity is limited. And third, people of various races and ethnicities do not have equal social standing.
Assimilation Assimilation is the process by which minorities gradually adopt patterns of the dominant category. The process of assimilation involves changes in ethnicity, but not race. Racial traits may diminish over the generations through miscegenation, or biological reproduction by partners of different racial categories.
Segregation Segregation is the physical and social separation of categories of people. Generally, majorities segregate minorities involuntarily, although voluntary segregation occurs occasionally, such as in the case of the Amish. Racial segregation has a long history in the U.S. De jure, or "by law," segregation has ended, however de facto, or "in fact" segregation continues. Researchers have documented hypersegregation of African Americans in some inner-city ghettos. Individuals can make a significant difference, though, as the case of Rosa Parks illustrates.
Genocide Genocide is the systematic killing of one category of people by another. Genocide has existed throughout history. Historical examples from around the world are discussed.
RACE AND ETHNICITY IN THE UNITED STATES
Native Americans The term Native Americans refers to hundreds of societies who migrated from Asia to the Americas thousands of years ago. They were the original inhabitants of the Americas. Several million Native Americans lived in the Americas when the Europeans began to arrive five centuries ago. A brief history or European and U.S. relationships with Native Americans is presented in the text. For example, citizenship was not granted to Native Americans until 1924.
White Anglo-Saxon Protestants White Anglo-Saxon Protestants, or WASPs, have traditionally enjoyed dominant social standing in U.S. society. Their ancestry is primarily English. They were the early, skilled, achievement-oriented settlers of the United States. Their adherence to the Protestant work ethic motivated them to be productive. WASPs enjoy high income, high-prestige occupations, and membership in the culturally-dominant Protestant churches.
African Americans African Americans accompanied Spanish explorers to the New World in the fifteenth century; the beginning of black history in the U.S. dates to 1619. Soon after, laws recognizing slavery were passed. Estimates put the number of Africans who were forcibly transported to the Western Hemisphere at 10 million. About half died in transit. Approximately 400,000 came to the United States. The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution outlawed slavery in 1865. However, Jim Crow laws perpetuated the racial division in this country. Gunnar Myrdal termed this the American dilemma. In the Dred Scott case of 1857, the Supreme Court answered the question of whether blacks were citizens by saying no.
Important changes for African Americans have occurred in the twentieth century. Migration to northern cities brought greater work opportunities. A national civil rights movement won crucial battles that resulted in ending legal support for racially-segregated schools, and civil rights acts improved the opportunities for African Americans in employment and use of public accommodations. Problems persist, though, in the social standing of African Americans. The median income of African Americans is significantly lower than that of whites. African Americans are more likely to be poor, and continue to be over-represented in low-paying jobs. Unemployment rates are twice as high as that of whites. Recently, African Americans have made gains in political power.
Asian Americans Asian Americans are a culturally diverse category of people who share certain racial characteristics. Asian Americans constitute 4 percent of the U.S. population. Asian Americans of Chinese and Japanese ancestry began immigrating to the West over a century ago. Filipinos, Koreans, and Vietnamese have immigrated to this country in recent years. Immigration rates for Asians are increasing.
Chinese Americans Chinese Americans have experienced discrimination at the hands of the dominant culture. Prior to the economic depression of the 1870s their labor was highly valued in the expansion of the West. After 1870 the Chinese were barred from some occupations. A legal end to immigration by Chinese created a sex-ratio imbalance among the Chinese population.
Japanese Americans Japanese immigrants began to arrive in the United States in the 1860s. The Japanese, perhaps due to their small numbers, escaped the prejudice and discrimination directed at the Chinese. Immigration laws in the 1920s practically ended Japanese immigration.
Overt prejudice and discrimination were directed toward the Japanese. However, two important differences between the Japanese and Chinese enhanced the position of the Japanese in the United States. First, the Japanese knew more about U.S. culture and were ready to assimilate. Second, the Japanese began to farm in rural areas as opposed to living and working exclusively in urban enclaves. With World War II and the Japanese destruction of Pearl Harbor, the Japanese were detained in military camps. Japanese Americans have made a dramatic recovery since then.
Recent Asian Immigrants Recent Asian immigrants include large numbers of Koreans, Filipinos, and Vietnamese. Asian Americans are the fastest growing minority in the U.S., accounting for one-half of all immigration into this country. In sum, the social history of Asians in this country is complex.
Hispanic Americans Hispanic Americans represent three main cultures: Mexican American, Puerto Rican, and Cuban American. Hispanic Americans are roughly 12 percent of our population, and this percentage is increasing rapidly due to high immigration and birth rates.
Mexican Americans About two-thirds of the Hispanics living in the U.S. are Mexican Americans. Prejudice and discrimination have marked the relationship of Mexican Americans and whites over the years. The poverty rate for Mexican Americans is twice the national average.
Puerto Ricans Puerto Ricans became citizens of the United States in 1917. Currently there are about three million Puerto Ricans living in the United States. Strong ethnic identity is maintained because over three-quarters of them continue to speak Spanish in their homes, and they are able to move between the mainland and Puerto Rico easily. Puerto Ricans have a lower social standing than other Hispanics as evidenced by more female-headed households, a fairly low median family income, and a high level of poverty.
Cuban Americans Cubans immigrated to the United States after the 1959 socialist revolution. Currently about one million Cubans reside in the U.S. They are highly educated, have a higher median family income, and have less poverty than other Hispanics.
White Ethnic Americans Many white Americans have traditionally been proud of their ethnic heritage. Those who are non-WASPs have been identified as white ethnics. Examples include German, Irish, Italian, and Polish people. Immigration quotas restricted their entrance to the U.S. between 1921 and 1968 as a result of opposition by nativist elements.
RACE AND ETHNICITY: LOOKING AHEAD
Our society's great cultural diversity is the result of immigration. Immigration rates today, roughly 1 million annually, are at about the same level as was representative of the great immigration era of a century ago. The countries from which the people are primarily coming are changing.
They face prejudice and discrimination, as did immigrants before them; however, they also share the hope of opportunity, and the hope that ethnic diversity will someday be viewed as a matter of difference rather than inferiority.
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