9.0 Race and Ethnicity
Authors:
Vanessa Martínez, Holyoke Community College
Demetrios Brellas, Framingham State University
Contributing Authors:
Justin D. García, Millersville University of Pennsylvania
https://www.millersville.edu/socanth/faculty/garcia-dr.-justin.php
Brendan Kavanah, Holyoke Community College student
Learning Objectives
- Define the term reification and explain how the concept of race has been reified throughout history.
- Explain why a biological basis for human race categories does not exist.
- Discuss what anthropologists mean when they say that race is a socially constructed concept and explain how race has been socially constructed in the United States and Brazil.
- Identify what is meant by racial formation, hypodescent, and the one-drop rule.
- Describe how ethnicity is different from race, how ethnic groups are different from racial groups, and what is meant by symbolic ethnicity.
- Summarize the history of immigration to the United States, explaining how different waves of immigrant groups have been perceived as racially different and have shifted popular understandings of “race.”
