Ethnicity is an important cultural element of local diversity because our ethnic identity is immutable. We can suppress our ethnicity, but we cannot change it in the same way we can speak a new language or practice a different religion. If our parents come from two ethnic groups or our grandparents from four, our ethnic identity may be complex.
Geographers are interested in where ethnicities, like other elements of culture, are distributed. An ethnic group is tied to a particular place because members of the group—or their ancestors—were born and raised there. The cultural traits displayed by an ethnicity derive from particular conditions and practices in the group’s homeland.
Key Issue 1: Where Are Ethnicities Distributed?
Ethnic identity is unchangeable. Ethnicity may be complex: our parents come from two ethnic groups or our grandparents from four. Geographers study the distribution of ethnicities and their effect on local diversity. The cultural traits of an ethnic group drive from the conditions and practices in the group’s homeland.
Ethnicities & Geography
The meaning of ethnicity is often confused with the definition of race and nationality. Ethnicity is identity with a group of people who share cultural traditions of a particular homeland or hearth. Ethnicity is often confused with race, which is identity with a group who are perceived to share a physiological trait, such as skin color. The traits that characterize race are those that can be transmitted genetically from parents to children. Nationality is identity with a group of people who share legal attachment to a particular country. Both ethnicity and nationality are place-based and so are of particular interest to geographers.
Key questions frame the controversial issues associated with ethnic diversity within the United States.
• To what extent does discrimination persist against minority ethnicities, especially African Americans and Hispanics?
• Should preferences be given to minority ethnicities to correct past patterns of discrimination?
• To what extent should the distinct cultural identity of ethnicities be encouraged or protected?
Geographers study the efforts and effects of various ethnic groups seeking to balance the need to preserve their diversity even though challenged by trends toward globalization. Even though language and religion often serve as agents of globalization, no single ethnicity is attempting to achieve global dominance. However, ethnicities often compete with each other to control territory.
Ethnicity & Race The terms nationality, race, and ethnicity are often used interchangeably, but each has a distinct definition. Nationality refers to a person’s country of citizenship, ethnicity to a person’s cultural heritage, and race to a person’s biological make-up. Conceptions and classifications of races are based on biological features. However, biological classifications of race are now rejected by scientists and geographers because of the high degree of variability of individuals within racial groups. Skin color, a frequently used trait, has been used by many societies to segregate groups, define roles and social norms, and limit participation in a society. Classification by race is the basis for racism, the belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities. Racial differences are often used to advance the claim of inherent superiority of a particular race. A racist is a person who resorts to discrimination and prejudice in perceptions and actions toward other groups.
Classifying Race & Ethnicity in the United States Every ten years the U.S. Census Bureau collects information about individuals living in the United States. The blurred lines between race and ethnicity are reflected in the census. Hispanic American is classified as an ethnicity, but Asian and African Americans are both classified as races even though they could be considered place-based ethnicities.
Race & the U.S. Census Since 1997 the U.S. Census Bureau has used the following classifications: White, Black or African American, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, and Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander. Individuals may select more than one of the races when self-reporting their race. Further categorizations such as African American from a Caribbean Island or countries of origin for people of European descent are not included.
Distribution of U.S. Ethnicities The three most numerous ethnicities are Hispanic American (17 percent), African American (12 percent), and Asian American (5 percent). American Indians, Native Hawaiians, and Alaskan Natives comprise 2 percent of the U.S. population.
Hispanic Americans A Hispanic or Hispanic American has ancestors in a Spanish-speaking country in Latin America. Nearly two-thirds of Hispanic Americans came from Mexico with one-fourth from the Caribbean Islands. The second largest group of Hispanics in the United States is from Puerto Rico. Instead of using the gender-based terms Latino and Latina, most Americans of Latin American heritage prefer to use terms linking themselves to a more specific ethnicity or national origin. Hispanics are clustered in the Southwest (Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, California) as well as Florida, and New York.
Asian Americans The term Asian American includes Americans who trace their heritage to various countries in Asia. Only 19 percent of Asian Americans identify with the Asian American ethnicity, while 62 percent prefer to identify with their ethnicity as the country of origin of their ancestors. Asian Americans are clustered in the west, particularly Hawaii and California.
African Americans The precise origins of African Americans are relatively unclear. 300 years ago, some Africans were forcibly taken from lands in Africa. No records were taken to document the ethnic origin of those slaves. DNA testing has narrowed down the ethnic heritage of most African Americans to three areas in West Africa (present-day Senegal, Mali, Gambia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia; Southern Ghana, Togo,
Benin, and Nigeria and southeastern Cȏte d’Ivoire; and Western Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola). African Americans are clustered in the Southeast.
Descendants of Indigenous Peoples Three principal ethnic identities are used to group people who lived in North America prior to European colonization: Native American, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian. The indigenous ethnic identities with the largest numbers are Native Hawaiians, Cherokee, Navajo, Chippewa, Sioux, and Choctaw. However, the majority of Native Americans do not specify a group. Canada’s aboriginals are grouped into three main ethnic identities: First Nations, Inuit, and Métis. Forced migration in the 1800s included the current distribution with Native Americans clustered in the southwest and north-central regions of the United States as well as Alaska.
Ethnically Complex Brazil Brazil struggles with characterizing its population by race or ethnicity. Ancestors of Brazil’s population emigrated from many places with majorities from Portugal and West Africa. Others have migrated to Brazil from other European countries, Japan, and Southwest Asia. Indigenous peoples predating immigration are part of Brazil’s ethnic diversity.
Brazil’s Races and Ethnicities According to genetic surveys, approximately 70 percent of Brazilians have predominantly Europeans ancestry, 20 percent predominantly African, and 10 percent predominantly Native American. Despite this breakdown, most Brazilians have a mix of backgrounds. Brazil’s census categorizes people based on skin color. Five races are available as options on the census: branco (white), pardo (brown), preto (black), amarelo (yellow), and indigenous. More than 90 percent of the country’s population are brancos and pardos. Many Brazilians, however, do not self-identify using this classification scheme.
Distribution of Races in Brazil Distinct regional variation can be seen in the distribution of races in Brazil. Whites are predominantly clustered in the south. In Brazil’s interior north, with the Amazon tropical rain forest as a backdrop, indigenous people make up the population, categorized by the Brazilian census as pardo
(brown). In the northeast along Brazil’s coast, people classified as pardo (brown) also are the majority race. The largest number of (pretos) blacks forced to migrate to Brazil from Africa in the slave trade also inhabit the northeast. The west-central region of Brazil is occupied by a mix of branco (white) and pardo (brown) populations. Distinct distribution of the various races is evident at the local scale as reflected in the quality of housing in São Paulo.
Ethnic Enclaves A location with a high concentration of an ethnic group that is distinct from those in the surrounding area is known as an ethnic enclave. Most ethnic enclaves are neighborhoods in large cities. Ethnic enclaves form through the migration of a cultural group who in turn use their language, religion, and art to create a place with an appearance and social structure of their ethnicity. As family-based migration occurs, new migrants share cultural ties and receive economic and social support from those living within the ethnic enclave.
Changing Urban Ethnic Enclaves The areas inhabited by ethnicities have shifted over time. In the early to mid-twentieth century, emigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe traveled to Midwestern U.S. cities to find work in the manufacturing and related industries. Neighborhoods were named based on the predominant ethnicity, such as Chicago’s Ukrainian Village or Little Italy. By the late twentieth century, many children and grandchildren of these immigrants moved from urban enclaves to suburbs, sometimes forming ethnoburbs. An ethnoburb is a suburban area with a cluster of a specific ethnic population.
Urban Ethnic Enclaves The clustering of ethnicities is notably apparent at the local, neighborhood scale. In major metropolises across the world, specific ethnicities primarily reside in distinct neighborhoods. In
Paris, the Goutte d’Or neighborhood is emblematic of an ethnic enclave, with immigrants from former African colonies occupying the area. In London, South Asian Indians have clustered in the west, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis have clustered in the northeast, African blacks in the east, and Caribbean blacks in the north and south. In the United States, Chicago is illustrative of the variety of ethnic enclaves that may be present in an urban area, with whites clustered on the North Side, African Americans on the South and West sides, and Hispanics on the Northwest and Southwest sides.
7.1
Indigenous people The original settlers of a given region, in contrast to groups that have settled the area more recently
Race A social construct based on the physical differences between groups of people, especially their skin color
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.
Racist A person who subscribes to the beliefs of racism.