9.6 Ethnicity and Ethnic Groups

The terms race and ethnicity are similar and there is a degree of overlap between them. The average  person frequently uses the terms “race” and “ethnicity” interchangeably as synonyms and anthropologists also recognize that race and ethnicity are overlapping concepts. Both race and ethnic identity draw  on an identification with others based on common ancestry and shared cultural traits.31 As discussed  earlier, a race is a social construction that defines groups of humans based on arbitrary physical and/or  biological traits that are believed to distinguish them from other humans. An ethnic group, on the other  hand, claims a distinct identity based on cultural characteristics and a shared ancestry that are believed  to give its members a unique sense of peoplehood or heritage.  Therefore, race and ethnicity are similar BUT not identical terms, even though sometimes they are used that way.

The cultural characteristics used to define ethnic groups vary; they include specific languages spoken,  religions practiced, and distinct patterns of dress, diet, customs, holidays, and other markers of distinction. In some societies, ethnic groups are geographically concentrated in particular regions, as with the Kurds in Turkey and Iraq and the Basques in northern Spain.

Ethnicity refers to the degree to which a person identifies with and feels an attachment to a particular  ethnic group. As a component of a person’s identity, ethnicity is a fluid, complex phenomenon that is  highly variable. Many individuals view their ethnicity as an important element of their personal and  social identity. Numerous psychological, social, and familial factors play a role in ethnicity, and ethnic  identity is most accurately understood as a range or continuum populated by people at every point.  One’s sense of ethnicity can also fluctuate across time. Children of Korean immigrants living in an overwhelmingly white town, for example, may choose to self-identify simply as “American” during their  middle school and high school years to fit in with their classmates and then choose to self-identify  as “Korean,” “Korean American,” or “Asian American” in college or later in life as their social settings  change or from a desire to connect more strongly with their family history and heritage.

In the United States, ethnic identity can sometimes be primarily or purely symbolic in nature. Sociologists and anthropologists use the term symbolic ethnicity to describe limited or occasional displays  of ethnic pride and identity that are primarily expressive—for public display—rather than instrumental as  a major component of their daily social lives. Symbolic ethnicity is pervasive in U.S. society; consider  customs such as “Kiss Me, I’m Irish!” buttons and bumper stickers, Puerto Rican flag necklaces, decals of  the Virgin of Guadalupe, replicas of the Aztec stone calendar, and tattoos of Celtic crosses or of the map  of Italy in green, white, and red stripes. When I was a teenager in the early to mid-1990s, medallions  shaped like the African continent became popular among young African Americans after the release of  Spike Lee’s film Malcolm X in 1992 and in response to clothing worn by socially conscious rappers and  rap groups of the era, such as Public Enemy. During that same time, I surprised workers in a pizzeria  in suburban Philadelphia when I asked them, in Spanish, what part of Mexico they came from. They  wanted to know how I knew they were Mexican as they said they usually were presumed to be Italian or Puerto Rican. I replied, “The Virgin of Guadalupe gave it away!” while pointing to the miniature figurine of the iconic national symbol of Mexico on the counter near the register.  In the United States, ethnic identity can sometimes be largely symbolic, particularly for descendants of the various European immigrant groups who settled in the United States during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Regardless of whether their grandparents and great-grandparents migrated from Greece, Italy, Ireland, Germany, Poland, Russia, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Scandinavia, or elsewhere, these third and fourth generation Americans likely do not speak their ancestors’ languages and have lost most or all of the cultural customs and traditions their ancestors brought to the United States. A few traditions, such as favorite family recipes or distinct customs associated with the celebration of a holiday, that originated in their homelands may be retained by family members across generations, reinforcing a  sense of ethnic heritage and identity today. More recent immigrants are likely to retain more of the language and cultural traditions of their countries of origin. Non-European immigrants groups from Asia,  Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and the Caribbean also experience significant linguistic and cultural losses over generations, but may also continue to self-identify with their ethnic backgrounds if  they do not feel fully incorporated into U.S, society because they “stick out” physically from Euro American society and experience prejudice and discrimination. Psychological, sociological, and anthropological studies have indicated that retaining a strong sense of ethnic pride and identification is  common among ethnic minorities in the United States and other nations as a means of coping with and  overcoming societal bigotry.

While there have been periods of inter-ethnic tension between various European immigrant and ethnic groups in the United States, such as English-German and Irish-Italian conflicts, the descendants  of these groups today have been assimilated, to a very large degree, into the general racial category of  “white.”

Ethnic groups and ethnicity, like race, are socially constructed identities created at particular  moments in history under particular social conditions. The earliest views of ethnicity assumed that  people had innate, unchanging ethnic identities and loyalties. In actuality, ethnic identities shift and  are recreated over time and across societies. Anthropologists call this process ethnogenesis—gradual  emergence of a new, distinct ethnic identity in response to changing social circumstances. For example,  people whose ancestors came from what we know as Ireland may identify themselves as Irish Americans and generations of their ancestors as Irish, but at one time, people living in that part of the world  identified themselves as Celtic.

In the United States, ethnogenesis has led to a number of new ethnic identities, including African  American, Native American, American Indian, and Italian American. Slaves brought to America in the  colonial period came primarily from Central and Western Africa and represented dozens of ethnic heritages, including Yoruba, Igbo, Akan, and Chamba, that had unique languages, religions, and cultures  that were quickly lost because slaves were not permitted to speak their own languages or practice their  customs and religions. Over time, a new unified identity emerged among their descendants. But that  identity continues to evolve, as reflected by the transitions in the label used to identify it: from “colored” (early 1900s) to “Negro” (1930s–1960s) to “Black” (late 1960s to the present) and “African American”  (1980s to the present).