Module 8 Race and Ethnicity

Subordinate group

a group of people who have less power than the dominant group

The racial term "African American" does not refer to:

a person who came from Africa and immigrated to Europe

Which intergroup relation displays the least tolerance?

genocide

The theory that we cannot separate the effects of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and other attributes is known as:

intersection theory

Pluralism

is represented by the ideal of the United States as a "salad bowl": a great mixture of different cultures where each culture retains its own identity and yet adds to the flavor of the whole.

Amalgamation

is the process by which a minority group and a majority group combine to form a new group. Amalgamation is reflected in the classic "melting pot" analogy.

Many Arab Americans face ________, especially after 9/11.

islamophobia

Institutional racism

patterns of discrimination based on ethnicity that have become structured into existing social institutions

Minority group

people who are singled out for unequal treatment and who regard themselves as objects of collective discrimination

Race is about

physical markers

Ethnicity does not include shared:

physicality

Color-blind racism

refers to "contemporary racial inequality as the outcome of nonracial dynamics" (Bonilla-Silva, 2003), which is generally professed as, "I don't see race-I see everyone as equal.

Segregation

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

African diaspora

refers to the scattering of people with African ancestry all over the world, but predominantly to populations in North and South America.

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 1898 Treaty of Paris

resulted in the purchase of the Philippines and to Spain ceding Puerto Rico, Guam, and Cuba to the U.S. Puerto Rico is the largest U.S. territory and Puerto Ricans are legally U.S. citizens.

Social construction of race

the school of thought that race is not biologically identifiable

What makes Native Americans unique as a subordinate group in the United States?

they are the only group that did not come here as immigrants

According to Charles Wagley and Marvin Harris (1958), a minority group is distinguished by five characteristics:

unequal treatment and less power over their lives distinguishing physical or cultural traits like skin color or language involuntary membership in the group awareness of subordination high rate of in-group marriage

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

White privilege

which refers to the automatic benefits people receive simply by being part of a dominant group

What is discrimination?

Biased actions against an individual or group

________ immigration began in the 1880s. Many of these immigrants came to Hawaii to participate in the sugar industry; others came to the mainland, especially to agricultural pursuits in California.

Japanese

AMHS

anatomically modern humans

Discrimination

consists of actions against a group of people can be based on age, religion, health, and other indicators

Prejudice

refers to the beliefs, thoughts, feelings, and attitudes someone holds about a group.

What doctrine justified legal segregation in the South?

separate but equal

Dominant group

the group with the most power, greatest privileges, and highest social status

In Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886

Chinese laundromat was rejected a permit to work but continued to run his business. He's imprisoned, sues, and Supreme Court sides with him and rules they may not enforce laws in a discriminatory manner.

Multiple Identities

Prior to the twentieth century, racial intermarriage (referred to as miscegenation) was extremely rare, and in many places, illegal. In the later part of the twentieth century and in the twenty-first century, attitudes have changed for the better

Intersection theory

analysis of the interplay of race, class, and gender, which often results in multiple dimensions of disadvantage

________ refers to the theory that prejudice is embedded in our culture.

culture of prejudice

Genocide

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

A societal privilege that benefits people who are white in a way that goes beyond what is commonly experienced by non-white individuals under the same societal, political, or economic circumstances is known as ________.

white privilege

The fact that Brad, as a Caucasian in the United States, can be reasonably sure that he will deal with authority figures of the same race as him is a result of:

white privilege

Stereotypes

widely held beliefs that people have certain characteristics because of their membership in a particular group can be based on race, ethnicity, age, gender, sexual orientation—almost any characteristic.

Social identity theory (Henri Tajfel)

(1979), people examine their own identity in light of perceived group membership. He says that we tend to increase our self-image by enhancing the status of the group to which we belong. Therefore, we divide the world into "them" and "us" or in-groups and out-groups with heightened prejudicial attitudes toward the out-groups.

Double consciousness

(the feeling that one's identity is divided because of race) and how that influences the sense of self. For symbolic interactionists, race and ethnicity provide strong symbols as sources of identity.

Racial Profiling

singling out an individual as a suspect due to appearance of ethnicity

Latino/Hispanic Americans

• Largest groups • Largest ethnic group; relatively young population • Mexican, Puerto Ricans, Cubans most common • Large diversity within Latino population • Health concerns • Stomach cancer • Diabetes mellitus • Cardiovascular disease • HIV • Barriers to care • Highest uninsured rate of any U.S. racial/ethnic group • Use/receive less preventative health care • Lack of interpreter services in health care • Reliance on folk systems of healing • Care issues • Family supersedes individual needs • Spiritual strength important • Hot and cold concept of disease • Disease attributed to supernatural or psychological causes • Folk remedies used in combination with Western medicine

Mariel Boatlift

1980 mass migration of people from Cuba to the U.S.

Arab Americans

For Arab Americans, their country of origin—Arabia—has not existed for centuries, although millions of people speak Arabic and it is the sixth most commonly spoken language worldwide. Geographically, the Arab region comprises the Middle East and parts of northern Africa. People whose ancestry lies in that area, or who speak primarily Arabic may consider themselves Arabs. ab Americans represent all religious practices, despite the stereotype that all Arabic people practice Islam. As Myers (2007) asserts, not all Arabs are Muslim, and not all Muslims are Arab, complicating the definition of what it means to be an Arab American. Although Islam will be discussed more fully in the module on religion, it is important to note that Muslims make up a small portion of the U.S. population, just 0.9 percent. They are one of the most racially diverse groups in the country, with 41 percent of the Muslim population being white, 20 percent black, 28 percent Asian, and 8 percent Hispanic.[1]

NAACP

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

Which of the following is an example of a numerical majority being treated as a subordinate group?

blacks under apartheid in South Africa or lack of power

According to ________, racism is one way to justify racial inequality in society.

functionalism

Devin grows up with incredibly strict parents who punish him severely for even minor infractions. When he grows up, he finds himself drawn to other authority figures and emulates the ways some of his heroes act toward others. According to psychologist Theodor Adorno, Devin may be prone to

increased prejudicism

Ethnicity

is a term that describes shared culture—the practices, values, and beliefs of a group.

Colorism

is another kind of prejudice, in which someone believes one degree of skin tone is superior or inferior to another within a racial group.

Social scientists today maintain that when it comes to "race," it

is not biologically identifiable and racial categories have been arbitrarily assigned

Which of the following is the best explanation of racism as a social fact?

it does not need the actions of individuals to continue

Speedy Gonzalez is an example of:

stereotyping

After the establishment of the United States' government, discrimination against Native Americans was codified and formalized in a series of laws intended to

subjugate Native Americans and keep them from gaining any power

A symbolic interactionist would emphasize how ________ related to race and ethnicity could lead to racism.

symbols

One Drop Rule

the belief that "one drop" of black blood makes a person black, a concept that evolved from U.S. laws forbidding miscegenation

Vivien Thomas (1910-1985)

the black surgical technician who helped develop a groundbreaking technique that saves the lives of "blue babies," was classified as a janitor for many years, and was paid as such, despite the fact that he was conducting complicated surgical experiments.

Which federal act or program was designed to protect Hispanic American worker immigration, not block it?

the bracero program

Social construct

A concept or practice that is construct of a group. Everybody in society agrees to treat a certain aspect a certain way regardless of its inherent value in nature.

History of Intergroup Relations Arab Americans

Arab Americans and the dominant majority have been marked by mistrust, misinformation, and deeply entrenched beliefs. Helen Samhan of the Arab American Institute suggests that Arab-Israeli conflicts in the 1970s contributed significantly to cultural and political anti-Arab sentiment in the United States (2001). The United States has historically supported the State of Israel, while some Middle Eastern countries deny the legitimacy of the Israeli state. Disputes over these issues have involved Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine.

________ immigration came to an abrupt end with the Exclusion Act of 1882. This act was a result of anti-immigrant sentiment due to a depressed economy and loss of jobs. White workers blamed these migrants for taking their jobs. Because these men did not have the funds to return to their homeland, or to bring their families to the United States, they remained physically and culturally segregated in areas of large cities.

Chinese

History of Intergroup Relations Asian Americans

Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 which restricted immigration from China. This act was a result of anti-Chinese sentiment, which was further exacerbated by a depressed economy and loss of jobs. White workers blamed Chinese migrants for taking jobs, and the passage of the Act meant the number of available Chinese workers decreased. Chinese men did not have the funds to return to China or to bring their families to the United States, so they remained physically and culturally segregated in the Chinatowns of large cities. Nevertheless, some eventually opened businesses such as laundromats or other service establishments.

Current Status African Americans

Most sociologists point out that institutionalized racism persists in social institutions such as public schools and the criminal justice system (laws, policing, and sentencing). Some states have also found different ways to limit the franchise (i.e., voting rights) for minority groups. These methods including mandatory requirements for IDs, fewer polling places in rural and poor areas, and felon disenfranchisement in states with large black populations.

How and Why They Came Latino/Hispanic Americans

They lived in areas of Mexico that became part of the United States as a result of the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. They didn't immigrate (or even move); some became U.S. citizens and some remained citizens of Mexico living in the U.S. Since then, Mexican migration was often in response to the need for cheap agricultural labor, and often coincided with seasonal crop cycles.

The Immigration Act of 1924

completely excluded Asian immigrants from entering the United States

Interactionists suggest that racial prejudices are formed by:

interactions between members of the group

Expulsion

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

How and Why They Came African Americans

A Dutch sea captain brought the first Africans 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. For the next century, black and white indentured servants worked side by side, but the growing agricultural economy demanded greater and cheaper labor. By 1705, Virginia passed the slave codes declaring that any foreign-born, non-Christian could be a slave, and that slaves were considered property. The next 150 years saw the rise of U.S. slavery, with Africans being kidnapped from their own lands and shipped to the New World on the trans-Atlantic journey known as the Middle Passage.

Name the group whose ancestors did not come here by choice.

African Americans

According to Samhan (2001), relations between Arab Americans and the dominant majority have been marked by mistrust, misinformation, and deeply entrenched beliefs. The ________ contributed significantly to cultural and political anti-Arab sentiment in the United States..

Arab-Israeli conflicts in the 1970s

Current Status Asian Americans

Asian Americans are a rapidly growing part of the population. The New York University (NYU) Center for the Study of Asian American Health examines growth in New York City. Researchers there found that New York City (NYC) is home to nearly 1.2 million documented and undocumented Asian Americans, representing more than 13% of the total NYC population. This diverse population (more than 20 countries of origin and 45 languages and dialects) grew by 110% from 1990 to 2010.

How and Why They Came Asian Americans

Asian immigrants have come to the United States primarily in the third wave (1880-1914) and fourth wave (1965-present), but also in the second wave (1820-1860). The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act removed national-origin quotas established in 1921, resulting in marked population growth during this period with 491,000 Asian immigrants in 1960 and 12.8 million Asian immigrants in 2014, which accounts from a 2,597 percent increase[2]. As of 2014, the top five origin countries of Asian immigrants were India, China, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Korea.

The ________ was characterized by boycotts, marches, sit-ins, and freedom rides as demonstrations by a subordinate group that would no longer willingly submit to domination. The question has been evaluated. Your choice is correct.

Civil rights movement

Sociological Theories of Prejudice 2

Conflict Theory: are often applied to inequalities of gender, social class, education, race, and ethnicity. A conflict theorist would examine struggles between the white ruling class and racial and ethnic minorities and use that history to analyze everyday life for racial and ethnic minorities in the U.S., paying special attention to power and inequality. Prejudice is a tool for maintaining power, and in many cases throughout U.S. history, prejudicial policies have become laws. The years since the Civil War have showed a pattern of attempted disenfranchisement, with gerrymandering (redrawing congressional districts to favor one political party over another) and voter suppression efforts, such as voter ID laws, aimed at predominantly minority neighborhoods. In the late nineteenth century, the rising political power of blacks after the Civil War resulted in draconian Black Codes and Jim Crow laws that severely limited black political and social power.

Sociological Theories of Prejudice 1

Functionalism: racial and ethnic inequalities must have served an important function in order to exist as long as they have. This concept, of course, is problematic. How can racism and discrimination contribute positively to society? A functionalist might look at "functions" and "dysfunctions" caused by racial inequality. Nash (1964) focused his argument on the way racism is functional for the dominant group; for example, suggesting that racism morally justifies a racially unequal society. Consider the ways in which slave owners justified slavery in the antebellum South, by suggesting black people were fundamentally inferior to whites, that they preferred slavery to freedom, that many were "like family," and/or that the Bible justified slavery. Today, we can look at how people explain or justify racial inequalities in the criminal justice system ("Black and Brown men commit more crimes") or racially segregated neighborhoods ("people choose where they live") or shooting of unarmed people of color ("they appeared threatening" or "I was protecting myself or my neighborhood").

Immigration from ________ and ________ continued well into the late 19th century and early part of the 20th century, at which time the immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe began to arrive in larger numbers.

Germany and Ireland

Asian Americans

In the 1980s, this group became the fastest growing minority population. The most recent estimate from the U.S. Census Bureau (2017) suggests that about 5.8 percent of the population identify themselves as Asian

Current Status Latinos/ Hispanic Americans

Mexican Americans, especially those who are here illegally, are at the center of a national debate about immigration. Myers (2007) observes that no other minority group (except the Chinese) has immigrated to the United States in such an environment of illegality. He notes that in some years, three times as many Mexican immigrants may have entered the United States illegally as those who arrived legally. It should be noted that this is due to an enormous disparity of economic opportunity on two sides of an open border, not because of any inherent inclination to break laws. In his report, "Measuring Immigrant Assimilation in the United States," Jacob Vigdor (2008) states that Mexican immigrants experience relatively low rates of economic and civil assimilation. He further suggests that "the slow rates of economic and civic assimilation set Mexicans apart from other immigrants, and may reflect the fact that the large numbers of Mexican immigrants residing in the United States illegally have few opportunities to advance themselves along these dimensions."

Current Status Arab Americans

Racial profiling has proceeded against Arab Americans as a matter of course since 9/11. Particularly when engaged in air travel, being young and Arab-looking is enough to warrant a special search or detainment. This Islamophobia (irrational fear of or hatred against Muslims) does not show signs of abating. Scholars note that white domestic terrorists like Timothy McVeigh, who detonated a bomb at an Oklahoma courthouse in 1995, have not inspired similar racial profiling of or hate crimes against whites. Executive Orders enacted by President Donald Trump in 2017 have drastically reduced U.S. entry from several Muslim-majority countries and created other restrictions on refugees and resettlement. The "Muslim Ban" has faced multiple legal challenges but has resulted in reduced immigration. As discussed earlier, there has been a 67 percent increase in attacks against Arab Americans since 2016.

History of Intergroup Relations African Americans

Slaves were denied even the most basic rights of citizenship, a crucial enabling factor for slaveholders and their supporters. Slavery poses an illustrative example of conflict theory's perspective on race relations, as the dominant group needed complete control over the subordinate group in order to maintain power. Extreme corporal punishments were common, including whippings, lashings, and branding. Crimes of war such as rape, family separation, and public executions were part of a larger system of social control, and slaves were prohibited from reading or obtaining an education. In the 1848 U.S. Supreme Court case Dred Scott v. Sandford, the court declared that slaves were property and that slave owners and protected in this legal arrangement by the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment (which effectively meant that slaves were still considered property even in free territories). The Dred Scott decision also established that persons of African descent (whether freed or enslaved) had no legal standing as citizens, and therefore could not sue-for their freedom or anything else-in federal court.

Current Status native americans

The Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968 guaranteed Native American tribes most of the rights enumerated in the United States Bill of Rights. New laws like the Indian Self-Determination Act and the Education Assistance Act (both 1975) recognized tribal governments and gave them more power. Indian boarding schools have dwindled to only a few, and Native American cultural groups are striving to preserve and maintain old traditions and tribal languages to keep them from being lost forever.

How and Why They Came

The earliest immigrants to America arrived millennia before European immigrants. Dates of the migration are debated, with estimates ranging from between 45,000 and 12,000 BCE. It is thought that these early migrants came across a land bridge from present-day Siberia in search of big game to hunt, which they found in huge herds of grazing herbivores in the Americas.

Why They Came Arab Americans

The first Arab immigrants came to this country in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They were predominantly Syrian, Lebanese, and Jordanian Christians who were fleeing persecution and hoping to make a better life. These early immigrants and their descendants, who were more likely to think of themselves as Syrian or Lebanese than Arab, represent almost half of the Arab American population today (Myers 2007).

Native Americans

The only nonimmigrant ethnic group in the United States, Native Americans once dominated the North American continent but by 2010 made up only 0.9 percent of U.S. populace (U.S. Census 2010). Currently, about 2.9 million people identify themselves as Native American alone, while an additional 2.3 million identify them as Native American mixed with another ethnic group (Norris, Vines, and Hoeffel 2012).

Filipinos migrated

United States after the U.S. annexed the Philippines in 1899. As U.S. nationals, they were not subjected to the same restrictions as other groups. Many settled in California and Hawaii and worked in agricultural jobs. Immigration slowed as a result of restrictions for several decades, but after World War II "war brides" began to arrive with returning U.S. servicemen. Although the Philippines obtained its independence in 1946 in the Treaty of Manila, the U.S. still became home to a large number of Filipino immigrants, with the number of immigrants quadrupling from 501,000 in 1980 to 1,942,000 in 2016.[3]

History of Intergroup Relations Latinos/ Hispanic Americans

Western growers needed a steady supply of labor, and the 1940s and 1950s saw the official federal Bracero Program (bracero is Spanish for strong-arm) that offered protection to Mexican guest workers. Interestingly, 1954 also saw the enactment of "Operation Wetback," which deported thousands of illegal Mexican workers. From these examples, we can see the U.S. treatment of immigration from Mexico has been ambivalent at best.

Japanese immigration

began in the 1880s, on the heels of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Many Japanese immigrants came to Hawaii to work in the sugar industry; others came to the mainland, especially to California. Unlike the Chinese, however, the Japanese had a strong government in their country of origin that negotiated with the U.S. government to ensure the well-being of their immigrants. Japanese men were able to bring their wives and families to the United States, and were thus able to produce second- and third-generation Japanese Americans more quickly than their Chinese counterparts.

Salvadorians

comprise the third largest of the Latino subgroups, and are the largest group from the "Northern Triangle," which also includes Guatemala (#6) and Honduras (#8). The number of immigrants from this region rose by 25 percent from 2007 to 2015.[3]. Immigrants from this area of Central America cite economic opportunity as the primary reason why they come to the United States, but many also cite the growing violence in their home nations as a reason for leaving.

A small city government works to reduce racism by hosting several events and providing opportunities for the majority and minority groups to work together on projects, thereby increasing interpersonal communication. This is an example of the ________ in action.

contract hypothesis

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.

Scapegoat theory

developed initially from psychologist John Dollard's (1939) Frustration-Aggression theory, suggests that the dominant group will displace its unfocused aggression onto a subordinate group

Scapegoat theory shows that:

dominant group blame dominant groups for their problems

When we speak of descent through such cultural backgrounds as Irish, Italian American, Russian, Jewish, and Serbian we are actually discussing

ethinicity

Series of laws intended to subjugate them and keep them from gaining any power. For example:

he Indian Removal Act of 1930 forced the relocation of any native tribes east of the Mississippi River to lands west of the river. The Indian Appropriation Acts (1851, 1871, 1885, and 1889) funded further removals and declared that no Indian tribe could be recognized as an independent nation with which the U.S. government would have to make treaties. This made it even easier for the U.S. government to take land. The Dawes Act of 1887 reversed the policy of isolating Native Americans on reservations, instead forcing them onto individual properties that were intermingled with white settlers, thereby reducing their capacity for power as a group.

Racial steering

in which real estate agents direct prospective homeowners toward or away from certain neighborhoods based on their race.

Contact Hypothesis (Gordon Allport)

intergroup contact theory in the 1950s, which posits if two groups with equal status and common goals come together, with cooperation, structural supports (i.e., existing laws or customs), and interpersonal communication, they can reduce stereotypes, prejudices, and discrimination.

Which theory suggests we cannot separate the effects of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and other attributes when we examine the advantages and disadvantages of race?

intersection theory

Race

is a socially constructed category that produces real effects on the actors who are radicalized [2] and refers to physical differences that a particular society considers significant, such as skin color.

Stereotypes are not based on:

prejudice

_______ refers to the beliefs, thoughts, feelings, and attitudes someone holds about a group while ________ refers to actions against a group of people

prejudice and discrimination

The California Alien Land Law of 1913

prohibited "aliens ineligible for citizenship" from owning agricultural land or purchasing long-term leases over it in California

Model Minority

stereotype is applied to a group that is seen as achieving significant educational, professional, and socioeconomic success without challenging the existing establishment.