Theories of Race and Ethnicity

Not only are there wide differences among the different origins that make up the Hispanic American population, but there are also different names for the group itself. the 2010 U.S. Census states the

"Hispanic" or "Latino" refers to a person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or central American, or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race.

A functionalist might look at

"functions" and "disfunction" caused by racial inequality.

A dutch sea captain brought the first African Americans to the Virginia colony of Jamestown in

1619 and sold them as indentured servants. this was not an uncommon practice for either blacks or whites, and indentured servants were in high demand.

Mexican migration to the U.S. started in the early

1900s in response to the need for cheap agricultural labor.

The eradication of Native American culture continued until the

1960s, when native Americans were able to participate in and benefit from the civil rights movement.

Loving v Virginia

1967's that the last anti-miscegenation law was struck from the books, making these laws unconstitutional.

Example of assimilation

A + B + C=A

Example of pluralism

A + B + C=A + B + C

Example of amalgamation

A + B + C=D

The main wave of Cuban immigration to the U.S. started after

Fidel Castro came to power in 1959 and reached its crest with the Mariel boat life in 1980.

The first major influx of European immigrants came from

Germany and Ireland, starting in the 1820s.

The Irish immigrants who came to the U.S. of the same period as the germans were not as well off financially, especially after the

Irish potato famine of 1845. Irish immigrants settled mainly in the cities of the East coast, where they were employed as laborers and where they faced significant discrimination.

The most recent large-scale asian immigration came from

Korea and Vietnam and largely took place during the second half of the twentieth century.

Who was the feminist sociologist who further developed the intersection theory?

Patricia Hill

Eastern European immigrants- people from

Russia, Poland, Bulgaria, and Austria-Hungary - started arriving around the 1890s.

The Arab immigrants are predominately

Syrian, Lebanese, and Jordanien Christians, and they came to escape persecution and to make a better life.

Mexican Americans, especially those who are here illegally,

are at the center of a national debate about immigration.

Pluralism

characterized by mutual respect on the part of all cultures, both dominant and subordinate, creating a multicultural environment of acceptance.

After the establishment of the U.S. government, discrimination against Native Americans was

codified and formalized in a series of laws intended to subjugate them and keep them from gaining power.

The earliest immigrants to American arrived a millennia before European immigrants.

dates of the migration are debated with estimates ranging from between 45,000 and 12,000 BCE.

Growing agricultural economy demanded greater and cheaper labor, and by 1705, Virginia passed the slave codes

declaring that any foreign-born non-christian could be a slave, and that slaves were considered property.

Assimilation

describes the process by which a minority individual or group gives up its own identity by taking on the characteristics of the dominant culture.

When colonist came to the New World, they found a land that

did not need "discovering" since it was already occupied.

Germans came to the U.S. for

economic opportunity and to escape political unrest and military conscription, especially after the revolutions of 1848.

The Indian Removal Act of 1830

forces the relocation of any native tribe east of the Mississippi River to lands west of the river.

The Indian Appropriation Act

funded further removals and declared that no Indian tribe could be recognized as an independent nation, tribe, or power with which the U.S. government would have to make treaties. This made it even easier for the U.S. government to take land it wanted.

The Indians Civil Rights Act of 1968

guaranteed Indian tribes most of the rights of the U.S. Bill of Rights.

Race is an

idea.

Over the centuries and then the millennia, native American culture blossomed into an

intricate web of hundreds of interconnected tribes, each with its own customs, traditions, languages, and religions.

The Eastern European immigration wave also included

jewish people escaping pogroms (anti-jewish massacres) of Eastern Europe and the Pale of Settlement in what was then Poland and Russia.

Italians, mainly from the southern part of the country, began arriving in

large numbers in the 1890s.

Mexican Americans form the

largest Hispanic subgroup and also the oldest.

The first Arab immigrants came to this country in the

late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Japanese immigration began in the 1880s, on the heels of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

many Japanese immigrants came to Hawaii to participate in the sugar industry; others came to the mainland, especially to California.

Amalgamation is also known as

miscegenation, is achieved through intermarriage between races. Loving v Virginia.

Example of intersection theory

mixed people.

Loving v Virginia allowed

mixed race marriages.

The only nonimmigrant ethnic group in the U.S.,

native Americans once numbered in the millions, but by 2010 made up only .9% of U.S. populace.

Example of dysfunction

not rewarding or paying slaves back for their labor but requiring more of them.

Conflict theory perspective of U.S. history would examine the

numerous past and current struggles between the white ruling class and racial and ethnic minorities, noting specific conflicts that have arisen when the dominant group perceived a threat from the minority group.

Many of the Eastern Europeans were

peasants forced into a hardscrabble existence in their native lands.

Function

political and economic games.

While Korean immigration has been fairly gradual, Vietnamese immigration occurred primarily

post-1975, after the fall of Saigon and the establishment of restrictive communist policies in Vietnam.

Native American cultural groups are striving to

preserve and maintain old traditions to keep them from being lost forever.

Symbolic interactionists

race and ethnicity provide strong symbols as sources of identity. in fact, some interactionists propose that the symbol of race, not race itself, is what lead to racism.

In the view of functionalism

racial and ethnic inequalities must have served an important function in order to exist as long as they have.

Asian Americans certainly have been subject to their share of

racial prejudice, despite the seemingly positive stereotype as the model minority.

Expulsion

refers to a subordinate group being forced, by a dominant group, to leave a certain area or country.

Segregation

refers to the physical separation of two groups, partially in residence, but also in workplace and social functions.

Culture of prejudice

refers to the theory that prejudice is embedded in our culture. We grow up surrounded by images of stereotypes and casual expressions of racism and prejudice.

The Dawes Act of 1887

reversed the policy of isolating native Americans on reservations, instead of forcing them onto individual properties that were intermingled with white settlers, thereby reducing their capacity for power as a group.

White ethnic Europeans formed the

second and third great wave of immigration, from the early nineteenth century.

Cuban Americans are the

second-largest hispanic subgroup and their history is quite different from that of Mexican Americans.

Example of function

slaves to work the fields for profit of the slave holder.

However, native Americans (some of whom now wished to be called American Indians so as to avoid the "savage" connotations of the term "native") still

suffer the effects of centuries of degradation.

Genocide

the deliberate annihilation of a target (usually subordinate) group, is the most toxic intergroup.

Examples of genocide

the holocaust, arminian.

In 1808, during Thomas Jefferson's presidency, Congress prohibited

the international importation of humans to be used as slaves.

Amalgamation

the process by which a minority group and a majority group combine to form a new group.

Example of expulsion

the trail of tears.

Dysfunctions

treatment/ inequality.

Intersection theory

which suggested we cannot separate the effects of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and other attributes.

Example of culture of prejudice

white people "find", black people "loot".

The first Asian immigrants to come to the U.S. in the mid-nineteenth century were Chinese. These immigrants were primarily men whose intention was to

work for several years in order to earn incomes to support their families in China. their main destination was the American west, where the gold rush was drawing people with its lure of abundant money.