Chapter 10: Ethnicity and Race

Executive Order 9066

- 112,000 Japanese-Americans forced into interment camps causing loss of homes and businesses - 100,000 Japanese housed until 1944

Puerto Ricans have been American citizens since...

...1917

For growing numbers of Americans, race and/or ethnicity is not a simple or monolithic identity. In 2017, nearly ______ million Americans identified two or more racial categories when questioned. It is difficult to pinpoint the conditions of racial and ethnic group members for some individuals of multiracial heritage. Race and ethnicity are complex identities with powerful implications for our everyday lives.

9

In 1900, more than ______ percent of African Americans lived in the South, mostly in rural areas. Today, less than ______ the Black population remains in the South; three quarters live in northern urban areas.

90, half

1963 March on Washington

A massive rally for civil rights highlighted by Martin Luther King Jr's "I Have a Dream" speech.

Largest asian origin groups in US?

Chinese, Indian-origin Asians, and Filipinos as well as Vietnamese, Koreans, and Japanese

14th amendment

Declares that all persons born in the U.S. are citizens and are guaranteed equal protection of the laws

Theodor Adorno (1940s)

Diagnosed a character type they called the authoritarian personality who is rigidly conformist, submissive to superiors, dismissive toward inferiors, and highly intolerant

Native Americans: Citizenship

In 1924, Native Americans were considered citizens with the right to vote

A practice of group closure that reinforced ethnocentrism and resource allocation in the US?

Segregation

The separation of the minority from the majority has been institutionalized in the form of what?

Segregation

De-facto segregation

Segregation resulting from economic or social conditions or personal choice.

Institutional Racism

- Bias built into operate of society's institutions - For example, how do teacher expectations affect student outcomes? If an instructor is prejudiced, might that affect outcomes, further "supporting" or justifying those beliefs for the next semester ... and the cycle continues

Social interpretations of race and ethnicity

- Complement psychological theories by adding a social dimension - Concepts relevant to ethnic conflicts on a general level are: a culture of prejudice, ethnocentrism, group closure, and resource allocation

Native Americans: Forced assimilation

Young children were taken from their homes and placed in schools to force an English way of life

Ethnic group

- A category of people who are seen by themselves and others sharing a distinctive subculture i.e., a shared cultural heritage (think traditions, clothing, food, language, religion, etc.) - A key part of this definition is the ability to identify one's own ethnicity. For many this is not an option.

Where were immigrants from after 1880?

- After 1880, immigrants from southern and eastern Europe began to arrive. The Irish, the Slavs, the Greeks, the Italians, the eastern European Jews, the Poles—all of these groups were racialized and seen as inferior to the largely Protestant establishment - It was late in the 19th century that the United States also saw a significant influx of, first, Chinese, and then Japanese, immigrants - Many immigrants found the conditions of life in the United States little better and sometimes worse than their homelands

Mexican-American War (1846-1848)

- Conflict between the US and Mexico that after the US annexation of Texas, which Mexico still considered its own. As victor, the US aqcuired vast new territories from Mexico through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. - Think about people who became foreigners in their own land. The boundaries changed around them, and the above treaty, ensuring full rights as citizens to now Mexican Americans, was not obeyed.

Scapegoats

- Definition: individuals or groups blamed for wrongs that were not of their doing - Stereotyping leads people to blame scapegoats for problems that are not their fault - Scapegoating is normally directed against groups that are clearly distinctive and relatively powerless - We often see this during times of crisis/upheaval, such as an economic crisis. Who deserves to be a part of a country and who is ruining a country? Think of Jews under Nazi Germany.

Guess My Race app

- Developed by the Race Awareness Project, the Guess My Race app was designed to help users better understand and question the complexities of race. - Guess My Race is a game where a user is presented with ten photos of peoples' faces. - For each photo, users are asked to click the one answer (of six possible options) that they believe best describes the person in the picture. - The app then reveals the "correct" answer, which is accompanied by a quote from the person explaining why the person identifies (self identity) as they do. Keep in mind, society (social identity) often places an identity on a person which might not match social identity.

Disparities in Healthcare

- Disparities in health and health care among officially recognized racial and ethnic groups are well documented. Some progress has been made, but alarming racial disparities remain and cannot be explained by poverty alone, but also by the persistence of racism. - Skin tone significantly predicts multiple types of perceived discrimination, resulting in lower quality health care. - For many decades, and still today, Black women are more likely to die of pregnancy-related complications. National-level studies document these differences, and even after controlling for risk factors, race alone seems to be a key factor.

Cubans differ from the two other groups in key aspects. What are those?

- Half a million Cubans fled communism in Cuba, and the majority settled in Florida. Cuban Americans from the first wave of immigration in the 1960s are mostly educated people from white-collar and professional backgrounds. Many have thrived in the United States. - Cuban immigrants from less affluent backgrounds arrived in the 1980s. Cuban immigrants are mostly refugees rather than economic migrants.

Two myths concerning race

- Idea that any race is superior to another - Idea that any pure race exists (striking variety of racial traits found today is product of migration)

Economics of Mexican Americans

- Mexicans in the United States typically have levels of economic well-being and education far below those of native-born Americans. - In 2015, 23 percent lived below the poverty line.

Chicano movement

- Movement that focused on raising Mexican American consciousness - People fighting for identity: what does it mean to be Mexican American? A combination of Spanish, Native and American.

Residential Segregation

- Neighborhood segregation has declined little over the past quarter-century, remaining especially high in metropolitan areas. - Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton argue that the history of racial segregation and the Black ghetto are responsible for the perpetuation of Black poverty and the continued polarization of Black and white. - Residential segregation is connected to educational segregation. When education remains segregated, all students miss out on substantial benefits for life outcomes that can come with diversity.

Two reasons race is impossible to define as biological

- No agreed upon number of races - Physical differences between a single defined race may be more frequent than those between

1964 Civil Rights Act

- Outlawed segregation in public places; banned discrimination in employment. - Virtually the same as passed in 1875 which was ruled unconstitutional. This time, it stuck. - Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

Rosa Parks (1955)

- Parks arrested for refusing to give up bus seat to white man, African American leaders called for city-wide boycott of bus system (lasted almost 400 days); Supreme Court ruled segregated buses unconstitutional - Non violent protests work: Sit-ins to silent gatherings: Freedom rides

The theory of racial formation

- Refers to the process by which social, economic, and political forces determine the content and importance of racial categories - Attentive to how human beings create understandings in their individual families and group life

Multiculturalism

- Refers to the viewpoint according to which ethnic groups can exist separately and share equally in economic and political life - Switzerland practices multiculturalism, where French, German, and Italian groups coexist. This situation is unusual, and it seems unlikely that the United States will come close to mirroring this in the near future.

Educational Attainment for Minority Populations

- Significant increase for African American high school graduation rates (from about 20% in 1960 to 87% in 2017) - Not so much in college (2/3 Black college graduates are women) - Numbers are lower among Latinx and Native American pop. - Very high numbers among Asian American pop.

Displacement

- The transferring of ideas or emotions from their true source to another object - Feelings of hostility or anger become directed against objects that are not the real origin

Authoritarian personality

- Those with powerfully negative views toward one group typically hold powerfully negative views of any "out-group." - If you are wrong, I am correct. - But is this psychological or cultural? Maybe culture influencing psychology? - While some might be more prone to prejudge, the direction of that judgement as rooted in culture - Sociologists today mostly think this is more useful for understanding authoritarian patterns of thought in general, rather than distinguishing a particular personality type.

Workplace Inequalities for Minority Populations

- Unemployment rates (2019): 3.2% White, 5.5% Black, 3.9 Latinx American, Asian American 2.5 - Among those with B.A. or higher, 2.1% White, 3.6% Black, 2.9% Hispanic - Inequalities in poverty rates: between 25 and 30% for African American and Latinx, closer to 10% for Asian American and European American (White) - Significant differences in income and wealth - Those at the bottom of the economic spectrum are hardest hit during economic crisis, and the same will be true for the current crises - Since 1970, Black men and women's unemployment rate has remained around two times that of white men and women. This remains true today. - The Black-white gap in household income remains relatively unchanged. - Inequalities in housing are severe and persistent, as well. - In 2016, median Latinx household income reached $47,675, above that of Black households ($39,490) but below white and Asian/Asian American households ($65,041 and $81,431, respectively).

Gender and Race

- We can also think about how race intersects with other sociological variables of interest, like gender. - The status of minority women in the United States is especially plagued by inequalities. - Gender and race discrimination combined make it particularly difficult for these women to escape conditions of poverty. - Here we can see major differences in women's income by race.

Minority group

- Whether racial or ethnic, defined above all by lack of power (political, economic, or ability to define one's self) - For sociologists, this term refers to political power and is not simply a numerical distinction - Members of a minority group are disadvantaged with respect to members of the dominant group - Being a part of a minority group often heightens feelings of common loyalty and interests - Some groups that were once clearly identified as minorities, such as Asians and Jews, now have more resources, intermarry at greater rates, and experience less discrimination than in the past

Prejudice in Political Power

- While Obama's election was heralded as demonstrating a decline in racial prejudice in the United States, the 2016 election of Trump serves to counter this notion. - Nevertheless, Obama's presidency exists within a larger trend of Blacks making gains in holding elected offices since 1970. Hispanics and Asians also have significant gains in representation among public officials. - Black public officials increased from 40 in 1960 to 10,500 in 2010 - Despite these gains, Black, Hispanic, and Asian demographics are still underrepresented among elected officials at every level.

Race

- differences in human physical characteristics used to categorize large numbers of individuals - an externally imposed system on social categorization and stratification based on physical characteristics - race categories are socially constructed, based on a belief in fundamental humna differences associated with phenotype and ancestory - physical differences result from living in different regions and migration

Prejudice

- opinions or attitudes, positive or negative, held by members of one group toward another - the holding of preconceived ideas about a group

Racism

- refers to prejudice based on socially significant physical distinctions - the attribution of characteristics of superiority or inferiority to a population sharing certain physically inherited characteristics

Stereotyping

- thinking with fixed and inflexible cateogires; all thought involves categories, but sometimes those categories are both ill formed and overly rigid - prejudice operates through stereotyping

More than most other societies in the world, the United States is peopled almost entirely by immigrants. Only a tiny minority, less than _______ percent, of the population today are Native Americans (those whom Christopher Columbus, erroneously supposing he had arrived in India, called Indians).

1

What year did the ban on Chinese immigrants end?

1934

One of the most significant aspects of globalization today is the changing racial and ethnic composition of societies worldwide. In 2016, there were nearly ___ million foreign-born individuals in the United States, over 13 percent of the total population. Each year, about a million immigrants enter the United States.

44

What percent of the population of the US is of Asian origin?

6%

Following the passage of a new immigration act in 1965, large-scale immigration of Asians into the United States began again. Between 2000 and 2015, the U.S. Asian population grew ______ percent, faster than any other major racial or ethnic group, including Hispanics.

72

Melting pot

A metaphor referring to the idea that ethnic differences can be combined to create new patterns of behavior drawing on diverse cultural sources

Pluralism

A model for ethnic relations in which all ethnic groups in a society retain their separate identities yet share equally in the rights and powers of citizenship

"Our democracy is very fragile, but it is a true people's democracy, both as strong and as great as the people can be, but it is also as fallible as people are."

A quote by the father of George Takei. Both were placed in internment camps during WWII. Apparently, when George asked his father how he could possibly give up their entire lives and abide by the relocation orders, this was his response.

Ethnocentrism

A suspicion of outsiders combined with a tendency to evaluate the cultures of others in terms of one's own culture; tends to go with group closure

13th amendment

Abolition of slavery

15th amendment

Citizens cannot be denied the right to vote because of race, color, or precious condition of servitude

What initiated the creation of discriminatory policies against Asians?

Competition for jobs became intense

A culture of prejudice

Everyone in a particular culture or society knows the stereotypes of all defined categories in a society. It is a part of culture and rooted in history. While some may hold extreme views (authoritarian personalities), all harbor a degree of prejudice and stereotypes.

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

Federal agency created to enforce the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forbids discrimination on the basis of race, creed, national origin, religion, or sex in hiring, promotion, or firing.

What change to the census was made in 2000 regardling multiracial and multiethinic identities?

First census allowing for "multiple" responses to race/ethnicity

From indentured servitude to racial slavery (Thomas Theorem)

Immigrants entered indentured servitude contracts of their own free will, as opposed to slaves, who did not have a choice in the matter; Thomas Theorem

Slaves vs. immigrants

Immigration has also been, and continues to be, a significant part of the American story. Slaves, of course, are different from immigrants as they did not come to this country voluntarily. But immigrants who did choose to come here, seeking opportunities, freedom, and prosperity, often faced the experience of racism, too.

Discrimination

In contrast to prejudice, discrimination refers to actual behavior that denies to members of a particular group rewards or resources that others can obtain. College admissions is an important area of study in terms of identifying discrimination.

Selma to Montgomery March

King leads 54-mile march to support black voter registration. Despite attacks from police and interference from Gov. Wallace, marchers reach Montgomery. Pres. Johnson addresses nation in support of marchers. Lead to 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Many Asian immigrants migrated from where to work in the mines, on the railway, and in agriculture?

Japan and China

Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

Law that suspended Chinese immigration into America. The ban was supposed to last 10 years, but it was expanded several times and was essentially in effect until WWII. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was the first significant law that restricted immigration into the United States of an ethnic working group. Extreme example of nativism of period

Four largest Latino groups in the United States

Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, Salvadorans, and Cubans

Where did African Americans migrate from the turn of the 20th century on due to economic opportunity in the North and the mechanization of agriculture in the South?

Migrated North

Native Americans today

Most Native Americans continue to struggle and share a profound sense of injustice endured at the hands of European Americans (White)

Native Americans: Genocide

Most historians agree this was genocide. While disease had a significant impact, there are plenty of examples of systematic attempts to destroy a culture.

Ethnic antagonism

Mutual opposition, conflict, or hostility among different ethnic groups

By 1780, how many slaves were in the American South?

Nearly 4 million

Where were most immigrants from before 1880?

Northern and western Europe, mostly from the colonial powers (exception is the Irish immigrants in the middle of the 19th century)

Race and Thomas Theorem

Once perceived as real, it becomes real in its consequence

Major issue with US and Puerto Rico

One major issue is the political destiny of Puerto Rico. It is a commonwealth of the United States. Puerto Ricans have been divided about whether the island should retain its current status, or attempt to become a U.S. state.

Cesar Chavez

Organized Union Farm Workers (UFW); help migratory farm workers gain better pay & working conditions

Racial distinctions are more than ways of describing differences; they are also important factors in the reproduction of patterns of what?

Power and inequality

Two psychological theories that help explain why ethnic differences became so emotionally charged and clarify aspects of the nature of prejudiced attitudes

Prejudice and discrimination theory, the authoritarian personality theory

The Civil Rights Act of 1875

Prohibited discrimination against blacks in public place, such as inns, amusement parks, and on public transportation. Declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court; ushering in of the Jim Crow Era

De-jure segregation

Racial segregation that occurs because of laws or administrative decisions by public agencies.

Just because race as a biological idea is seemingly incorrect, what occured and therefore has strong sociological implications?

Racialization

Group closure

Refers to the process whereby groups maintain boundaries separating themselves from others; tends to go with ethnocentrism (ex: forbidding racial intermarriage)

"All deliberate speed"

The Brown decision declared the system of legal segregation unconstitutional. But the Court ordered only that the states end segregation with "all deliberate speed." This vagueness about how to enforce the ruling gave segregationists the opportunity to organize resistance.

Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

The Supreme Court overruled Plessy v. Ferguson, declared that racially segregated facilities are inherently unequal and ordered all public schools desegregated

Assimilation

The acceptance of a minority group by a majority population in which the new group takes on the values and norms of the dominant culture

Immigration

The movement of people into one country from another for the purpose of settlement

Emigration

The movement of people out of one country to settle in another

When was the segregation of whites and blacks the rule of law until?

The passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964

Genocide

The systematic, planned destruction of a racial, ethnic, religious, political, or cultural group (ex. the Holocaust, the genocide of Armenians by the Ottoman Turkish government, the Cambodians killed by the Khmer Rouge, the Tutsis killed by Hutus in Rwanda, and the executions of Bosnian and Kosovar Muslims by the Serb majority in the former Yugoslavia)

Scientific racism

The use of scientific research or data to justify or reify beliefs about the superiority or inferiority of racial groups

1965 Voting Rights Act

This act suspended the use of literacy tests and authorized the appointment of federal examiner who could order the registration of blacks in states and counties where fewer than 50% were registered, or voted previously.

The United States will soon be a "majority-minority" nation. What does this mean?

This means non-Hispanic whites will no longer be in the majority

Why did many Puerto Ricans migrate to the mainland of U.S.?

To improve their conditions of life

The genetic diversity within populations that share visible physical traits is as great as the diversity among them, true or false?

True

True or False: The racial and ethnic categories that are relevant in a particular nation change over time and vary widely among countries.

True

True or False: While public places are no longer segregated by law, de factosegregation, or segregation "in fact," persists to this day.

True

Resource allocation

Wealth, power, and social status are scarce resources; some groups have more of them than others. To hold on to their resources, privileged groups are sometimes prepared to undertake extreme acts of violence. The members of underprivileged groups also may turn to violence as a means of improving their situation.

Mexican Americans reside mainly in the

West and Southwest

Human population groups are actually a _______________.

continuum