The Role Of Race And Ethnicity In Latin America

Ethnicity is groups of individuals with the same common interest and beliefs. They speak the same language and they also have shared characteristics such as their culture. Ethnic groups look at themselves differently during certain periods of time. They are often times defined by being stereotyped. Reid Mandell, B., & Schram, B. (2012).

The meaning, significance, and definition of race have been debated for centuries. Historical race concepts have varied across time and cultures, creating scientific, social, and political controversy. Of course, today’s definition varies from the scientific racism of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that justified slavery and later, Jim Crow laws in the early twentieth. It is also different from the genetic inferiority argument that was present at the wake of the civil rights movement. However, despite the constantly shifting concepts, there seems to be one constant that has provided a foundation for ideas towards race: race is a matter of visually observable attributes such as skin color, facial features, and other self-evident

Latin America and the American colonies were “tamed” based on completely different ideologies. From a Latin American perspective, the most important of the European explorers were of course, the Spanish and the Portuguese. These explorers arrived in Christopher Columbus’ “new world” with the express goal of bringing glory and prestige to their homeland. In stark contrast, settlers came to the colonies seeking freedom from the religious persecution in Europe. The different approaches used in each area affected how well and to what extent the African, indigenous, and European cultures combined and shaped the characteristics of the regions today.

The English term ‘race’ is believed to originate from the Spanish word raza, which means ‘breed’ or ‘stock’ (Race). People use race to define other groups, this separation of groups is based largely on physical features. Features like skin color and hair don’t affect the fundamental biology of human variation (Hotz). Race is truly only skin deep, there are no true biological separations between two ‘racial’ groups. Scientifically speaking, there is more variation between single local groups than there is between two large, global groups; the human variation is constantly altering (Lewontin). The majority of today’s anthropologists agree that race is a form of social categorization, not the separation of groups based on biological

Race is a classification system used to categorize humans into large and distinct populations or groups by anatomical, cultural, ethnic, genetic, geographical,

An unfortunate fact of the world is that racism is everywhere. There is no country or continent that can claim to have never felt the effects of racism. Each place has a different history of racism, and currently deal with it in varying ways. Latin America is no exception. The history of racism in Latin America is quite unique, and because it is such a racially diverse continent. Just like other areas in the world, Latin American countries face problems of racial inequality and injustice. Many of these countries are taking steps forward in hopes of reaching a more equal way of live for people of all races, but it is a slow process. Race in Latin America is much different than it is in the United States, and for that reason the same steps that the United States take to ease racial tensions won't necessarily work as well in Latin America.

Ethnicity is characterized as the perceived belief that there is a commonality within a group may it be culture, language, religion, and/or history. They go on and state Schermerhorn’s definition of ethnic groups as those who are self-conscience of their identity

Race is a social construct that was created by the Europeans in order to minoritize different racial groups. In the reading by Bonilla-Silva, he defines race to be manmade, “This means that notions of racial difference are human creations rather than eternal, essential categories… racial categories have a history and are subject to change.” For example in a lecture by Dr. Aguilar-Hernandez, he stated that the Irish, Italians and Jews were called black before but are now considered white, Mexican-Americans were also considered white up until the 1980s. These ideas lead to the racialization of racial groups.

Our lives are shaped by who we are and what we are and where we come from. What race or ethnic group we belong to determines our life chances in contemporary society. Ethnicity is the cultural background of a group of people who share a belief in common ancestry. According to Max Weber, ethnic groups are formed by colonisation and immigration. Ethnicity is something we all have but in Australia and in many parts of the world, ethnicity is often applied on minority groups to highlight dominant groups of people on the bases of physical appearance, race, origins or culture. Being part of a dominant group provides prestige, power and control over the running of societies. The term ethnic comes from ancient Greek to mean gentile or non

Ethnicity is defined as an ethnic group; a social group that shares a common and distinctive culture, religion, or language. There can be many different ethnic groups in each country. In China alone there are 56 recognized ethnic groups. In the United States there are six recognized ethnic groups. They are White American, Black or African American, Alaska Native or Native American, Native Hawaiian, Asian American, or people of two or more races. The US census also groups Americans into the category of “Hispanic or Latino” or “Not Hispanic or Latino”.

Racial Identification determines who has societal privilege and who does not. Race science develops as a method of separating groups of people in society during Pre-Colombian times. Those with more affluence in politics and the economy do not want to associate with those of less affluence, creating a divide between “them” versus “us”. However, Latin Americans perceive racial identity with more ambiguous terms, allowing one’s skin pigmentation to determine their social status. The reasons for such an altered definition of racial identity can be clearly identified in Hispaniola. The history European Imperialism and African slavery in Haiti and The Dominicans Republic must be viewed side by side, not separately from each other, for one country’s greatly its neighbor.

Everywhere today we are all categorized by race; but what is race? Where does it come from, who dictates what’s our race, what it is? Race is a group of people who share a set of characteristic mostly but not all the time physical ones, and are said to share a common bloodline (Conley,322). Therefore, Race is created by society who wanted to divide people into different category based in their color and biologically features. Physically features, people thought it would be much convenient to tell the difference between white and non-white human, when they start it off with the one drop rule. The one drop rule is when they have a “one drop” of black blood makes a person black(Conley,331). Which indicates that if you would of taking the test of blood it tells you from your ancestors that were African American and that makes you black person.

In contrast to the idea of race, Ethnicity refers to ethnic affiliation, or the “cultural practices and outlooks of a given community of people that set them apart from others” (Giddens, 1997:210). Members of a particular ethnic group see themselves as culturally distinct from other groups of people in a society or culture. There are different characteristics which serve as a way of

Race and ethnicity are commonly used as synonyms for each other as we encounter many diverse individuals throughout the world. Sociologist on the other hand, find very distinct understandings to how these terms, while different, hold correlation to one another. Max Weber, a founding figure of sociology, was one of the first to define race and ethnicity. He stood with the idea of essentialism which presumes "that and individual 's identity depends on fundamental and innate characteristics that are deep-seated, inherited, and unchangeable." (Pearson, pg 241) As for ethnicity, Weber described it as subjective belief in relations to a groups common descent. While sociologist today may disagree with Weber 's theory, they do apply this idea of subjectivity and have correlated it to that of not only group definitions but of our own perceptions of biological similarity.

Ethnic is the fact or state of belonging to a social group that has a common national or cultural tradition. Or when people relating to a population subgroup. This can affect a film or movie because if the movie