rfmcdpei: [BRIEF NOTE] Can Americans be an ethnic group?

Randy McDonald (

rfmcdpei) wrote,
@ 2005-07-11 13:12:00

Current mood:

curious

[BRIEF NOTE] Can Americans be an ethnic group?
Let's begin with the Wikipedia definition.

An ethnic group is a group of people who identify with one another, or are so identified by others, on the basis of a boundary that distinguishes them from other groups. This boundary may take any of a number of forms -- racial, cultural, linguistic, economic, religious, political -- and may be more or less porous. Because of this boundary, members of an ethnic group are often presumed to be culturally or biologically similar, although this is not in fact necessarily the case.

Another characteristic of ethnic groups is continuity in time, that is, a history and a future as a people. This is achieved through the intergenerational transmission of common language, institutions and traditions. It is important to consider this characteristic of ethnic groups if we are to distinguish them from a group of individuals who share a common characteristic, such as ancestry, in a specific point in time. On the political front, ethnic groups are distinguished from nation-states by the former's lack of sovereignty.

Do Americans constitute a separate ethnonational group, after more than two centuries of independent statehood and almost four centuries of continuous history in their homeland? My inclination is to say that they do. If so, what sort of relationship do they share with other post-British settler cultures, like the English Canadians, the Australians, and the New Zealanders? Do Americans living outside of their homeland form a diaspora?

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quixotickitten
2005-07-11 05:35 pm UTC (link)

I always considered "American" as an ethnic group. When I travel, I am definitely identified as an "American". That being said, living in the United States, I am not identified by Americans as "American". In fact, I have noticed the tendency that whites and blacks (with no non-American accents) identify as "American", yet Asians (with no non-American accents) are not identified by those groups as also being "American", regardless of whether or not they were born here.

I am a born American, but I am mixed. Because I am Irish-Korean (father-mother), I am continuously asked "Where are you from? No, I mean, where are you from originally? Where did you learn to speak English so well?" If I have an accent, it is the characteristic Southern California accent, dooood. And I'm not being asked these questions in middle America. I get these questions *all the time* in Los Angeles.

So apparently, black and white are acceptable qualifications for "American" but yellow is not. And red is qualified as "Native American" and not just plain old "American".

Personally? I have a tendency to not label people anything. I inquire about accents because I am fascinated by them and love hearing how different regions have their own dialects. Racially, I am not one thing or another, and that perhaps makes me view people as just people and racial definitions as spurious at best.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

quirkstreet
2005-07-11 07:36 pm UTC (link)

The history of race in the US tends to focus so strongly on the history of *slavery* and black/white relations, that several generations of people being born on US soil and as US citizens, but to parents of Asian ancestry, has not really sunk into the dominant culture's consciousness. I think Takaki was one of the first to trace the history of this dynamic, Strangers From A Different Shore was one of the references we quotes often in grad school. People of Hispanic/Latino descent often face similar issues--even more ironic, when you consider that about a quarter of the contiguous 48 states' land area was part of Mexico until 1848.

It's a simple point, yet subtle and far-reaching. Case in point: people are apt to talk about how Star Trek featured the first "interracial kiss" on US television, between Captain Kirk and Lieutenant Uhura. However, Kirk had kissed an alien ruler played by actress France Nguyen several episodes earlier. Technically, the first "interracial" kiss on US TV was thus Caucasian/Asian. One of my graduate advisors pointed this out to me, it was one of her "favorite" examples of how even smart people still overlook Asian American history.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

quixotickitten
2005-07-11 09:08 pm UTC (link)

Wow! That is really interesting! I didn't know that about Star Trek. I haven't read Strangers From A Different Shore. I will add that to my list. I did notice that people of Hispanic/Latino descent experience similar issues, too. I just realised that I'd forgotten to include them in my comment (ironic, no?). And the point that you brought up about the focus of US history being on slavery and black/white relations is so spot on. It's like everyone else is invinsible, despite having been here for over a hundred years.

Interracial relationships is something that I find fascinating. I've noticed that if either a white person or a black person is paired with an Asian, it raises fewer eyebrows than a white person and a black person paired together. The interesting twist, though, is if it is an Asian man paired with either, it raises a considerable number of eyebrows. I haven't seen an equivalent "shock factor" if one person is Latino and the other person is something else. (That's my limited experience.)

It's also interesting to me how differently people treat my mother compared to how people on my father's side are treated. For example, my mother's lived here for about thirty years, but English isn't her native tongue and she still has somewhat of an accent. My cousin from the northern part of Dublin has an accent so thick you have to bushwhack your way through with a machete in order to figure out what on earth he's saying (which is the way he likes it). I've witnessed salespeople dismiss my mother with "I can't understand you" and walk away from her. These same people react to Sean's accent with, "Ohhhh, your accent is so cute! Where are you from? Are you English?" I can't even begin to articulate how that makes me feel.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

nmc
2005-07-11 05:52 pm UTC (link)

"Ethnic group" sounds to me like one of those distinctions that's either subjective or requires considerably more technical background (that I, at least, don't have).

I have trouble lumping "American" into one ethnic group. I'd be more willing to throw together large geographical subgroups together: Northeasterners, the Mormon and Mormon-influenced part of old Deseret (Utah, Idaho, parts of Colorado, Arizona, Nevada; see also the "Intermountain West"), Midwesterners, Southeasterners, etc.. All of which have at least somewhat distinct languages, values, and cultural approaches to things. Lumping all Americans into one ethnic heading strikes me as odd, and similar to lumping all British into one ethnic heading (aren't Scots sufficiently different from the English which are both different from the Irish?).

(Reply to this) (Thread)

Scots

dsgood
2005-07-11 06:06 pm UTC (link)

Scots are more different from each other than some are from the English. There are currently three languages in Scotland (disregarding recent immigrant languages): Gaelic, Scots, and Scots English. Some of the Scottish Isles used to speak dialects of Old Norse, and apparently are still culturally somewhat different from any other group in Scotland.

As for the US: Lumping Northeasterners together doesn't go over particularly well. It doesn't usually get the same reactions as considering Yiddish a German dialect, but sometimes it does.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Scots nmc 2005-07-11 10:47 pm UTC (link)
	As for the US: Lumping Northeasterners together doesn't go over particularly well. It doesn't usually get the same reactions as considering Yiddish a German dialect, but sometimes it does. Ah. Thanks for the tip. I'll have to remember to only lump them together when I want to piss them off. (Reply to this) (Parent)

dsgood
2005-07-11 05:58 pm UTC (link)

The part of New York State in which I grew up was originally Dutch-speaking. (There were people whose family languages were French, German, and perhaps Frisian.) It remained largely Dutch-speaking for some time; Sojourner Truth likely spoke Dutch before she learned English.

One difference from Australians and New Zealanders: the form of English culture which those countries got had changed somewhat from that of the first major English settlements in what's now the US. (Irish and Scottish culture had probably also undergone quite a bit of change.) The situation in English-speaking areas of Canada is more complex, to put it mildly.

You might want to look up the Confederate Descendants in Brazil; their ancestors left after the CSA was defeated.

Note: There are people in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota who consider themselves French Canadian. They're English-speaking, and don't have Canadian citizenship.

(Reply to this)

princeofcairo
2005-07-11 06:17 pm UTC (link)

Perhaps you could consider us an ethnic group joined by our common unwillingness to consider ourselves an ethnic group.

While "American" matches your Wiki definition above, in common American usage an "ethnic group" implies a minority group, whether at home or abroad, usually defined with a racial or blood connection. You see this even in constructions like "Do you like ethnic food?" with the implication that the (majority) speaker and listener usually eat "normal" food.

(Reply to this)

zarq
2005-07-11 06:35 pm UTC (link)

We're our own ethnic group. And some of us fit into subcategories within that group.

However, in certain American cities with perpetually high immigrant populations, there is a tendency to attempt to classify people by their former nationality. So your average New Yorker or Los Angelan might say "I'm Chinese" or "I'm Puerto Rican" instead of "I'm American."

Cultural diffusion typically takes at least one generation and ethnocentrism tends to be quite pervasive when a family is living in a community with little to no diversity. For example, Korean and Chinese families in Los Angeles tend to take longer to integrate into the larger American society surrounding them because there is security in only interacting with those of common heritage.

It wasn't always this way: the Irish who arrived in New York in the late 1800's and early 1900's found they could neatly fit into and find support from the local Irish community and get jobs in Irish-friendly fields (police and fire departments, for example.) Cultural diffusion often took place in a single generation.

By contrast, a Chinese family can move into Chinatown here in NY, speak only Chinese, send their kids to Chinese/English private school and remain isolated within that community.

I'm a little off topic.... :)

What similarities are you curious about?

(Reply to this) (Thread)

	quixotickitten 2005-07-11 08:45 pm UTC (link)
	Actually the Irish experienced a great deal of prejudice and exclusion, even from other Irish immigrants. (Reply to this) (Parent)

optimussven
2005-07-11 07:06 pm UTC (link)

I'd be inclined to agree, especially since inter-ethnic mixing will only increase, leading to an even more mixed (ethnically) population. I mean, I don't have data, but I imagine the number of inter-racial and traditionally taboo relationships are up severely from 50 years ago, and I can only see that increasing. This of course means that perhaps in another 200-300 years the idea of an "American ethnicicity" could be a concrete fact, or at least as much as a fact as the idea of any other ethnic identity, i.e. Turkish, German, Latino...

(Reply to this)

quirkstreet
2005-07-11 07:29 pm UTC (link)

I think the standard reservation one would express about labelling Americans an "ethnic" group would be prompted by the last sentence of your Wikipedia definition: the US is a nation-state, and thus "Americans" *if you mean US citizens* do not lack sovereignty. As several people have commented, "ethnic" in the US is often used to refer to sub-groups within the nation-state, particularly those considered socially non-dominant.

The definition of "ethnic" is, itself, a frequent topic of discussion and debate, however. Strictly speaking, it derives from roots meaning "foreign," as I recall. And in the US, at least, it has sometimes been used synonymously with "race." But not always.

The definitions, and who is considered "ethnic," can be a rather different thing in, say, Europe.

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fallenarches
2005-07-11 07:44 pm UTC (link)

As an anthro here, it's reasonable to talk about American culture as an overarching set of cultural patterns, but ethnicity is too specific for the kind of pluralism we enjoy here. I may be ethnically old American -- earliest immigrant ancestors in the 1600's, last in the early 1800's -- and I'm also ethnically Southern, but neither of those makes me more or less American in terms of broader cultural productions, behaviors, expectations, etc., than more recent comers. Given that the immigrant experience, itself, is so quintessentially American, it would be difficult to justify an American ethnicity that excludes the post-British settlers.

(Reply to this)

	(Anonymous) 2005-07-11 09:35 pm UTC (link)
	Short answer: no. Longer answer: later tonight? - Pearsall (Reply to this)

Depends

pimpsophist
2005-07-11 11:00 pm UTC (link)

Well, I don't think you can argue that there is a racial boundary, America has always had a large non-white minority population. During most of its history this population was seen as non-American.

I'm not sure if there's a religious boundary, as the Christian majority has both Protestants and Catholics. And not all Protestants are alike, and you also have the very unique Mormons out West.

Perhaps at a time Americans were an ethnic group because Americans were White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. Everyone else just happened to live here. That clearly has changed.

Are there linguistic boundaries? I think that for all the differences between American English and the rest of the English speaking world, you still have just as major differences within America.

Political . . . check? Or are the differences between red-states and blue-states too great to lump them together?

I think that the American traits dealing with culture and economics might define the American ethnic group, if there is one. Coke, Rock and Roll, Blue Jeans and Santa Clause? Is that what it means to be an American? If so I'd say that Americans aren't so much as an ethnic group, but people in a particular state of mind. Throw in an extreme patriotism, which provides an attachment to Washington, Lincoln, and the American Flag, and you might provide what it means to be 'American.'

Nationalism was a very powerful force in Germany, Italy, the Balkans, Vietnam, and elsewhere in the world. I don't know if American nationalism is as strong. Sure, you might want to point to the way the country reacted to 9-11. But I think that was just how Americans would respond regardless of the country they live in. A Polish Nationalism will always dream about a Polish state regardless of if they are ruled over by Germans, Russians, or anyone else.

I don't think that American Nationalism would work the same way. Unless they had strong objections to how the change occurred (military invasion), I think they'd quickly adopt their new country if they found themselves living in Canada, Mexico, or any other country. Break the US into 50 separate countries and instead of an American nationalism with dreams of reuniting them all, you'd get people who were die hard New York nationalists, or Texan nationalists, etc. etc.

<><>
Logan

(Reply to this)

queerbychoice
2005-07-11 11:50 pm UTC (link)

I think southern white people are an ethnic group of their own, very distinct from other white Americans. I'm not sure whether other white Americans can be further subdivided into ethnic groups based upon geographic regions of the United States (east, west, etc.) or not, but I definitely think southerners are distinct.

I originally started writing just "southerners," not "southern white people," but that didn't look right; the social positions of the different races are too distinct, particularly in the south, and maybe elsewhere too.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

Southerners

skooshje
2005-07-13 12:07 am UTC (link)

Actually, I think you could make a pretty strong argument that there is a Southern culture that encompasses both black and white Southerners. Although there is a lot of intraregional social segregation there (as elsewhere in America), the two groups share so much in common that they do not share with the rest of the United States (in terms of language, religion, cuisine, social attitudes, etc.) that they could easily be seen as a single ethnic group. Anti-Southern bias also extends to both black and white Southerners, although for the former, it gets conflated with bias against black emigrants from the South qua black people.

Conflict between subgroups within an ethnic group are not uncommon (cf. Northern Ireland - everyone there is Irish, but divided between Catholic and Protestant). It doesn't mean the larger ethnic identity doesn't exist.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Southerners queerbychoice 2005-07-13 12:24 am UTC (link)
	Yeah, that's a reasonable point I suppose. Still feels odd to me though. :p (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Southerners skooshje 2005-07-13 12:37 pm UTC (link)
	The key question here is whether black and white Southerners feel a special affinity towards each other when in a non-Southern cultural environment; i.e., do Bobby from Mississippi (white) and Joe from Alabama (black) feel like they have something in common that draws them together when they're in Cambridge, Massachusetts? I really don't know the answer to that question. (Reply to this) (Parent)

gwdanton
2005-07-11 11:58 pm UTC (link)

"Do Americans living outside of their homeland form a diaspora?"

Nah, just a market for McDonalds. Invariably, no matter what we Americans may think of the place when in our own country, when overseas we tend to find the first outlet of that (in)famous chain as a cultural anchor. I imagine it would be the same for Canadians if Tim Hortons were to go global...

All kidding aside, I don't think we're at the point yet where we can consider the polyglot peoples of the United States as a distinct ethnic group. In fact, there was some minor controversy in the former Confederate states as to whether (white) Southerners should be considered a separate people within the US, like Latinos, Blacks, and so forth. I personally disagree (being something of a "naturalized" Southerner myself), but I can see where both Southerners and non-Southerners alike can infer a separate identity.

And never let a Texan hear you say he's just like any other American; despite the fact that he is, only more so (for good or ill). ;-)

However, I do believe that, while Americans aren't yet a distinct ethnic group, we estadounidienses have a distinct cultural identity. While it wasn't so long ago that you can distinguish Italian-Americans from Mexican-Americans and Irish-Americans from Puerto Ricans, with the convergence of Latino and established African and Anglo cultures within the US along with a fair amount of intermarriage (I have a Mexican-American brother-in-law) it's to the point that, no matter where their ancestors came from, you can spot the Americans in any crowd.

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