Reflection on Identity and Ethnic Enigma

Race and ethnicity are social constructed categories.  I had never really thought much about that until this class.  My last reflections were on race and how I thought we should do away with the category.  I know understand even if we do away with one category another one will takes its place, ethnicity.   So I feel that we are always going to categorize people, but is it how those categories are viewed that we need to change.  If they are socially constructed categories with socially constructed inequalities attached to them, then the inequalities should be able to be socially reconstructed.

In Suarez-Orozco’s article on identity in a globalized world, she describes some of the ethnic challenges immigrants and second generation people face.  Many of those challenges deal with their ethnic identities and how they are constructed by society.  First Suarez-Orozco’s mentions that immigration worldwide has challenged nation’s sense of unity (pg.221).   The diversity of immigrants threaten the identity of the citizens in the areas that they settle.    However, immigrates and their children also have their identities threatened.   So how do we integrate these two groups into a society that is free of discrimination?  How can both groups keep their ethnic identities and be free of discrimination and inequalities?  Educating people to be global citizens is a big step in that direction.

 Many immigrants are leaving areas where they had strong social and cultural ties and they knew how they fit into the world. Then they move to an area where they may not be accepted and they wonder how they fit in.   Many of them lose their ethnic identities as they are assimilated into the society where they live.  Others embrace their ethnic identities and keep their strong ties to their culture.  Some of the children develop coethnic identities.  Such as calling themselves, Mexican American, African American, etc, which studies have shown that these children feel they may be at more of an advantage then saying they are from one ethnic background.

Another problem is second generation children may not be accepted by their native country, they may not feel connected to their ancestral home land or their parents.  Their sense of identity is confusing to them.  They may feel more connected to their native born country, but that may cause disappointment with their parents.  Their parents may impose an ascribed identity on them so that they do not lost track of where they come from.  This means that these children’s identities are constructed by their parents, which could leave to problems with their children understanding who they are, and embracing other people for their differences.

When reading Mcleod’s “Everyone’s Ethnic Enigma”, he talks about being ask his ethnicity by strangers and how it left him feeling.  Since he was from a mixed marriage he had more than one ethnicity.  He felt bad because people expected him to know Spanish, or how to pronounce words just because of the way he looked.

If we can remove the social inequalities that are attached to ethnic categories then people can formulate an identity that is true to themselves.

Gordon Brown talks about global ethic vs national interest in the Ted talk link below.  The message he gives in the Ted talk is about becoming global citizens.  I think the message is a good one, but the comments on the site themselves about him are negative.  His message was that we need to all come together for good of the planet.  We need to protect all humans, we need to work together on global issues such as climate change and security.  In order to do that we need to become global citizens. To become global citizens we need to embrace all citizens’ identities.

I also like what Suarez-Orozco said in her article about people and their identities.

“The ability to formulate an identity that allows for comfortable movement between worlds will be at the very heart of achieving a truly “global soul”.

Listen to the Ted talk here:

https://www.ted.com/talks/gordon_brown_on_global_ethic_vs_national_interest#t-338568

Reading 21: Suarez-Orozco, Carola - Formulating Identity in a Globalized World

Reading 23: McLeod, Jelita - Everybody’s Ethic Enigma

Ted Talk - Global Ethic vs Nation Interest