This is a basic question…What is the difference between the word ethnic and the word culture?
We so often see the terns…Italian American…secular American Jew…Jewish ethnicity…Jewish culture…Irish Catholic who was born and raised in the USA…the list is huge.
Please help clear this up for me.
“Ethnic” is like “national”. An ethnic group is a group of people who have something in common because they, or their ancestors, came from a particular geographical area. Usually they are united by a language, as well as by other cultural traditions.
“Culture” is pretty much everything in society. So ethnic groups have a culture, but other groups do too: you can talk about a gay culture, or a football culture, or a school culture, for the social institutions that are common to gays, or football players/fans, or people going to school.
Although Giles gave an excellent explanation, I’ll add my own two cents.
Take people from Latin American countries. They share a Hispanic/Latino culture, but are primarily made of these ethnic groups: White, Black, Native American, and various mixtures thereof.
Of course, there’s also nationality as well.
I appreciate the 2 explanations…BUT…
What is the culture of an individual whose father was born in Russia…mother was born in Warsaw…both came to the US in their teens. Children born in the US and to top it off are secular Jews because parents were Jewish. All family members are not religious.
The children would be Americans…What is their ethnicity? What is their culture?
Neither parent remember much about their heritage and do not speak the language of their place of birth.
What the children’s culture is and which ethnicity they identify with will depend on how they are raised. My father is Austrian , my mother Italian. I almost never saw my father’s relatives, don’t speak a word of German, and have no knowledge of any Austrian traditions or customs. On the other hand, I saw my mother’s family often- my grandparents and uncles (until they got married ) daily and great-granparents, great aunts, second cousins , etc every three or four weeks. I heard enough Italian growing up that I studied it in high school, can’t imagine Christmas Eve without a large variety of seafood and never saw an actual wedding gift until I was grown and my non-Italian friends started getting married. (Italian- Americans give money) If someone asks me my ethnicity/culture , my answer is Italian. I never even think of the Austrian side…
I’d say they were ethnically Jewish, and either culturally Jewish or culturally (Southern/Midwestern/Yankee/New Yorker/etc) American, depending on whether they e.g. kept Kosher, celebrated Hanukkah vs “The Holidays” etc. - I know some secular Jews who are still culturally Jews, and others who are culturally “White South African”, for instance, but ethnically, they’d be Jewish - possibly Ashkenasic vs Sephardic (sp?) as two “sub-ethnicities”