# Ethnicity or not? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 21, 2017, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethnicity-or-not/789494 "2017-06-21T01:44:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2017, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethnicity-or-not/789494/21 "2017-06-21T16:14:12Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Question: is it possible to be more than one ethnicity simultaneously? An African-American can certainly be Jewish. For me, although half of my ancestors were Jewish, I don’t feel part of the culture or religion. Is it possible to have no ethnicity? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2017, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethnicity-or-not/789494/22 "2017-06-21T16:27:20Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > An African-American can certainly be Jewish. But would he be ethnically a Jew if \*all \*he had in common with other Jews was the religion? > [@](#): > > For me, although half of my ancestors were Jewish, I don’t feel part of the culture or religion. Is it possible to have no ethnicity? I would say no. You might feel unattached from any ethnicity, but you’re still going to be perceived as having one by others. And that’s where real ethnicity arises, the intersection of self-identification and societal acknowledgement of the same. ---
**Author:** ![NAF1138](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naf1138/32/3245_2.png) [@NAF1138](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NAF1138)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2017, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethnicity-or-not/789494/23 "2017-06-21T16:55:51Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > But would he be ethnically a Jew if \*all \*he had in common with other Jews was the religion?I would say no. You might feel unattached from any ethnicity, but you’re still going to be perceived as having one by others. And that’s where real ethnicity arises, the intersection of self-identification and societal acknowledgement of the same. It’s an interesting question. One of the more active members of my synagogue is African American from Georgia originally. She has given talks on inclusion at the synagogue and before she retired was in charge of inclusion for Philadelphia city schools, so I have talked to her about her feelings on this a little bit. For her she is African American first, but still strongly identifies as Jewish. It’s interesting though. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2017, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethnicity-or-not/789494/24 "2017-06-21T17:38:34Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > Is it possible to have no ethnicity? That’s me! I’m American, but that’s not an ethnicity. My ancestors trace back to at least 6 different European countries (that I know of), none of which I feel any particular tie to, and those 6 are spread out over the length and breadth of Europe. I’m white, but that’s not an ethnicity, either. I’m not Jewish. I am a non-ethnicity! 🙂 When asked, I usually just say “mutt”. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2017, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethnicity-or-not/789494/25 "2017-06-21T18:02:11Z")
I dunno about “American” not being an ethnicity. Why do you believe this, \*\*John Mace \*\*? IIRC, you live on the west coast. Would this not be a good starting point for describing yourself? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2017, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethnicity-or-not/789494/26 "2017-06-21T19:15:47Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > I dunno about “American” not being an ethnicity. Why do you believe this, \*\*John Mace \*\*? Good question. I generally think of ethnicity as something that goes back many generations, and most Americans don’t trace their ancestry back that far in America. For me, 2 of my grandparents were born in Europe. > [@](#): > > IIRC, you live on the west coast. Would this not be a good starting point for describing yourself? Yes, I live in CA, but I grew up in New England, and if my mother ever beat anything into us it’s that we were New Englanders. But I wound’t necessarily call that an ethnic group unless we allow ethnic groups to overlap. Perhaps we should? Since it’s a social construct anyway, I guess we can define it anyway we like. BTW, I don’t have a problem at all with not identifying with a particular ethnic group. I don’t fell like I’m missing anything, other than maybe some baggage I’d rather not have anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2017, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethnicity-or-not/789494/27 "2017-06-21T19:33:31Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > That’s me! I’m American, but that’s not an ethnicity. My ancestors trace back to at least 6 different European countries (that I know of), none of which I feel any particular tie to, and those 6 are spread out over the length and breadth of Europe. I’m white, but that’s not an ethnicity, either. I’m not Jewish. I am a non-ethnicity! 🙂 When asked, I usually just say “mutt”. I think you can have a cultural ethnicity. As I said in my previous post, I think it’s the most predominant form of ethnicity. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2017, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethnicity-or-not/789494/28 "2017-06-21T19:42:22Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Good question. I generally think of ethnicity as something that goes back many generations, and most Americans don’t trace their ancestry back that far in America. For me, 2 of my grandparents were born in Europe. > > Yes, I live in CA, but I grew up in New England, and if my mother ever beat anything into us it’s that we were New Englanders. But I wound’t necessarily call that an ethnic group unless we allow ethnic groups to overlap. Perhaps we should? > > BTW, I don’t have a problem at all with not identifying with a particular ethnic group. I don’t fell like I’m missing anything, other than maybe some baggage I’d rather not have anyway. The world doesn’t seem bothered by the fact that “Jew” can be an ethnic group along with “Ashekenazi Jew”. So why should anyone be bothered by someone identifying themselves as American in one context and “New Englander” in another? I wonder how long it takes for a nationality to earn the gravitas of an ethnicity. If someone can be ethnically Russian or Chinese, why not American? Sure seems like a couple of generations could be sufficient, if a person so chooses. I don’t feel especially burdened by having an ethnicity. I don’t like the fact that people seem confused when I talk about it, but it’s not like it weighs heavily on my mind. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2017, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethnicity-or-not/789494/29 "2017-06-21T22:09:08Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Companies like 23 and Me offer people DNA tests as a gift idea. They’re able to identify some specific groups of people by their genes. They can tell you, for example, if you have ancestors who came from Ireland or Poland or Spain. So there is some scientifically objective basis for defining some ethnic groupings. (But not all. For example, they can’t identify genetic groups in the Americas but we’re mostly genetic mutts.) So being Italian, for example, isn’t just a matter of cultural identity. It’s possible to be identifiable as genetically Italian, even if you are unaware you have Italian ancestry. I took one of those tests – the one through [ancestry.com](http://ancestry.com), if I remember right – and it came back with a high score in the “Ethnicity” of, well, “European Jewish”. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2017, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethnicity-or-not/789494/30 "2017-06-22T01:16:00Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > … why should anyone be bothered by someone identifying themselves as American in one context and “New Englander” in another? > > I wonder how long it takes for a nationality to earn the gravitas of an ethnicity. If someone can be ethnically Russian or Chinese, why not American? … Of course one can identify oneself by a host of identifiers in different contexts. But in Russia the _ethnicity_ of Russian is in contrast to one of the many ethnic minorities, such as the Tatars and Bashkirs, all of whom are nationally Russian but not ethnically Russian. And in China virtually no one would identify as ethnically Chinese … Han maybe, and certainly if one was a member of an ethnic minority they’d (or others would) use that ethnic identifier, while all would identify nationally as Chinese (well maybe not a fair number of the Tibetan ethnicity). Within America “American” is not an ethnicity. Not sure if WASP is or not. But “American” is the whole and ethnicities are subgroups of the whole. I do believe that the less on feels one is the majority in that whole the more attached one is to ones ethnicity. I remember (here maybe) reading some discussion that part of what is going on in America today is a response to “White America” slowly losing its absolute majority status, hence some more becoming more willing to attach more strongly to that identifier. I certainly would argue neither for or against having an ethnic identity. I am attached to mine but someone raised without one and who feels they have none sometimes is _not_ grouped into one by others either and there is no need for them to so grouped. More power to 'em. Many conflicts are played out at least superficially along ethnic conflict lines. Further along the multiple ethnic identities line - my 16 year old daughter. Born in China of Han ancestry (confirmed by 23 and me, maybe someday will connect with biological cousins through it) formally converted to Judaism, with Ashkenazi parents, grandparents, family heritage, both on my and her mother’s sides … and Bat Mitzvahed in a Conservative schul. Knows Hebrew better than her three brothers, better than me, and more attached to the identity than two of the brothers. Also took a Chinese dance class for years and toured China as part of the troupe (interestingly the dance teacher, from China, mainly teaches dances of China’s ethnic minority groups, most of the other dancers’ parents are immigrant Chinese-American) but aware that when there was identified as an American teen-ager. Does not speak Mandarin and has no interest in learning it but is currently very strong in Spanish. Is aware that she is asked sometimes to help her friends with math even though she is not particularly strong in the subject and suspects some implicit stereotyping is going on (but does not call her friends out on it). Music is American pop, the 60s channel, and Country. Ethnicity? ---
**Author:** ![igor\_frankensteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/839c29/32.png) [@igor\_frankensteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/igor_frankensteen)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2017, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethnicity-or-not/789494/31 "2017-06-22T02:51:12Z")
Ethnicity seems to have something to do with quantum mechanics. It has tremendous meaning, and causes all manner of conflicts. Or not. It really doesn’t exist at all, all men are created equal, everything goes back to Africa, whatever. What I mean is, that these days especially, ethnicity can mean a lot to some people, and some of them make a big deal about it SOME days, and want it swept under the rug on others. People go back and forth about it so much, I can’t even figure out what this thread is trying to be about. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2017, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethnicity-or-not/789494/32 "2017-06-22T03:40:38Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > An African-American can certainly be Jewish. > > For me, although half of my ancestors were Jewish, I don’t feel part of the culture or religion. Is it possible to have no ethnicity? If ethnicity is defined by common racial, national, tribal, religious, linguistic, or cultural origin or background, then the only way to have no ethnicity is to have no racial, national, etc background, or to have none which you share with anyone else. Which, in the real world, is not likely to happen. You can have _mixed_ ethnicity, obviously. In fact, mixed ethnicities are common in the US (Irish-American, African-American). And you can have hard-to-categorise ethnicity. And you can have an ethnicity that you don’t claim yourself, but that others ascribe to you (and their ascription may be objectively correct in so far as it is based on racial, national, etc characteristics that you do in fact possess). And, as others have pointed out, ethnicity is context-dependent, and usually depends not only on sharing characteristics with some people, but on _not_ sharing them with other people. An Irish-American person who comes to Ireland is simply an American. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2017, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethnicity-or-not/789494/33 "2017-06-23T02:21:13Z")
> [@igor\_frankensteen](#): > > Ethnicity seems to have something to do with quantum mechanics. It has tremendous meaning, and causes all manner of conflicts. Or not. It really doesn’t exist at all, all men are created equal, everything goes back to Africa, whatever. > > What I mean is, that these days especially, ethnicity can mean a lot to some people, and some of them make a big deal about it SOME days, and want it swept under the rug on others. People go back and forth about it so much, I can’t even figure out what this thread is trying to be about. Not sure I am understanding what sort of point you are trying to make. As for me, I intended no value judgement on use of ethnic identifications. They simply are. For perhaps better and worse (and I see both) the tendency to aggregate into arbitrary and even artificial subgroups is part of human nature. Lennon could “imagine” all he wanted but people simply don’t function that way. For whatever reason we need an inside to feel part of which requires something else to be declared the outside. There’s an old Jewish joke about it: a Jewish guy is stranded ten years on an island and is finally rescued. Before they leave he wants to show off what he made for himself on the island. “Here’s the temple. Here’s the infirmary. Here’s the kitchen. Here’s my house. Here’s my library. Here’s the Temple.” “Hey wait, didn’t you already show us a temple?” “Yeah, this is the one I don’t go to.” The trigger for the thread was the absolutely confident way **monstro** declared what was and what was not an ethnicity. I did not share her confident understanding. My understanding is, as stated in the op, more confused. To me the use of ethnicity informs some about the human condition. I don’t understand that too well either. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2017, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethnicity-or-not/789494/34 "2017-06-23T03:24:39Z")
When I was in junior high, the group I felt the strongest identification with was Mormons, who are far more cohesive than most other religions in the US. However, because it’s simply a religion with fluid membership, no one really talks about LDS as an ethnic group. Here in East Asia, I’m definitely in a couple of overlapping ethnic groups, such as “white” and “American.” I wouldn’t have felt as much as part of that connection when I was living in Utah where that was the majority. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2017, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethnicity-or-not/789494/35 "2017-06-23T03:31:10Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > And yet we see that **Eva Luna** relays her Jewish ethnicity more specifically. Her conversation with the census taker would have been a lot shorter if she thought “I’m a Jew” was a precise enough answer. > > I’m just wondering if you think she’s unusual in this regard. Because the Jews that I know don’t seem to have a problem mentioning their specific ethnicities along with their broader one. The Jews you know begin by being in the US, where people go into great lengths to give specific ethnicity. People will tell you, in the first conversation, that they’re somuch Scottish, somuch Irish-Scottish, somuch German… But as I said in the bit you quoted and allow me to rephrase, “being able to go into more detail doesn’t mean the higher-level term isn’t valid”. If having the ability to go into greater taxonomic detail leaves one-word ethnicities invalid, then “Hispanic” and “Latino” and “White” and “Anglo” and “Roma” and “Basque” and… are as invalid as “Jewish”. ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2017, 8:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethnicity-or-not/789494/36 "2017-07-14T08:49:36Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > And yet we see that **Eva Luna** relays her Jewish ethnicity more specifically. Her conversation with the census taker would have been a lot shorter if she thought “I’m a Jew” was a precise enough answer. > > I’m just wondering if you think she’s unusual in this regard. Because the Jews that I know don’t seem to have a problem mentioning their specific ethnicities along with their broader one. :: bump because I just went back to this thread :: I don’t know that wanting to define my ethnicity more specifically makes me all that unusual among people of Ashkenazi background that I know and/or am related to. but I am pickier than most people about defining and describing ethnicity because ethnicity in the former Soviet Union (where most of my ancestors are from) was also the subject of much of the work for my master’s degree. (Not relating to Jews in my case, but one could make the argument that I was interested in non-Jewish ethnicities in the FSU because of my experience of being of Jewish heritage form the FSU.) ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2017, 9:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethnicity-or-not/789494/37 "2017-07-14T09:00:36Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Of course one can identify oneself by a host of identifiers in different contexts. But in Russia the _ethnicity_ of Russian is in contrast to one of the many ethnic minorities, such as the Tatars and Bashkirs, all of whom are nationally Russian but not ethnically Russian. Interestingly enough, in Russian there are two different words for Russian (one meaning of Russian ethnicity and//or relating to the Russian language, and the other meaning territorially Russian. And to confuse things further, the Russian cognate for “nationality” is often used to mean ethnicity. Which caused no end of confusion during my first period of study in Russia; people would ask “what’s your nationality?” often as one of the firs things they wanted to know about you on being introduced, and when I told them American, they would look puzzled and ask “wait, but aren’t you Jewish?” I believe the same is true of other languages in the former East Bloc, and it actually used to cause confusion on the old version of the then-INS form for applying for asylum, especially for those asylum cases based at least in part on religion and/or ethnicity. The form has since gotten much longer and more specific in requesting information about issues of identity, religion, and language. Which is a good thing in this case. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2017, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethnicity-or-not/789494/38 "2017-07-16T13:55:34Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > I dunno about “American” not being an ethnicity. Why do you believe this, \*\*John Mace \*\*? American, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand are nationalities, but I’ve met very few people who consider them ethnicities for anyone who is not a part of the native American/First Nation/Aboriginal/Māori cultures. Ethnically the rest of people born in those four counties are mostly of European, African, and Asian origin. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2017, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethnicity-or-not/789494/39 "2017-07-16T15:55:23Z")
> [@Eva\_Luna](#): > > Interestingly enough, in Russian there are two different words for Russian (one meaning of Russian ethnicity and//or relating to the Russian language, and the other meaning territorially Russian. > > And to confuse things further, the Russian cognate for “nationality” is often used to mean ethnicity. Which caused no end of confusion during my first period of study in Russia; people would ask “what’s your nationality?” often as one of the firs things they wanted to know about you on being introduced, and when I told them American, they would look puzzled and ask “wait, but aren’t you Jewish?” > > I believe the same is true of other languages in the former East Bloc, and it actually used to cause confusion on the old version of the then-INS form for applying for asylum, especially for those asylum cases based at least in part on religion and/or ethnicity. The form has since gotten much longer and more specific in requesting information about issues of identity, religion, and language. Which is a good thing in this case. Yes, “Rossiyane” vs. “Russki”, right? On that topic, there are apparently still some people in former Soviet countries who list their nationality as “Soviet”. (I knew a Russian-Moldovan guy once who described his national identity as “Soviet”, neither Moldovan or Russian, and polling data suggests that’s especially common self-identifier in the frozen conflict statelet of Transnistria, although I’m not sure that was where he was from). ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2017, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethnicity-or-not/789494/40 "2017-07-16T16:02:10Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Within America “American” is not an ethnicity. Not sure if WASP is or not. But “American” is the whole and ethnicities are subgroups of the whole. I know a guy who studies this stuff for a living (he’s a political statistician, obsessed with ethnicity and his theory is that voting decisions are mostly based around ethnicity). Someone self-identifying their ethnicity as “American”, and this is typically something done by white people in the South, is one of the strongest predictors of voting Republican. (white people who self-identify as Polish, Finnish, Slovak etc. are more likely to be Democrats). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethnicity-or-not/789494.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethnicity-or-not/789494.md?page=3)