Ethnic Geography

1
Ethnic Geography

• The Human Mosaic
• Chapter 9

2
Examples of ethnic enclaves in the United States

• North Boston
• Mounted statue of American hero Paul Revere is in
  an Italian neighborhood
• Most businesses have Italian names
• Women lean out of upper-story windows conversing
  Naples-style to neighbors across the street
• Italian-dominated outdoor vegetable market
• Pilgrimage to the site where the American
  Revolution began has become a trip to Little
  Italy

3
Examples of ethnic enclaves in the United States

• Wilber, Nebraska, bills itself The Czech Capital
  of Nebraska
• Holds an annual National Czech Festival
• Authentic food, and locally made handicraft are
  offered for sale
• Many shops are decorated in Czech motif and
  ethnic music is played on the streets
• The festival draws thousands of visitors each
  year

4
Examples of ethnic enclaves in the United States

• Other ethnic festivals held in Nebraska
• Newman GroveNorwegian Days
• Bridgeportthe Greek Festival
• Dannebrogthe Danish Grundlovs Fest
• McCookGerman Heritage Days
• Stromsburgthe Swedish Festival ONealthe St.
  Patricks Day Celebration
• Several Indian tribal powwows are held in other
  cities

5
(No Transcript)
6
Examples of ethnic enclaves in the United States

• An ethnic crazy-quilt pattern exists in both
  urban and rural areas of the United States
• Same kind of pattern exists in Canada, Russia,
  China, and many other countries

7
Problems encountered when defining ethnic group

• Controversy has surround attempts to formulate an
  accepted definition
• Word ethnic derived from Greek word ethnos
  meaning people or nation
• For this text defined as people of common
  ancestry and cultural tradition, living as a
  minority in a larger society, or host culture
• Strong feeling of group identity, of belonging
  characterizes ethnicity

8
Problems encountered when defining ethnic group

• Membership in an ethnic group is involuntary
• He or she must be born into the group
• Often individuals choose to discard their
  ethnicity

9
Problems encountered when defining ethnic group

• Main problem is different groups base their
  identities on different traits
• The Jewsprimarily means religion
• The Amishboth folk culture and religion
• African-Americansskin color
• Swiss-Americansnational origin
• German-Americansancestral language
• Cuban-Americansmainly anti-Castro, and
  anti-Marxist sentiment

10
Problems encountered when defining ethnic group

• Politics can also help provide the basis for the
  we/they dichotomy that underlies ethnicity

11
Role of ethnic groups

• Keepers of distinctive cultural traditions
• Focal point of various kinds of social
  interaction
• Provide group identity, friendships, and marriage
  partners
• Also provides a recreational outlet, business
  success, and a political power base
• Can give rise to suspicion, friction, distrust,
  clannishness, and even violence

12
How ethnic minorities can be changed by their
host culture

• Acculturation an ethnic group adopts enough of
  the host societys ways to be able to function
  economically and socially
• Assimilation a complete blending with the host
  culture
• Involves loss of all distinctive ethnic traits
• American host culture now includes many
  descendants of Germans, Scots, Irish, French,
  Swedes, and Welsh
• Intermarriage is perhaps the most effective
  assimilatory device

13
How ethnic minorities can be changed by their
host culture

• In reality few ethnic groups have been
  assimilated in the so-called melting-pot
• It was assumed all ethnic groups would eventually
  be assimilated
• The last 25 years has witnessed a resurgence of
  ethnic identity in the United States, Canada,
  Europe, and elsewhere
• Ethnicity easily made the transition from folk to
  popular culture
• Popular culture reveals a vivid ethnic component

14
Ethnic geography

• The study of ethnic geography is the study of
  spatial and ecological aspects of ethnicity
• Ethnic groups often practice unique adaptive
  strategies
• Normally occupy clearly defined areasurban and
  rural

15
Culture regions

• Ethnic regions
• Cultural diffusion and ethnicity
• Ethnic ecology
• Ethnic cultural integration
• Ethnic landscapes

16
Culture groups typically occupy compact
territories

• Ethnic formal culture regions can be mapped
• Geographers rely on diverse data
• Surnames in telephone directories
• Census totals for mother tongue
• Each method will produce a slightly different map
  
• Such regions exist in most countries

17
Ethnic formal culture regions
18
(No Transcript)
19
Culture groups typically occupy compact
territories

• Two distinct geographical types of ethnic regions
  exist
• Ethnic minorities who reside in ancient home
  territories
• Lands where their ancestors lived back into
  prehistoric times
• Became ethnic when their territory was annexed
  into a larger independent state
• Examples Basques of Spain, Navajo Indians of
  American Southwest
• Place and region provide a basic element in their
  ethnic identity

20
Culture groups typically occupy compact
territories

• Two distinct geographical types of ethnic regions
  exist
• Results from migration when people move great
  distances
• Emotional attachment tends to be weaker toward
  new homeland
• Only after many generations pass do descendants
  of immigrants develop strong bonds to region and
  place

21
Ethnic culture regions in rural North America

• Ethnic homelands
• Cover large areas, often over-lapping state and
  provincial borders
• Have sizable populations
• Residents seek or enjoy some measure of political
  autonomy or self-rule
• Populations usually exhibit a strong sense of
  attachment to the region
• Most homelands belong to indigenous ethnic groups

22
Ethnic culture regions in rural North America

• Ethnic homelands
• Possess special, venerated places that serve to
  symbolize and celebrate the region shrines to
  the special identity of the group
• Combines the attributes of both formal and
  functional culture regions
• Regarded by some as incompletely developed
  nation-states
• Because of sex, age, and geographical segregation
  tend to strengthen ethnicity
• Long occupation helps people develop modes of
  life, behavior, tastes, and relationships
  regarded as the correct ones

23
Ethnic culture regions in rural North America

• Examples of ethnic homelands in North America
• Acadiana Louisiana French increasingly
  identified with the Cajun people and recognized
  as a perceptual region
• Spanish-American highland New Mexico, Colorado,
  and South Texas
• Navajo Reservation New Mexico and Arizona
• French-Canadian centered on valley of lower St.
  Lawrence River in Quebec
• Some include Deseret Mormon homeland in the
  Great Basin of the Intermontane West

24
(No Transcript)
25
Ethnic culture regions in rural North America

• Some ethnic homelands have experienced decline
  and decay
• Pennsylvania Dutch weakened to almost
  extinction by assimilation
• Southern Black Belt diminished by collapse of
  plantation-sharecrop system resulting in
  out-migration to urban areas
• Mormon absorption into the American cultural
  mainstream
• Non-ethnic immigration has damaged the
  Spanish-American homeland

26
Ethnic culture regions in rural North America

• Most vigorous homelands are the French-Canadians
  and South Texas Mexican-Americans
• Ethnic substrate
• Occurs when a people in a homeland are
  assimilated into the host culture and a
  geographical residue remains
• The resultant culture region retains some
  distinctiveness

27
Ethnic culture regions in rural North America

• Ethnic substrate
• Geographers often find traces of an ancient,
  vanished ethnicity in a region
• Italian province of Tuscany owes both its name
  and some uniqueness to the Etruscan people who
  ceased as an ethnic group 2,000 years ago
• Massive German presence in American Heartland
  helped shape cultural character of the Midwest,
  which can be said to have a German ethnic
  substrate

28
(No Transcript)
29
Ethnic Island Westby, Wisconsin
30
Ethnic Island Westby, Wisconsin

• This small town is in Americas ethnically
  diverse rural heartland.
• Westby was a Norwegian pioneer and the towns
  population is primarily Norwegian.

31
Ethnic Island Westby, Wisconsin

• Although traditional events such as the fall
  lutefisk dinner and the May 17th Norwegian
  Independence Day celebration are celebrated, this
  ethnic group has essentially assimilated with the
  host culture.
• Note the various popular cultural organizations
  and activities in this community.

32
Ethnic culture regions in rural North America

• Ethnic islands in North America
• Small dots in the countryside
• Usually occupy less area than a county
• Much smaller than a homeland-serve as home to
  only several hundred or several thousand people
• More numerous than homelands or substrates
• Many found in large areas of rural North America

33
(No Transcript)
34
Ethnic culture regions in rural North America

• Ethnic islands in North America
• Crazy-quilt pattern found in some areas of
  Midwest
• Germans form the largest group found in ethnic
  islandssoutheastern Pennsylvania and in
  Wisconsin
• Scandinavians primarily Swedes and Norwegians
  came mainly to Minnesota, the eastern Dakotas,
  and western Wisconsin
• Ukrainians settled mainly in the Canadian Prairie
  Provinces
• Slavic groups mainly Poles and Czechs
  established scattered colonies in the Midwest
  and Texas

35
(No Transcript)
36
(No Transcript)
37
Ethnic culture regions in rural North America

• Ethnic islands develop because a minority group
  will tend to utilize space in such a way as to
  minimize the interaction distance between group
  members
• The desire is to facilitate contacts within the
  community and minimize exposure to the outside
  world
• The ideal shape of an ethnic island is circular
  or hexagonal
• People are drawn to rural places where others of
  the same ethnic background are found

38
(No Transcript)
39
Ethnic culture regions in rural North America

• Survive from one generation to the next because
  most land is inherited
• Sale of land is typically confined within the
  ethnic group, helping to preserve its identity
• Social stigma is often attached to sale of land
  to outsiders
• Small size makes populations more susceptible to
  acculturation and assimilation

40
Urban ethnic neighborhoods and ghettos

• Formal ethnic culture regions occur in cities
  throughout the world
• Minority people tend to create ethnic residential
  quarters
• Ethnic neighborhood a voluntary community where
  people of like origin reside by choice showing a
  desire to maintain group cohesiveness

41
(No Transcript)
42
Urban ethnic neighborhoods and ghettos

• Benefits of the ethnic neighborhood
• Common use of language
• Nearby kin
• Stores and services specially tailored to a
  certain groups tastes
• Presence of factories relying on ethnically based
  division of labor
• Institutions important to the group churches
  and lodges

43
Urban ethnic neighborhoods and ghettos

• The ghetto traditionally been used to describe
  an area within the city where a certain ethnic
  group is forced to live
• An involuntary community and as much a functional
  culture region as a formal one
• Discrimination decides whether a ethnic group
  lives in a ghetto or voluntarily forms its own
  neighborhood
• American society discriminates more against
  blacks and Asians

44
(No Transcript)
45
Jewish Ghetto Salzburg, Austria

• The name of this street is Judengasse Jew
  Street.
• Here, as in many European cities, Jews were
  forced to live in a specific walled and gated
  area.

46
Jewish Ghetto Salzburg, Austria

• Judengasse had 3000 residents by 1610.
• Virtually all of Salzburgs Jewish population
  succumbed to the Nazi Holocaust.
• The term ghetto derives from the Jewish quarter
  by the Ghetto Novo or New Foundry in Venice.

47
Urban ethnic neighborhoods and ghettos

• Study of Cleveland, Ohio, by John Kain
• Blacks are confined to a ghetto by discriminatory
  housing practices
• Blacks more highly segregated residentially than
  white ethnic groups
• Italians, Poles, Jews, Appalachian folk, and
  other white ethnic groups occupy neighborhoods
  rather than ghettos
• These other white ethnic groups disperse to
  suburbs more readily than African-Americans

48
Urban ethnic neighborhoods and ghettos

• Ethnic clustering survives relocation from
  neighborhoods to suburbs
• Example of the Chinese in the San Gabriel Valley
  near Los Angeles
• In ancient times, conquerors often forced
  vanquished native people to live in ghettos
• Religious minorities usually received similar
  treatment
• Sometimes walls were built around ghettos
• Islamic cities had Christian districts
• Medieval European cities had Jewish ghettos

49
Urban ethnic neighborhoods and ghettos

• North American cities are more ethnically diverse
  than any other urban centers in the world
• Ethnic neighborhoods became typical after about
  1840
• Immigrant groups clustered together instead of
  dispersing
• Ethnic groups generally came from different parts
  of Europe than those who moved to rural areas

50
Urban ethnic neighborhoods and ghettos

• North American cities are more ethnically diverse
  than any other urban centers in the world
• Catholic Irish, Italians, Poles, and East
  European Jews became the main urban ethnic groups
  
• Other non-European groups later came to urban
  areas French-Canadians, southern blacks, Puerto
  Ricans, Appalachian whites, Amerindians

51
(No Transcript)
52
Other ethnic migrants

• As immigration laws changed, the ethnic variety
  in North American cities grew even greater
• Asia, rather than Europe, is now the principal
  source continent for immigrants in the United
  States and Canada
• Chinese, Koreans, and Vietnamese comprise the
  most numerous immigrant groups
• Asia supplied 37 percent of all legal immigrant
  to United states in mid-1990s
• Japanese ancestry forms the largest
  national-origin group in Hawaii

53
(No Transcript)
54
Chinatown Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

• A key link in a pattern of chain migration,
  Victorias Chinatown is Canadas oldest, the
  earliest gold-seekers coming by boat via San
  Francisco in 1858.
• Between 1861 and 1884, nearly 16000 Chinese
  railroad workers funneled through Victoria to the
  mainland.

55
Chinatown Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

• Discrimation concentrated the community and by
  1910, Chinatown was the nations largest,
  comprising six city blocks and 3000 Chinese.
• Second to Vancouver until 1950, it now ranks
  eighth.
• Decline followed the 1923-47 prohibition of
  Chinese immigration.

56
Chinatown Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

• However, in the 1980s, it became the first to
  undergo a comprehensive rehabilitation program
  and to have a Chinese arch. The Tong Ji Men
  Gate of Harmonious Interest, replete with
  Animist, Buddhist and Taoist motifs, symbolizes
  Canadian multiculturalism.

57
Other ethnic migrants

• Many West Coast cities have acquired sizable
  Asiatic populations
• Vancouver
• Eleven percent Asian in 1981
• Has absorbed more immigrants, particularly from
  Hong Kong

58
Other ethnic migrants

• Latin America, including Caribbean countries, has
  surpassed Europe as a source of
• immigrants to North America
• East Coast cities have large numbers from the
  West Indies
• Miami has become a West Indies/Caribbean city As
  early as the 1970s, New York City was receiving
  large numbers of immigrants from the Dominican
  Republic and Jamaica
• Image of Canada and the United States as
  predominantly European may change

59
(No Transcript)
60
Other ethnic migrants

• We need to be reminded not all emigrant ethnic
  groups live in North America
• About 28 million ethnic Chinese reside outside
  China and Taiwan
• Most live in Southeast Asian countries
• Indonesia has over 7 million
• Thailand has nearly 6 million
• Malaysia has more than 5 million

61
Other ethnic migrants

• We need to be reminded not all emigrant ethnic
  groups live in North America
• Auckland, New Zealand, has the largest Polynesian
  population of any city in the world
• Germany, The United Kingdom, Italy, and Spain are
  home to millions of Africans, Turks, and Asians

62
(No Transcript)
63
Ethnic NeighborhoodSao Paulo, Brazil

• This torii marks entry to Liberdade, a Japanese
  community.
• Japanese were initially recruited to work on
  coffee fazendas and by 1924, 34,000 had been
  subsidized by the Sao Paulo state government.

64
Ethnic NeighborhoodSao Paulo, Brazil

• After 1920, emigration was subsidized by Japan
  and arrivals peaked in 1933 with 25,000.
• Highly successful farmers, especially in market
  gardening, many eventually moved into cities to
  form distinctly Japanese communities.

65
Other ethnic migrants

• Urban ethnic neighborhoods tend to be transitory
• Ethnic groups remain while undergoing
  acculturation
• Central-city ethnic neighborhoods experience a
  life cycle
• Often one group is replace by a later-arriving
  one
• Example of Bostons West End
• Mainly an Irish area in the nineteenth century
• At the beginning of the twentieth century Jews
  replaced the Irish
• Poles and Italians replaced Jews in the late
  1930s

66
(No Transcript)
67
Other ethnic migrants

• Urban ethnic neighborhoods tend to be transitory
• In Miamis Little Havana neighborhood Central
  Americans replaced Cubans
• Chicagos Adams area provides an almost complete
  history of American migratory pattern
• First came the Germans and Irish
• Next Greeks, Poles, French Canadians, Czechs, and
  Russian Jews
• Soon the Italians pressed those listed above
• The Italians were challenged by Chicanos and a
  small group of Puerto Ricans

68
Other ethnic migrants

• Urban ethnic neighborhoods tend to be transitory
• Older groups often established new ethnic
  neighborhoods in suburban areas

69
Ethnic mix and national character

• Any country is the sum of its cultural parts
• Each country has its own unique mixes of national
  origin and ethnic groups that help shape national
  character
• Russia has less diversity and a largely different
  array of minorities than the United States

70
Ethnic mix and national character

• Canada is also strikingly different from the
  United States
• Far higher proportions of English, French, Scots,
  and Ukrainians
• Far fewer Germans, Africans, and Hispanics

71
(No Transcript)
72
Ethnic mix and national character

• Most persons in the United States claiming German
  origin have in fact been acculturated and
  assimilated
• They have become part of the host culture
• Massive absorption into the mainstream culture
• Major factor in shaping a national character
  distinct from that of Canada