Race & Ethnicity Midterm Study Set | Sociology Terms & Definitions

How did the identities of Asian immigrants and their descendants change from the 19th century to the 1960s?

--identified with the specific districts and provinces in their homelands

--culturally and politically distinct

--create a common language

What were the social conditions and changes that led to the development of "pan-Asian consciousness" (Espiritu 2004, p. 218)?

Post WWII opened immigration, increased in migration due to law

Essentialist perspective on race

Race viewed as natural phenomenon

based on genetics

Constructionist Perspective on race

~Not natural

~socially constructed

~barrier to racial progress

Anglo-Europeans define race in 5 ways

physical traits; esp. skin color

distinct & bounded groups

inherited racial status

shared behavioral characteristics

ranked hierarchically

Roy's historical origins of race

Anglo-European Societies, England

16-19th Centuries

~divided civilized/uncivilized

~religions

~territories

Slavery promoted race by

capitalism

egalitarian values

construct of "savage"

Racial concepts legitimized by science

Enforced racial dominance by govt

White defined

Anglo-Europeans social category as "free" reserved to whites

not bound by slavery

Irish whitening

through politics

fought to be defined as white not black

initally "savages", inferior

How has the post-1965 increase in Asian immigration created challenges for Asian American panethnicity?

Differences in classes & immigrant generations

What (and when) are the origins of Latina/Latino panethnicity? To what extent is Latina/Latino pan ethnicity in tension, or compatible with, ethno-national identities (Mexican American, Puerto Rican, etc.)?

---Latino ethnic consciousness called "Latinismo"

---share similar common interests.

To what extent is Latino/Latina a racial category that individuals identify with? How does this vary amongst Latinos?

give them incentives through instrumental and expressive means

To what extent do 2nd-generation Filipino Americans view themselves as Asians? Why or why not did the youth Ocampo (2014) studied adopt this label?

What is one of the "institutional sites" (Itzigsohn 2004, p. 208) in which Latina/Latino panethnic identity is constructed? How does it matter?

one-drop rule

---Full shift from the blood quantum rule to 1 drop rule by 1920

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

How did the Filipino American youth in Ocampo's (2014) study view their relationship to Latinos? How does the colonial history of the Philippines matter for this?

-- commonality w/ Latinos (areas of religion, language & culture)

-- similar phenotypes

-- cause of colonialism

--not in school context or when threatening to their middle class standing

Blood Quantum

the fraction of blood (ancestry) that makes a person a member of a particular race

Intergenerational inequalities created by:

~~Legal residential segregation (pre-1968)

>>linked to wealth inequality

~~Construction of the ghetto, 1900-1968

Racialization

the process by which understandings of race are used to classify individuals or groups of people which were previously unclassified in relationships, social practices, or groups

uses phenotypical markers to classify & ID

Omi/Winant

historical racial origins began in "Age of Discovery"

Like Roy, physical appearances used to dominate, othering, based on religious, phyiscal attributes to rationalize

Conceptual race: as a master category

life chances

The probability of obtaining desired goods, services, and experiences

Directly related to class origins, race, and ethnicity

European Colonialism

~~The indigenous peoples before contact

~~Mass pop decline from:

*diseases

*Violence of European conquerors & settlers

~~Creation of the "Indian" category

Race/Racism in 13 Colonies & early U.S.

Racism used by elites to divide oppressed classes

Genocide of Indians

Constitution (1789)

3/5ths Compromise

Citizenship limited to whites

(1790)

Right to vote

Expanded to whites 1792-1856, but not to free blacks or Indians

Immigration: The First Wave, 1880-1930

* mostly from Europe

*manual & service work

Intergenerational Inequalities

between individuals that are passed down across generations

What is Social Class?

made up of class, class position, and class origin

class position

class person/family currently occupies.

class origin

class position of the family/ household in which people are raised.

class

Categories of people with a shared location in the unequal distribution of economic resources

Why Intergenerational Inequalities between racial categories?

*Race is relatively fixed

*Intermarriage is low

Racialization of Immigrants

Asians: not white, can't become citizens

Mexicans: "white", citizens

Europeans: white by law-can be citizens

Official Racial Ethnic Categories

defined by state institutions & agencies

>>>census and courts

Enslavement of Africans in the Americas

*The Atlantic slave trade (1502-1830)

*The Plantation system

*Creation of the "Black"

category

What is wealth? Why did the authors decide to focus on wealth in their research in inequality between whites and blacks?

---command over financial resources that a family has accumulated over its lifetime. Along with other resources that have been inherited across generations. (stock of assets owned at a particular time

---focus on historical & contemporary impacts of class & implications that intersect with race, such as the different structures of investment opportunity

Positionality

our positions in society shape the way we see the world

The Constructionist Perspective on Race and Ethnicity

*race & ethnicity: created & changed by people

*treated as real

*have real consequences

Oliver and Shapiro (2006) describe "three scenarios that produced structured inequalities" (p. 13) between whites and blacks. Briefly describe each of them.

* Slavery

* Jim Crow

* Institutional Racism

Slavery: left with little to no material assets to invest, sharecropping forced into debt

Jim Crow: racial prejudice/ discrimination to attain land.

**charging illegal fees

** discriminatory court challenges/decisions

** separate but =; housing, resources, edu

Institutionalized racism:

Racial formation

the sociohistorical process by which racial categories are created, lived out, transformed and destroyed

Power

the ability of a person/group to achieve their will despite the resistance of others

---Power struggles shape social construction of race (and vice versa)

Ethnicity is often associated with __________.

national origin & are usually thought of as part of broader racial categories

--Pan ethnicity

Racial/ethnic categories

the labels used to classify people based on ancestry

Racial/ethnic groups

sets of people sharing common notion of racial/ethnic identity & interact with one another on this basis

Historical Origins of Race and Racism

concept of race was developed by Europeans to justify and reinforce conquest and slavery

racial & ethnic identity

person's sense of who they are in terms of racial/ethnic categories

*what racial/ethnic category do they identify with?

racial caste system

an institution where people of a racial category are locked into a subordinate position by law and custom

~~Ex. India, Blacks???

Restoration of Racial Oppression 1870's

Sharecropping system

Jim Crow System

Distinction between Hispanic and Latino

Hispanics: of spanish-speaking descendants

Latino: people descending from Latin America

~~~Often confused b/c of US census

Mexican Americans

Racialization: Legally white, socially Mexican

Oppression of Indians

~~Expulsion and Extermination

~~The reservation system

*geographic segregation

*forced

*myth: to preserve culture

~~once there: justified killing if 1 white killed

~~ missionary schools: to undo culture, white wash with dominant groups beliefs, customs

~~wanted land, not labor

U.S. versus Brazil

--US more tied to anscentry

--Sharp (US) vs blurry (Brazil) boundaries

>White/Blk

>Branco/in-between categories/ negro

--more limited notion of whiteness

Positionality

ways in which our positions in society shape the way we see the world

Race

a way of categorizing people based on the belief that humankind is divided into distinct types based on appearance and ancestry

>>>Use of phenotypical features and putative ancestry to sort people

Constructionist Perspective on race

>>Roy (2001), Making Societies

~~~~focuses on Anglo-European Societies (Europe, the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand)

>>Omi and Winant (2015), Racial Formation in the United States

~~~~Racial Formation Theory

~~~~~the sociohistorical process by which racial categories are created, lived out, transformed and destroyed

Power

~~~the ability of a person/group to achieve their will despite the resistance of others

~~~Power struggles shape social construction of race (and vice versa)

How Race is NOT Natural?

Racial categories not determined by differences in:

* appearance

* Genetics

Ethnicity (in U.S.)

way of categorizing people based on:

* beliefs about ancestry

* not focused on physical appearance

Markers of ethnicity in U.S.

* national origin

* language

* customs

* religion

(not limited to these)

How are race & ethnicity similar

*both socially constructed

*both about beliefs on descent/ancestry

Ethnicity in U.S.

*ethnic categories part of a larger racial category

>>> racial categories part of pan-ethnicities

>>>>>>Example: Chinese=ethnicity, Asian=pan ethnicity of larger racial categeory

*Usually have to do with national origin

How race and ethnicity distinctions can be blurry.

* Same category can be racial or ethnic

* Not all racial categories divide neatly into ethnic categories, and vice versa

*Group categorization can change over time

*Ethnic categories in US sometimes marked by physical features