Ethnicity

Key Issue 1: Where are Ethnicities Distributed?

What is Ethnicity?

Ethnicity: identity with a group of people who share the cultural traditions of a particular homeland or hearth ethnikos national Ethnic identity

Ethnicity in the United States

The two most numerous:
Hispanic (Latinos) 14% African American 12%

Asian Americans: 4% American Indian (Native American) 1%

Clustering of Ethnicities
Clustering occurs at two scales: regions of countries and neighborhoods within cities Regional concentrations of Ethnicities:
African Americans Southeast Hispanics Southwest Asian-Americans West American Indians Southwest and Plains States

Regional Clustering of AfricanAmericans

Regional Clustering of Hispanics

Regional Clustering of AsianAmericans

Concentration of Ethnicities within Cities

African Americans are highly clustered in cities
of Americans live in cities, whereas over of African Americans live in cities Example: African Americans make up 4/5 of the population in Detroit, but only 1/14 of the rest of Michigan

Hispanic Concentration is mixed Some cities

are heavily Hispanic (Los Angeles or El Paso) while other cities in the same states are not

African American Migration Patterns

Three major migration patterns have shaped African Americans current distribution within the U.S.
1. Forced migration from Africa
1619 the first Africans were brought Triangular Slave Trade ships left Europe with goods. Then, the transported slaves and gold to the West. The ships carried sugar and molasses back to Europe Sharecroppers after slavery, most African Americans worked as sharecroppers, working rented fields and giving a percentage of the crops to the landowner

The second Migration Flow

Migration to the North when sharecropping declined due to new farm machinery, many African Americans moved to northern, industrial cities

The Third Migration Flow

Expansion of the Ghetto
When they reached the big cities, African Americans clustered in one or two neighborhoods million African Americans were jammed into Chicagos 3 square mile South Side ghetto During the 1950s and 60s African Americans moved into adjacent neighborhoods

Differentiating Ethnicity and Race

Race: identity with a group of people who are believed to share a biological ancestor race comes from a middle French word meaning generation Confused????
The U.S. Census recognizes Asian as a distinct race Are Chinese, Indian, Korean, etc all the same race? Still confused?

Genetics
The traits that characterize race are those that can be transmitted genetically from parents to children

Does Race Really Exist?

At one point in history, people believed that skin color, hair type, shape of body, and facial features were scientifically classified into a few world races. But.there are so many differences with each race! Biologically, we are all belong to one race.the human race!

Racism
Racism: the belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race

Race in the United States

A distinctive feature has been a strong discouragement of spatial interaction
In the past by legal means Today through cultural preferences and discrimination

Separate But Equal Doctrine

1896 Plessy vs. Ferguson Separate is ok as long as it is equal Jim Crow Laws

White Flight
Segregation laws were eliminated in the 1950s and 60s Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954) Blockbusting encourages white flight when real estate agents convince white homeowners living near black to sell their homes preying on their fears that black families would move in and cause property values to go down

Division by Race in South Africa

While the U.S. was repealing segregation laws, South Africa was enacting them Apartheid: the physical separation of different races into different geographic areas
Repealed in the 1990s, but how long will it take to erase the effects of these laws???

Apartheid System
A baby was classified as either black, white, colored (mix of white and black), or Asian Each race had a different legal status The government designated ten homelands for blacks and expected every black to become a citizen of one of them and move there

Dismantling of Apartheid
27 years in jail Leader of the African National Congress (the principal antiapartheid organization) Elected president in 1994 The situation today:
Black South Africans have political equality Average income for black South Africans is 1/10 that of white South Africans