1. What is Race?:
Definitions, Classifications and
Categories
INTRODUCTION TO ETHNIC STUDIES
S E P T E M B E R 1 0 TH, 2 0 1 2

2. What did you say?
 “Race..classifies individuals into a group/population based upon their
pigmentation, heritage, appearance and so on.”
 “The definition of race is ethnicity, and the definition of ethnicity is traits,
background, allegiance, or association”.
 “Race is where people originally originated from”.
 “The skin color and facial structure of a person is a universal method used
to racially categorize others”.
 “Race, in the way we know it, is socially constructed”.
 “Sometimes people try to identify others races by the way they look, talk or
their physical characteristics. But that is not always an accurate method of
figuring things out.”

3. Race
 Social Construction
 Physical Characteristics
 Assumed Similarities
 Defined from the outside
 Stable

4. Ethnicity
 Social Construction
 Group Characteristics
1. Shared origins/history
2. Cultural aspects
 Shared identity
 Defined internally
 Believed to be fluid

5. Nationality
 Sovereignty
 Unity
 Identity

6. Example: Elena‟s Peer Group*
Race: Asian
Ethnicity: Chinese, Race: White
English Ethnicity: Jewish
Nationality: Chinese, Nationality: American
American
Race: Latina/?
Ethnicity: Mexican
Race: White
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: Greek,
American
Nationality: American
*Using the definitions from Cornell and Hartmann, these may change depending whose
definitions you will use.

7. Overlaps
 Points of identification
 Shared origins
 Categories move over time
 Race, ethnicity as a basis for nationalism

8. Differences
 Internal vs. external locus
 Physical vs. cultural markers
 “Fixed” vs. fluid
 Purpose

9. The Role of Power
 Heavy with meaning
 Who gets to define?
 Origin of terms
 Self-identification
 Who is fluid?

10. Exercise: Race, Ethnicity and Nationality in Pop
Culture
Buzzfeed.com (a popular pop-culture website)
posted a list of 34 celebrities that you would never
guess had „mixed-heritages‟.
 When looking at these keep in mind the definitions about
race, ethnicity and nationality that we are looking at.

11. Buzzfeed: 34 Celebrities You Would Never Guess
Had a Mixed-Heritage
 Website „Racialicious‟ (a website that examines how race and pop culture intersect) makes some
interesting points about this list.
1. You can spot a person with brown ancenstory

12. Buzzfeed: 34 Celebrities You Would Never Guess
Had a Mixed-Heritage
2. Whiteness is normal

13. Buzzfeed: 34 Celebrities You Would Never Guess
Had a Mixed-Heritage
3. Whiteness = Anglo-Saxon

14. Buzzfeed: 34 Celebrities You Would Never Guess
Had a Mixed-Heritage
4. Identity= Blood