Chapter 1

1. Chapter 1 Diversity & Unity in U.S. Society SOC 327 Race & Ethnic Relations

2. What Does it Mean to Be an American? • Nation of Immigrants • Nation of Laws • Nation of Peoples • Big World Power: Global Hegemon of the World-System since WW II • More than merely a powerful national state but one with global responsibilities & privileges

3. Nation of Immigrants? • ancestral vs. recent • free vs. indentured vs. enslaved • European vs. non-European • economic (“immigrant”) vs. political (“refugee”) vs. visitor (“tourist”, “business”) • documented (“legal”) vs. undocumented (“illegal”) vs. temporary (“guest worker”)

4. Nation of Laws? • Constitution’s Bill of Rights (of individuals) • Federalism & separation of powers in 3 federal branches (executive, legislative, judicial) • Separation of Church & State • Domestic “rule of law”: political elections, business, property, labor relations, security and protection • Global superpower pursuing its “national interest” everywhere and “leading the world” • According to international law (openly, diplomatically) • In defiance of international law (covertly or flauntingly)

5. Nation of Peoples? Who is “We the People”? • Nation-building along one race or more races • Nation-building along one or many religions • Nation-building along one or more cultures • Nation-building along one or more languages • Nation-building above, along, or under region- building (North America), or world-building

6. American Visions of Being • I. 1609-1776 Colonial Periphery <--> plantation racial triangles • II. 1776-1898 Republican Ascendancy <--> Great White Republic & Internal (Continental) Empire • III. 1898-1945 Young World Power <--> External Empire & Domestic American Apartheid • IV. 1945-1965 Global Hegemon <--> World Supremacy & Domestic Assimilationist Dream

7. American Visions of Being • V. 1965-2001 Hegemonic ‘Signal’ Crisis <--> Rise and demise of international multilateralism & domestic multicultural society paradigm • VI. 2001-Now Hegemonic ‘Terminal’ Crisis <--> International Imperial Project & domestic anti-ethnicity/immigration backlashes • VII. XXI Century Conundrum: Who’s going to be We? • - Who’s what? <-> the definitions themselves are in crisis • - Who’s “entitled” to what? <-> who’s got what “rights”? • Tensions among subnational, national, regional, global peoplehoods? (micro-macro-global levels): are they all equally legitimate? Or in what order of importance or status? • These conundrums are found everywhere in the world!

8. Latin American Visions of Being • 1492-1820s Colonial Periphery <--> exploitation colonies racial caste system • 1820s-1910 <--> Fragmented criollo “liberal” vs “conservative” nation-building (retaining the de facto Eurocentric color line) • 1910-1980s <--> National Developmentalism & Lat. Am./Third World independence efforts • 1980s-now <--> “Neoliberal” Globalization, & rebirth of a political vision of Latin American integration & the rise of Indigenous identities • * NAFTA in North America fails to become FTAA • * ALBA, UNASUR, Latin Am. & Carib. Alliance • * Zapatistas, Evo Morales, CONAIE, Rigoberta Menchu

9. Social Stratification • An historical system of unequal distribution of power, wealth and social status • Marx’s single class-based model in successive modes of production • Weber’s triple Class, Political Parties, and Status Groups model • Lenski’s typologies based on successive subsistence technologies

10. Ethnic/Racial Stratification Social stratification based on ethnicity or race: • Ancient caste systems (India, China) • Modern colonial “dual” or “plural” societies (16th - 20th centuries) • Modern national “dual” or “plural” societies: formal (U.S. <1965) or masked (Latin America) • Current fluid processes of race/ethnic relations in most countries

11. Definition of “Minority” Group A social category that exists within the nation-state and in relation to nation-building: 1. Experience of pattern of disadvantage or inequality 2. Share visible distinguishing trait or characteristic 3. Community of consciousness 4. Ascribed status at birth 5. Tendency for endogamy

12. “Majority-Minority” Relations What they are all about: • Relations of power • Building the national or colonial model • Reflective & exclusive self-definitions • Embedded in historical & structural dynamics at the local & global levels (economic/political/cultural) • Dynamic of cooperation & conflict • Cause and effect of ethnogenesis & ethnotransformations

13. “Racial Minorities” • Differentiated by selected physical characteristics socially constructed as significant and determinant • Racial outlook is inherently evaluative, hierarchical and immutable • No real races: only historically located racialization & deracialization processes that accompany the subjugation & liberation of groups

14. “Ethnic Minorities” • Lite races: the Cultural Others among Us (European immigrant origins) • Subject to ethnotransformations into majorities, today’s panethnicities, etc • Their world ubiquity/plasticity reflect: • the 21th-century fading of race as a world paradigm of social stratification, • the crisis of nation-stateness as a result of other processes: global (immigration, globalization) or local (domestic resistance to political, regional, cultural dominance)

17. The Increasing Variety of American Minority Groups

21. Gender Stratification • Social stratification based on gender • Patriarchal traditional systems • Modern legal, cultural, & economic barriers to gender equality • Binary sexual preference embedded in the legal code: homosexual/heterosexual

22. Visible Distinguishing Traits

23. Other Kinds of Stratification • Social class: narrow (occupational) or holistic(peasants, lords, bourgeoisie, etc.) • Age: minors, elderly treatment • Educational Credentials: degrees • Caste inequalities (nonracialized) • Physical (Dis)Ability • Citizenship status