The Melting Pot or the Salad Bowl? Exploring Race and Ethnicity in the US

1. GEO 201Chapter 5 Geographies of Race and Ethnicity

2. The U.S. has been referred to as a melting pot or sometimes as a salad bowl. Are we one or the other? • Sometimes we celebrate our differences: • Greek Festivals • St. Patrick’s Day Parades • German Festivals or Oktoberfest • Italian, African, Czech, etc. Festivals • China Town • Little Italy • Cinco de Mayo

3. Do we celebrate race, ethnicity, or both? • Race: is usually seen as genetic or biological; we look at the physical characteristics. • Ethnicity: refers to the ethnic group which consists of people of common ancestry and cultural traditions; you must be born into an ethnic group, or there is marriage and adoption. With race, there is a social component that has meant different things to different people at different times.

4. Race: • There was a time in the U.S. when anyone with any African-American ancestry – even one drop – was considered to be black. • There has been a great rise in interracial marriages, so that now on the census one can just check “racially mixed”. • Ex: Tiger Woods could use the term “Cablinasian” which indicates Caucasian, Black, American Indian, and Asian • Ex: President Barack Obama was born in the United States after Hawaii had become a state. His mother was Caucasian American and his father was a black man from Kenya. He is 50/50.

5. We are all from one species: Homo sapien sapien • Ethnic groups may base their identities on different traits • Jews -- religion • African-Americans -- shared history of slavery • Amish -- folk culture and religion • German-Americans -- language • Irish-Americans -- blood, St. Patrick, leprechauns, and perhaps potatoes

6. Ethnicity marks minority groups as well as the majority • Both can be based on history, language, religion, or culture. • Ethnic groups in a new nation may have been the dominant group in their old nation. • Through migration and relocation diffusion, people may become an ethnic group by being the newcomer whose ethnic identity is in the minority

7. Native American tribes became ethnic groups only when the British and then the U.S. took over their territory. • Ethnic minorities usually go through some changes in their new areas; they have to make adjustments to the dominant culture.

8. Acculturation - the ethnic group adopts enough of the ways of the dominant society to function socially and economically • Assimilation- is a complete blending with the host or dominant culture and may involve the loss of many ethnic traits • Ex: intermarriage, language, accent, food, clothes, other habits of host culture

9. Ethnic groups usually keep many or some of their traditions: • Weddings in Cyprus- money is pinned to the bride’s dress at the reception by those who dance with her • Gives a group identity, friends, business associates, a church, stores

10. Theme: Region • 4 Types of Ethnic Region: • Rural Ethnic Homelands • Ethnic Islands • Ethnic Neighborhoods • Ethnic Ghettos

11. Ethnic Homelands cover large areas, sometimes overlapping city borders and have large populations • have geographical isolation and segregation • have some political autonomy or self-rule • belong to indigenous ethnic groups • have venerated places or shrines • combine formal and functional regions

12. Ethnic Islands are small areas in the countryside • They are home to several hundred to several thousand people • They are small in size and population • They exert little power

13. Ethnic Homelands in the U.S.: • Acadiana, Louisiana (Cajun) • Spanish-Americans in New Mexico and Colorado • Tejano in Texas • Navajo in Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico In Canada: French-Canadian in Quebec

14. Some have succumbed to Assimilation: • Mormons in Utah (Deseret) • Pennsylvania Dutch (Germans) • Black Belt in American South They are being absorbed into the dominant or host culture, but they leave a residue of their culture or an ethnic substrate (food, architecture, dialect)

15. Ethnic Islands • More numerous than homelands • Group tries to minimize contact with outside world • They maximize contact of group members • People are drawn to the rural areas where they can find people of the same ethnic background • Ethnic islands survive from generation to generation • Most land is inherited • Land is sold to other members of the ethnic group to preserve the identity of the island • pp. 147, 148 - maps

16. Ethnic Neighborhoods • A voluntary community where people of common ethnicity live by choice • The result of preferences shown by different ethnic groups • Helps to maintain the group’s identity and cohesiveness • Benefits are a common language, nearby family, stores & services, tailored to their tastes, jobs, churches, clubs, and restaurants

18. Ethnic Ghetto • The term comes from 13th century when Jews were made to live in segregated, walled communities • For religious minorities – Christian districts in Islamic States • In U.S., ghetto refers to an impoverished, urban neighborhood; could be Hispanic or African-American, for example • Hispanic impoverished, urban neighborhoods are often called barrios.

19. Ethnic neighborhoods became common in the U.S. and Canada after the 1840s – German and Irish immigrants lived there. • Germans often moved to areas that reminded them of home if they were farmers. Example: Garrett County • Irish, Italians, Poles, & Eastern European Jews remained in cities and formed ethnic neighborhoods. Example: Little Italy and Fells Point in Baltimore

21. Later, French-Canadians, Southern Blacks, Puerto Ricans, Asians, Appalachian Whites, and other non-European groups joined them. • These neighborhoods could be transitory. • As one group acculturates, if that’s a word, it may move on to another area outside of the city • Then another group will move in to take its place. • German and Irish followed by • Greeks, Poles, & Czechs replaced by • Puerto Ricans

22. Groups relocate but may remain together in the suburbs this time • These suburban ethnic neighborhoods can have affluent immigrant populations. • These people then inhabit an ethnoburb ( affluent immigrant neighborhoods in the suburbs).

23. Changes in Immigration • U.S. Immigration Policy has changed over the years since 1921. • 1965: changed from a quota system based on national origin to one that allows a certain number in from each hemisphere. • Preferences are given to family members • Then there are illegal aliens. • These changes to immigration policy have changed the ethnic look of the U.S.

24. Today, Asia rather than Europe sends more immigrants to North America: Chinese, Koreans, Filipinos, Indians, & Vietnamese. • Map p. 151 • In 2002, Latinos narrowly edged out African-Americans as the largest ethnic group, after non-Hispanic whites. • In some popular Hispanic immigration destination cities, Hispanics are the majority population. • They influence aspects of the culture: food, music, fashion, & language.

25. Table 5.1, p. 151 • Figure 5.12, p. 153 • Maps, pp. 154-155 • New Arizona Law: In order to stop illegal aliens from settling in Arizona, a new law allows police to stop those who they perceive as illegals. The governor of Arizona does not call this profiling. Others do. • Ethnic groups tend to stay where they enter the U.S. • Many remain on the coasts

26. Ethnic populations in places other than the U.S.: • 28 million ethnic Chinese live outside of China, mainly in S.E. Asia and Polynesia. • Aukland, New Zealand has the largest population of Polynesians of any city in the world. • Figure 5.2, p. 140 • Australia, Argentina, and Brazil have many foreign born in their populations • East African countries have large South Asian and Indian populations

27. West Africa has large numbers of Lebanese • United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, and Spain have millions of Africans, Turks, and Asians. • Table 5.2, p. 156

28. Theme: Mobility • Relocation Diffusion • When a group in the majority in one country moves to another country where they are in the minority, they then become an ethnic group • Migration creates ethnicity. • Voluntary Migration is by Choice; you choose to move • Involuntary Migration is forced: • Slavery • Political, economic, or environmental refugees

29. Chain Migration also occurs • An individual or small group migrates to a new land, usually with push factors involved • They then influence others back home to follow (immigrant letter or other types of communication where the good stuff is emphasized and the bad stuff is left out). • Word spreads ( hierarchical and contagious diffusion) • Others follow (relocation)

30. Return Migration: • Voluntary movement of a group back to its ancestral homeland or native country • You go back to where you came from • “Birds of Passage or Birds of Paradise” , Italians of early 1900s • 1990s saw largest return of African-Americans to the American South

31. Cultural Simplification: • When groups migrate, they take their culture with them. • They try to recreate traditional ways in the new land, but can’t recreate everything. • A simplified version is created • Selected traits take hold.

32. If the group is isolated in their new land, more traits will take hold. • They may remain more traditional than those back home • Those back home may meet more people from other cultures and change as a result.

33. Theme: Globalization • Does globalization make everyone the same? • Will ethnicity go the way of the dinosaurs? • The U.S. says it is a “melting pot” • Marx once said that “racism” would vanish. • 3 factors hold people together and create “we-ness”: • Language • Religion • Ethnicity

34. Even within one nation, these might cause strife and cause people to hold on tightly to that which makes them unique. • Persecution of the Jews, Blacks, Chinese, Irish, New Immigrants • Israel, founded in 1948, has minority groups within it who are marginalized • Arab Jews • Different colored license plates • There was discussion in the Knesset in 1989 about minorities wearing different colored patches on their clothes didn’t happen)

35. Race and European Colonization: • Europe took colonies all over the world for God, Gold, & Glory • They exerted distinction between those colonized and colonizers usually along racial lines with whites being “superior” • Even their status as human beings was debated • There were abuses, poor treatment, enslavement; Ex: Spanish in New Spain or English in American coloniesp

36. Rwanda – 2 tribes or ethnic groups • 85% were Hutus • 15% were Tutsis • 1918 Belgium took it over and favored the lighter-skinned Tutsis • Tutsis had positions in government, education, and business • Hutus were considered to be inferior by the Belgians because their skin was darker

37. Hutu, Tutsi, & Twa

38. 1959 – Hutus rebelled and 20,000 Tutsis were killed and others left • 1961 – Rwanda became independent with Hutus in power and Tutsis discriminated against • 1990 – Tutsis returned and demanded an end to discrimination • 1994 – Tutsis and their Hutu sympathizers were subject to genocide , massacre of 1 million in just a few months • See p. 160, 161

39. Problems of race and ethnicity have been around for centuries. • Indigenous Populations • have tried to resist the dominant culture • are proud of their heritage • have had acculturation take place • have been pressured to hold on to their own culture

40. Theme: Nature/Culture • How do ethnic groups interact with their environment? • Have certain ethnic groups been pushed onto poorer land? toxic land? • Cultural Preadaptation: • certain groups have certain skills or traits to help them or give them an advantage in a new land • groups often try to find an area similar to the one they left: German-Swiss farmers in Garrett County OR Cubans in Miami

41. This may result in ethnic clustering. • Cultural Maladaptation: • what you did or grew in the old country doesn’t work in the new land • certain habitats that are isolated may shelter an ethnic group from outsiders • rugged or high areas

42. Fig. 5.25, p. 165 • Environmental Racism: • being part of an ethnic or racial group doesn’t necessarily mean you are or you will be poor, but it does happen frequently • some impoverished or “racialized” groups live in run-down sections of town or in areas that might be toxic – factory areas • in rural areas, it may be that the poor end up on less fertile land

43. Theme: Cultural Landscape • Ethnic landscape may appear to be different from mainstream areas. • There are ethnic flags or markers of ethnicity that let you know you have entered an area different from the mainstream. • It is sometimes subtle: fig. 5.28, p. 167 • Sometimes it is more obvious: fig 5.27, p. 167 and fig. 5.26, p. 166 • They are visual ethnic expressions.

44. Little Havana in Miami & An Irish Neighborhood

45. These are visual ethnic expressions. • The ethnic group is trying to re-create a trait from their homeland through the use of an ethnic flag. • Over time, things can change, neighborhoods can change and be inhabited by new ethnic groups. • One leaves • A new one comes in

46. Ethnic Culinary Landscapes • Food consumed by an ethnic group and how it is prepared • Certain foods indicate certain groups: jalapena peppers in McDonald’s or Mexican restaurants and grocery stores

47. When one group moves from an area, it may get care packages from home -- foods that are hard to find in the new land or neighborhood • Ex: Seaweed cookies from Japan • Doing Geography, p. 172