Geography 417
California for Educators

Lesson Eight

California’s Ethnicities

Part I: Systematic Issues

Why is this important?

• This state is full of immigrants and has an enormous wealth of cultures, ethnicities and powerful mixtures of all.

• Navigating this terrain, especially as teachers requires a substantive knowledge of who makes up California and how culture and ethnicity function in our complex society.

Culture

• What does “culture” mean?

• Popular Culture

• Folk Culture

• The language connection

Ethnicity

• How do you define “ethnic”?

• How does one become “ethnic”? (birth-migration)

• The census is partly responsible for creating ethnic identities

• Host Culture

• What does “race” mean then?

The Good and The Bad

• Why are ethnicities good things?

• Why can ethnicity be a bad or harmful thing?

Merge now...

• Acculturation -adoption of enough host culture ways to blend in economically and socially

• Assimilation - complete blending and loss of distinctive ethnic traits.

– _________ the most effective assimilative tool/ practice.

• Many groups have not assimilated by force and by choice.

Chinatown

Ethnic Regions

• Ethnic Groups arrange themselves or are arranged in a variety of patterns on the landscape that can be mapped.

• Many formal ethnic regions still exist in the US today

• May be in homelands or in enclaves

Ethnic Homelands in North America?

• Acadiana

• Mex-America

• Navajo lands

• French Canada

• Deseret

• Penn-Dutch

• Black Belt

• both experiencing decline and decay as in and out migration continue

Ethnic Islands

• Much smaller than a “homeland”

• May be only a county or town

• Often rural

• All over the upper Midwest

American Ethnic Regions (fig)

Midwestern Ethnic Island

• Can you think of something similar in California?

Ethnicity and Borders

Ethnic Island Landscapes

Amish and Circle

Ethnic Substrate

· Is akin to an extinct ethnic homeland or a huge assimilated ethnic island.

· The German feel to the upper Midwest is an example.

· No one really seems too German, but there is a lot of beer and brats.

· Why would such a place die out?

Urban Ethnic Neighborhoods and Ghettos

· Ghetto vs. Ethnic Neighborhood

· Ancient history and globality

· Difficulties with definition

· Slums vs. ghetto

· Discriminatory housing practices include redlining, steering and block busting

· Suburban Ghettos?

Ghetto Typology

Detroit

Charlotte

Houston

Why live in a ghetto?

· Support

· Defense and Safety

· Preservation

· Attack

Competition Theory

• Says essentially that once an ethnic group has reached the economic and social mainstream, then they begin to look for their “roots”

Who are American “Ethnics”?

· In 1840s- Germans, Chinese and Irish came in large numbers

· Italians, Poles, and Eastern European Jews came in the latter half of the 19thc

· Intra-American migration brought Blacks and hillbillies into the city

· Later still: Puerto Ricans and other Latin Americans, Koreans, Chinese, Vietnamese, etc.

Cities have Ethnic “specialties”

New York and ____________

Miami and _____________

DC and ___________________

Providence and __________________

Boston and _______________

Little Havana

There goes the neighborhood…

Most ethnic neighborhoods grow and change. Eventually they lose their character and acquire a new one.

Migrating
Urban
Ethnic
Islands

Invasion Succession

We’re not the only ones…

• Each country has a different ethnic mix. It is what makes for the national character of a country. One of the main reasons that the United States and Canada are different is our different ethnic mixes.

Cultural Diffusion and Ethnicity

· Migration is what makes many “ethnic”

· chain migration

· channelized migration

· return migration

Chain Migration

Chain Migration

Chain Migration

Simplification and Isolation

• Only parts of the old culture make their way to the new lands.

• Some traits prevented from coming, some are altered, some are left at the dock, some are replaced by new traits, some new ones are invented on arrival.

• Isolation

• Archaic survivals

Ethnic Ecology

· Cultural Preadaptation

· Doctrine of First Effective Settlement

· Ethnic Environmental Perception

· maladaptation

Ethnic Ecology

Ethnic Ecology

Ecology of Ethnic Survival

Some groups become ethnic only after they are overrun by a conquering group

Survival dependent upon their ability to adapt to new environments, or harsher versions of old environments.

Ethnic Cultural Integration

• Ethnicity is everywhere and in everything.

• Ethnoburbs

• Schlichtmann’s Economic performance

Ethnicity and Business Activity

Different groups have different levels of entrepreneurial spirit.

Some groups who remain poor are not necessarily lazy, but may not prioritize life toward business

Ethnicity and Business
or Morality?

Ethnicity and Type of Employment

Ethnicities often specialize in a handful of business practices.

Irish and __________

Chinese and __________

Koreans and ____________

Italians and _____________

Jews and ____________

others?

Ethnicity and Employment

Ethnicity and Farming Practices

• German vs. Anglo farmers

• Link to cultural preadaptation?

• Hmong in California

• Chinese in NYC

Acculturation or not?

Ethnic Food Regions

Ethnicity and Disease

Ethnic Landscapes

There are a great variety of clues to the ethnicity (current or vestigal) of any location

Houses, cemetery markers, recreational amenities

Ethnic Settlement Patterns

The layout of towns and villages often recall an ethnic past or present

Germanic Landscape Values

Urban Ethnic Landscapes

Some of the easiest places to see these items is in the city, but frequently you can be fooled because of the rapid ethnic turnover of cities.

• Sal’s Pizzeria

• Water Street

• Color preferences

•