SOC 367 Immigration and Ethnicity

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SOC 367Immigration and Ethnicity

• Assimilation and Pluralism
• Week 3

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Ethnic Stratification

• A system of ethnic stratification is a rank order
  of groups, each made up of people with presumed
  common cultural or physical characteristics
  interacting in patterns of dominance and
  subordination (Marger 2003, Pp. 40)

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Ethnic Stratification

• Relative position
• Think of Albert Einsteins (1905) Special Theory
  of Relativity
• Reference Group Who you compare yourself or
  others to
• Minority-Majority

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Minority Groups

• Minority status a reflection of differential
  power and differential treatment
• Minority denotes a group status not an individual
  status
• Size has no necessary relation to a groups
  minority status (U.S. vs. South Africa)
• A groups marginal location in the social order
• Gender, disability, age, sexual orientation,
  religion, ethnicity

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Ethnic Minority

• Groups singled out and treated unequally on the
  basis of their cultural or physical differences
  from the dominant group.
• In The US
• Native Indians
• Blacks / African origin
• Hispanic origin
• Asian origin
• Pacific Island origin
• Others
• Endogamy a central aspect
• (What happens to boundaries when intermarriage
  occurs?)

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Dominant Ethnic group

• The group at the top of the ethnic hierarchy
• Maximal access to the societys power resources
  (political authority control of the means of
  production)
• Acquires a disproportionate share of the
  societys valued resources
• In the US historically WASPs (White
  Anglo-Saxon Protestants)
• Cultural supremacy (mainstream)

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Middleman Ethnic Minority

• Occupy an intermediate rather than low status
  position
• Often act as a go-between
• Occupy an intermediate niche in the economic
  system - role
• Traders, shopkeepers, labor contractor, broker,
  moneylenders, independent professionals

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Middleman Ethnic Minority

• Middleman between
• Producer and consumer
• Employer are employee
• Owner and renter
• Elite and masses
• Jews in Europe, Chinese in Southeast Asia, Asians
  in East Africa, Armenians in Turkey,
• Many 1st generation Jewish, Japanese and Korean
  Americans but now?

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Ethnic Stratification (Thinking in Lines
Vertically)

• Top - Majority

Distribution of these rewards
Distance
Education
Class
Income/Wealth
Status
Occupation
Power
Residence
Bottom - Minority
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Ethnic Stratification (Thinking in Lines
Vertically)

• Top - Majority

Middleman Minority
Bottom - Minority
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Ethnic Stratification(Thinking in Spheres)

• Majority-Dominant

Social distance
Minority - Subordinate
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Inequality Measures
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The Origins of Ethnic Stratification

• When different ethnic groups come into contact by
• Conquest and Expansion
• European explorers in the New Worlds
• Annexation
• Part of Mexico in 1846, the treaty of Guadalupe
  Hidalgo (ending US war with Mexico)
• The Philippines, Puerto Rico and several islands
  in 1898, the Treaty of Paris (ending US war with
  Spain)
• Voluntary Immigration
• Involuntary Immigration

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Patterns of Ethnic Relations

• Assimilation
• (Including the Melting Pot Idea)
• Pluralism
• (Including Segregation)
• Segmented Assimilation

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Assimilation Theories

• Read the following for this week
• Hirschman, Charles. 1983. Americas Melting Pot
  Reconsidered. Annual Review of Sociology
  (9)397-423. (On E-reserve). Required for
  tomorrow (July 7)
• Marger, Martin. 2003. Race and Ethnic Relations.
• Chapter 4. (In Odegaard Reserve).
• Wong, Paul. 1999. Race, Ethnicity and
  Nationality in the US A Comparative Historical
  Perspective. Pp 293-314 in Race, Ethnicity, and
  Nationality in the United States Toward the
  Twenty-First Century edited by Paul Wong Colorado
  State University Westview press. (On E-reserve).