Optional Ethnicity

1
Optional Ethnicity

• Lecture 5
• Beyond the Binaries
• COM 490
• Professor Ralina Joseph

2
Terms for the day

• Ethnicity (vs. race)
• optional ethnicity
• choice
• U.S. Census

3
How Race vs. Ethnicity is Largely Understood

• Race associated with biology
• Ethnicity associated with culture
• Race seen as not a choice
• Ethnicity seen as product of choice

4
Why so confusing?

• Race and ethnicity are used interchangeably
• A racial groups are not necessarily comprised of
  the same ethnic group and an ethnic group is not
  necessarily comprised of the same racial group.
  Exs?
• Race is a socio-historical phenomenon that is
  constantly changing (Omi and Winant)how about
  ethnicity?
• If ethnicity is learned, passed on in families,
  changes over time, based on heritagehow about
  race?

5
SO what are the differences?

• Ethnicity is (sometimes) a social category based
  on shared culture (which CAN include language,
  religion, beliefs, environment, geography)
• Race is also (sometimes) a social category
  historically based on the appearance of shared
  physical appearance.
• BOTH are contested, fluid, changing, often
  multiple, and hard to pin down!

6
White Eddie Murphy skit

• http//www.metacafe.com/watch/171132/eddie_murphy_
  is_white/

7
Mary Waters

• Sociologist at Harvard
• Immigration, race/ethnicity, the Census, and more

8
Optional Ethnicity

• From sociologist Herbert Ganss idea of symbolic
  ethnicities individualistic, without social
  cost, leisure-time activities, nuclear family
  traditions, voluntary aspects of being ethnic
  (Waters 446)
• Come from mass media images, family traditions,
  or other intermittent social activities (Waters
  447)
• Choice
• NOT socially enforced and imposed

9
U.S. Census

• First U.S. Census taken in 1790
• Taken every 10 yrs 22 taken
• Enumerate population for congressional seats,
  government programs
• Highly political, always contested
• Census categories on race and ethnicity shift
  virtually every census
• Census 2000 http//www.census.gov/

10
EX Changing Census Categories for Black
individuals

• 1790 Slave
• 1850 Black, Mulatto
• 1890 Black, Mulatto, Quadroon, Octoroon
• 1900 Negro
• 1910 Black, Mulatto
• 1930 Negro
• 2000 Check All That Apply

11
2.4 of U.S. Pop Check All

• Twice as many children under 18
• Hawaii (21), OK (5), CA (5)
• 63 combinations
• White and some other race (32)
• White and American Indian (16)
• White and Asian (13)
• White and Black (12)
• Black and some other race (6)

12
Black. White. Screening