Chapter 1

Diversity & Unity in U.S. Society

SOC 327Race & Ethnic Relations

What Does it Mean to Be an American?• Nation of Immigrants• Nation of Laws• Nation of Peoples• Big World Power: Global Hegemon of

the World-System since WW II• More than merely a powerful national state

but one with global responsibilities & privileges

Nation of Immigrants?

• ancestral vs. recent• free vs. indentured vs. enslaved• European vs. non-European• economic (“immigrant”) vs. political

(“refugee”) vs. visitor (“tourist”, “business”)

• documented (“legal”) vs. undocumented (“illegal”) vs. temporary (“guest worker”)

Nation of Laws?• Constitution’s Bill of Rights (of individuals)• Federalism & separation of powers in 3

federal branches (executive, legislative, judicial)

• Separation of Church & State• Domestic “rule of law”: political elections,

business, property, labor relations, security and protection

• Global superpower pursuing its “national interest” everywhere and “leading the world”• According to international law (openly,

diplomatically)• In defiance of international law (covertly or

flauntingly)

Nation of Peoples?Who is “We the People”?• Nation-building along one race or more races• Nation-building along one or many religions• Nation-building along one or more cultures• Nation-building along one or more languages• Nation-building above, along, or under region-

building (North America), or world-building

American Visions of Being

• I. 1609-1776 Colonial Periphery <--> plantation racial triangles

• II. 1776-1898 Republican Ascendancy <--> Great White Republic & Internal (Continental) Empire

• III. 1898-1945 Young World Power <--> External Empire & Domestic American Apartheid

• IV. 1945-1965 Global Hegemon <--> World Supremacy & Domestic Assimilationist Dream

American Visions of Being• V. 1965-2001 Hegemonic ‘Signal’ Crisis <-->

Rise and demise of international multilateralism & domestic multicultural society paradigm

• VI. 2001-Now Hegemonic ‘Terminal’ Crisis <--> International Imperial Project & domestic anti-ethnicity/immigration backlashes

• VII. XXI Century Conundrum: Who’s going to be We?

• - Who’s what? <-> the definitions themselves are in crisis• - Who’s “entitled” to what? <-> who’s got what “rights”?• Tensions among subnational, national, regional, global

peoplehoods? (micro-macro-global levels): are they all equally legitimate? Or in what order of importance or status?

• These conundrums are found everywhere in the world!

Latin American Visions of Being• 1492-1820s Colonial Periphery <-->

exploitation colonies racial caste system• 1820s-1910 <--> Fragmented criollo “liberal”

vs “conservative” nation-building (retaining the de facto Eurocentric color line)

• 1910-1980s <--> National Developmentalism & Lat. Am./Third World independence efforts

• 1980s-now <--> “Neoliberal” Globalization, & rebirth of a political vision of Latin American integration & the rise of Indigenous identities• * NAFTA in North America fails to become FTAA• * ALBA, UNASUR, Latin Am. & Carib. Alliance• * Zapatistas, Evo Morales, CONAIE, Rigoberta

Menchu

Social Stratification• An historical system of unequal

distribution of power, wealth and social status

• Marx’s single class-based model in successive modes of production

• Weber’s triple Class, Political Parties, and Status Groups model

• Lenski’s typologies based on successive subsistence technologies

Ethnic/Racial StratificationSocial stratification based on ethnicity or race:• Ancient caste systems (India, China)• Modern colonial “dual” or “plural” societies

(16th - 20th centuries)• Modern national “dual” or “plural” societies:

formal (U.S. <1965) or masked (Latin America)

• Current fluid processes of race/ethnic relations in most countries

Definition of “Minority” Group

A social category that exists within the nation-state and in relation to nation-building:

1. Experience of pattern of disadvantage or inequality

2. Share visible distinguishing trait or characteristic

3. Community of consciousness4. Ascribed status at birth5. Tendency for endogamy

“Majority-Minority” RelationsWhat they are all about:• Relations of power• Building the national or colonial model• Reflective & exclusive self-definitions• Embedded in historical & structural

dynamics at the local & global levels (economic/political/cultural)

• Dynamic of cooperation & conflict• Cause and effect of ethnogenesis &

ethnotransformations

“Racial Minorities”• Differentiated by selected physical

characteristics socially constructed as significant and determinant

• Racial outlook is inherently evaluative, hierarchical and immutable

• No real races: only historically located racialization & deracialization processes that accompany the subjugation & liberation of groups

“Ethnic Minorities”• Lite races: the Cultural Others among Us

(European immigrant origins)• Subject to ethnotransformations into

majorities, today’s panethnicities, etc• Their world ubiquity/plasticity reflect:

• the 21th-century fading of race as a world paradigm of social stratification,

• the crisis of nation-stateness as a result of other processes: global (immigration, globalization) or local (domestic resistance to political, regional, cultural dominance)

2006 population 2000 population Percent, 2006 Percent, 2000

Hispanic 44,298,975 35,204,480 14.8 12.5

Native born 26,608,451 21,072,230 8.9 7.5

Foreign born 17,690,524 14,132,250 5.9 5.0

White alone, not Hispanic 198,127,062 194,527,123 66.2 69.1

Black alone, not Hispanic 36,431,992 33,706,554 12.2 12.0

Asian alone, not Hispanic 12,948,145 10,088,521 4.3 3.6

Other, not Hispanic 7,592,311 7,895,228 2.5 2.8

Total 299,398,485 281,421,906 100.0 100.0

Source: Pew Hispanic Center tabulations of 2000 Census (5% IPUMS) and 2006 American Community Survey (1% IPUMS)

Statistical Portrait of Hispanics in the United States, 2006

Table 1. Population by Race and Ethnicity: 2000 and 2006

Universe: 2000 and 2006 resident population

Note: "Other, not Hispanic" includes persons reporting single races not listed separately and persons reporting more than one race

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The Increasing Variety of American Minority Groups

Total population Native-born populationForeign-born

populationPercent foreign

born

Hispanic 44,298,975 26,608,451 17,690,524 39.9

White alone, not Hispanic 198,127,062 190,462,650 7,664,412 3.9

Black alone, not Hispanic 36,431,992 33,697,379 2,734,613 7.5

Asian and Pacific Islander alone, not Hispanic 13,335,040 4,503,291 8,831,749 66.2

Other alone 7,205,416 6,657,327 548,089 7.6

Total 299,398,485 261,929,098 37,469,387 12.5

Source: Pew Hispanic Center tabulations of 2006 American Community Survey (1% IPUMS)

Statistical Portrait of the Foreign-Born Population in the United States, 2006

Table 6. Population by Nativity, Race and Ethnicity: 2006

Universe: 2006 resident population

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Gender Stratification

• Social stratification based on gender• Patriarchal traditional systems• Modern legal, cultural, & economic

barriers to gender equality• Binary sexual preference embedded in

the legal code: homosexual/heterosexual

Visible Distinguishing Traits

Other Kinds of Stratification

• Social class: narrow (occupational) or holistic(peasants, lords, bourgeoisie, etc.)

• Age: minors, elderly treatment• Educational Credentials: degrees• Caste inequalities (nonracialized)• Physical (Dis)Ability• Citizenship status