Race and Ethnicity by Christian Cruz

Race and ethnicity have become two very difficult words to understand. We live in a society where we revolve around these two words constantly. When filling out government documents you are asked, what is your race and/or ethnicity; you answer one with the intent that that is probably what you think you belong to. If asked what the meanings of these two words mean, the answers would probably confuse the person, “wait isn’t this one almost the same as this one.. but this one sounds very similar to what I've said for the other one..” It is no surprise if these questions come up when defining race and ethnicity.

            Race is defined as the distinction in ancestry with distinctive combinations of physical characteristics such as skin color, hair color, bone structures, eye color etc. Ethnicity is defined as the distinctions between behavior and culture along with biological and physical characteristics. Though both are have to do with what you supposedly are and where you came from, these two were both socially constructed words which were imposed by political structures to help categorize the people with in the population. They are both known to be variables instead of fixed and stable like for example numbers themselves. Meaning they can both be changed to give the political structures the outcomes they would like to see.

            These two terms are meant to categorize the human population into certain categories which were set by political agendas. When something is usually categorized it can have a nominal or ordinal affect. Nominal means only relating to the name itself such as woman and man, there is no better or lesser, just simply the name gives it a category. Ordinal means the position where the name is at persisting to the series. Such as 1 is less than 2 but 10 is the most one can get. Ordinal on a subconscious level is used for these two categories. There is a hieratical structure imposed to categorize the level of impact that group has for the population. For example, here in the United States, the Caucasian group is seen as the majority group or dominant group. Any other groups are put into the minority group, some can say minority means there is less than and others say this gives them a somewhat derogatory meaning.

            I had a hard time understanding these two terms and still do, they overlap with each other and when I see them on documents.  They say RACE/ETHNICITY so I thought for a while they meant the same thing. One is supposed to relate groups based on culture while the other one is directed to where your family came from. It still is somewhat difficult to understand.