Page 13 - Microsoft Word - resource book.doc

Defining Ethnicity & Nationality

(These terms are often confused with race)
thnicity refers to particular groups of people are actually made up of diverse ethnic groups. The
that share some common ancestry, traditions, United States is a perfect example of this reality.
Elanguage, or dialect.
Many people like to make ethnic distinctions as
Before the world was made up of distinct nation- well as national distinctions to hold on to their ethnic
states or countries, certain pieces of land were associ- culture and identity.
ated with ethnic groups. Some examples are:
• Italian-American – (Ethnicity is Italian and na-
• Anglos and Saxons – England tionality is US American)
• Maori – New Zealand • Mexican-American
• Mayan – Southern Mexico/Central America • Chinese-American – (Ethnicity is Chinese and
• Greeks – Greece nationality is US American)
• Masai – the Great Rift Valley of East Africa
• Pueblo– New Mexico Of course, ethnicity becomes more confusing in
the process of immigration and assimilation. As an ex-
As some countries were made up mostly one ample, we know in the case of China there are many,
ethnic group, people began to conclude that national- many ethnicities and that diversity gets lost often in
ity (the country which a person is a citizen of) was how people identify their ethnic identity to non-Chi-
the same as ethnicity, i.e. a person from Denmark is nese people here in the U.S. So although a Chinese-
a Dane or Danish. But more often the name of the American’s specifi c ethnicity may be Han, Manchu,
country doesn’t refer to the ethnic origins of its citi- Yi or another of the over 50 ethnicities in China, here
zens. A person from Spain would be thought of as in the United States those differences get subsumed as
“Spanish”, although their ethnicity could be Basque, being “Chinese.”
Catalan, Gallego or Gitano. Many countries like Spain

What is this thing called Race?

R R ace is a false classifi cation of people that is

not based on any real or accurate biological eal or accurate biological
not based on any r
R R Ror scientifi c truth. or scientifi c truth. In other words, the distinc-
tion we make between races, has nothing to do with
scientifi c truth.
R R ace is a political construction. A political

construction is something created by people;
construction is something created by people;
R R Rthat is not a natural development; is construct-that is not a natural development; is construct-
ed or created for a political purpose.

he concept of race was created as a classifi -
cation of human beings with the purpose of
Tgiving power to white people and to legiti-
mize the dominance of white people over non-white
people.

2 The Construction of Race & Racism The Construction of Race & Racism 3