Prejudice….is a complicated topic. But what if I said that by the end of this oratory that you will gain a deeper understanding of this issue. Let’s start with some background information. Just the other day I was conversing with this person I had just met. It was going pretty well and I was having a good time, we even joked around a little bit. But soon enough this person posed one final question. “So Arva, where are you from?” Well, I live close to LA. “No, no. Where are you from, from?” (Insert sigh) Questions such as these are quite frequent in the lives of those deemed as minorities. Some people take a lot of offense to things like these, but many others just put up with it and regard it as just a part of life. Nonetheless, these types of questions still point to a deeper underlying problem. And that is that people can’t tell that where you are from may not be the same as what you look like. So today let’s examine the three sides to cultural identity and ethnicity: the differences between the two terms, the clash between these terms in everyday society and why we tend to make this mistake.
First, let’s examine what cultural identity and ethnicity really are. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the term ethnic means, “of or relating to races or large groups of people who have the same customs, religion, origin, etc.” So, in this case. we are talking about things like having ancestors from Africa. Terms such as “African-American” or “black” are what we call ethnic terms. Even being Jewish or Muslim is considered an ethnic term because people of the same religion would share customs and beliefs. Now let’s look at what cultural identity is. Reference.com writes that ” ‘cultural identity’ refers to being able to associate with and feel like part of a group based on its culture.” Culture is most often known as heritage, but it’s not just that. The term cultural identity also applies to groups that identify based on location, socioeconomic classes, and age groups as well. In other words, it’s what type of environment you grow up in. So people who grew up well off would have different goals or mindsets than someone who grew up in poverty. It is less what you are inherently born with, but more of how your surroundings affect you. These two terms sound very similar but in fact, have some very important differences. If it still isn’t clear yet, an example may be when my grandparents came from India in the sixties, they had to leave all that was familiar at home and delve into a new culture. Their kids then led a life as any other American youth and became more “Americanized” than their parents. Both my dad and his parents are Indian, that is their ethnicity, but my dad’s cultural identity is American. Unlike the rest of his family still in India, who are Indian culturally.
Second, we move on to how these two terms clash in society today. Now, Immigration has been a hot topic in public policy discussion these days. Many are convinced that immigrants are to blame for taking away hard earned American jobs and bringing in crime. It seems to be that these poor souls are really invaders set on stealing our American dream. But that’s not true. Immigrants come to the United States to join this great nation. They make it a point to embrace the American culture. My grandparents didn’t go through all that paperwork and hardship to come to America to be just some displaced Indian. No. They are here to be Americans and have their children grow up with all the opportunities this country has to offer.
Immigration not only contributes to the well-being of the immigrants themselves but also improves the community as a whole. America has been dubbed the melting pot for a reason. Like fondue, each wave of immigration brings their respective culture and contributes a new taste. And in the process making the fondue just a little more richer. An article from the White House writes that “According to the Fiscal Policy Institute, small businesses owned by immigrants employed an estimated 4.7 million people in 2007, and according to the latest estimates, these small businesses generated more than $776 billion annually.” Sorry to break it to you but those immigrants won’t take all the American jobs away; in fact, they are responsible for employing vast amounts of people in this country. So how come they don’t get the title of being part of this American society if they contribute so much to it?
This leads us to my third and final point. Why we tend to make this mistake. Unfortunately, many minorities experience prejudices and racism working against them at every turn. Too many people want to make sure that people of different backgrounds know that they are not welcome here. This largely extends from a type of “us and them” complex. Us being the average American and them being people who look like they are from other countries like Korea, the Middle East or Mexico. We tend to illogically have negative feelings towards those who are different and in turn, separate “them” from “us”. “a 2006 Tárki Social Institute poll in Hungary revealed that Persie refugees were hated even more than Romanians, Russians, Chinese or Arabs. It wasn’t so much the things they had done – they don’t leave much of a record – but what they were: dark, ugly, possessed of the evil eye, known to mix blood into their beer. And the worst of it is, they don’t exist – they were just included in the questionnaire as a statistical control.” But this shows how much people are biased against those who are different. Often at the most superficial level, our appearance. It is what leads many to believe that you are not American if you don’t look like them. That your ethnicity decides your culture. That you have to define yourself with hyphens like Japanese-American because you can’t be just American if you don’t look like one.