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Ethnic options : choosing identities in America PDF

207 Pages·1990·7.792 MB·English
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Ethnic Options Ethnic Options Choosing Identities in America Mary C. Waters. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley • Los Angeles • Oxford University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. Oxford, England © 1990 by The Regents of the University of California Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Waters, Mary C. Ethnic options: choosing identities in America / Mary C. Waters, p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-520-06856-4 (alk. paper).-ISBN 0-520-07083-6 (pbk. alk. paper) 1. Ethnicity—United States. 2. United States—Population. 1. Title. E184.A1W29 1990 305.8*00973—dc20 89-49150 CIP Printed in the United States of America 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984 ©"* «f/ybp0/0//6OSZ For my mother and father /?KK9/?9Z lo>/L5 u)J-f I fjo Contents List of Tables ix Preface xi Acknowledgments xv 1. Introduction 1 2. Flux and Choice in American Ethnicity 16 3. Influences on Ancestry Choice 52 4. Class, Neighborhood, and Ethnicity 90 5. Cultural Practices 115 6. Social Psychological and Character Traits 129 7. The Costs of a Costless Community 147 Appendix A: The 1980 Census Ancestry Question 169 Appendix B: Interview Questions 171 Appendix C: Respondents 177 Bibliography 181 Index 191 vii Tables 1. Percentage of “Correctly” Labeled Children in Families Where Each Parent Was of a Different Single Ancestry 28 2. Percentage of Children Labeled American, by Ancestry of Parents 29 3. Percentage of Children Labeled “No Response,” by Ancestry of Parents 31 4. Parents, by Children’s Stated Ancestry 32 5. Simplification of Children’s Ancestries 33 6. Percentage of Children Whose Ancestry Was Simplified to Paternal Ancestry 34 7. Ancestry Choices for Children, Controlling for Parental Influence 35 8. Consistency of Ethnic Response 38 9. Ethnic Origin as Reported in March 1971 and March 1972 40 JO. Domicile of Third-Generation Non-Blacks, by Age 42 11. Ancestry Response of Third-Generation and Later Non-Blacks, by Age and Domicile 42 12. Reporting of Ancestry, by Age 43 ix Preface This book, like many before it, is the result of a puzzle that surfaced when its author was working on an earlier project. One day in 1984 Stanley Lieberson and I were conducting a detailed review of tables of numbers the computer had spewed forth after going through five magnetic tapes containing a sample of the 1980 census. The figures we were looking at contained data from the ancestry question on the 1980 census form and compared people who had reported various ancestries and combinations of ancestries in terms of a variety of socioeconomic indicators. Thus, for example, we were comparing the incomes of people who said they were of Italian descent with those who said they were of Polish descent, or with those who said they were Italian-Polish or German-Irish-English. In interpreting the data and comparing the numbers, Stan and I kept getting involved in questions the numbers could not answer to our satisfaction. Questions like, what does it mean to be both Italian and Polish? If you have both of those ancestries, do you feel closer to one or the other? Did the people who said simply that they were of German descent really have no other ancestries in their backgrounds? What about people who said they were American? Did they know where their ancestors were from and just not want to say? How would families with varied ethnic back­ grounds and lots of ancestries choose among them to answer the question? What did a question about ancestry mean to people? If xii Preface people did identify a specific ancestry, did it make any difference in their lives? Did the aggregate numbers we were comparing describe groups, statistical categories, or merely individual whims? One thing that became clear from the data was that there was an awful lot of flux going on among these later-generation Americans— intermarriage was high, parents were not giving the same ancestry for their children as for themselves, and reinterview studies indicated that some people were changing their minds about their ancestry from survey to survey. I believe that most things sociologists ask about in censuses and surveys are complicated, and that good survey re­ searchers should think about what is going on behind the scenes, but this issue seemed to me to be even more complex and interesting than most. How did people come up with an answer to a question on ethnicity, and did their answers have much meaning at all? Discussing these issues, Stan and I ended up in effect interviewing each other about what we would say to the census. Stan is Jewish, which presents problems right away, because the census does not accept religion as an answer to the ancestry question. His wife is part English and Scottish. Stan began telling me what he knew about where his parents were from and began wondering what he would answer for his children, since they had a mix of ancestries; what they would answer if they were to fill out the form; and what his wife would answer if she were asked. I, too, began to talk about how I would answer the question—my four grandparents were all immigrants from Ireland, and the census question accepted Irish as a response, so in a way I didn’t appear to have many choices. But as Stan and I talked, it became clear that even my apparently straightforward Irish ethnic identity had some twists to it. First of all, I had always been annoyed at people who made a big deal about being Irish—especially on Saint Patrick’s Day and I began to wonder whether filling out the form on a census day just a few weeks after Saint Patrick’s Day might have made me think of just saying American. Sometimes I am tempted to just say American when people ask, especially when I think I might be lumped together with people I don’t necessarily consider to be authentically Irish. When Stan pointed out to me that Irish on the census form would include both Irish Catholics and a good proportion of Irish Protestants, I really began to wonder what I would have said, since I had always considered these to be very separate groups. The more Stan and I worked with the data and analyses, which would become our monograph(From Many Strands: Ethnic and Racial - ■ • - . ..r. — Groups in Contemporary America, the more we wondered about the process that went on before the question on ancestry was answered, and in general about the role of ethnicity among later-generation whites in America. We reached the conclusion that someone ought to talk to some “regular people” in depth about this. So, with Stan’s encouragement, I abandoned my previous dissertation topic, bought a tape recorder, learned about interviewing, and set out in search of some regular people. This is the story of what I learned about the process of answering the census question on ancestry, about ethnicity in general, and ultimately about American culture and ideology, from talking to some very nice regular people in suburbs of San Jose and Philadelphia. I learned that Stan and 1 were not alone in having long and sometimes surprising stories behind our answers to questions about our ethnic backgrounds—stories that reveal the fascinating history of American immigration and ethnic assimilation, but that also reveal aspects of our own shared American culture and ideology—our shared values of individualism and community and the unique ways in which ethnic identities fulfill very American needs. I also learned that ethnicity is \ still a complex and changing subject, which still has real political and j social consequences in shaping American thinking about race rela- I tions. Finally, I learned that combining quantitative and qualitative ^ research techniques is an endeavor that, while difficult and time-con­ suming, is rewarding and productive. The interviews allowed me to pursue some interesting questions generated by looking at aggregate census data, and the patterns available in census and survey data suggested questions and areas to ask people about in the the inter­ views. Some sociologists have described quantitative and qualitative approaches as being somehow inherently antagonistic, but I have found them to be very complementary. The census gives us a picture of the relative size and characteristics of ethnic ancestries in the country as a whole, and the interviews give us some suggestions about the processes behind the identities and about the meanings people attach to them. Together these investigations suggest that ethnicity in America is an endlessly fascinating and constantly changing phe­ nomenon. Acknowledgments There are people who love to spend their days by themselves writing books, but 1 am not one of them. I find that it is a lonely and sometimes frightening thing to do. As a result I never would have been able to do it without the emotional and intellectual support of family, friends, teachers, and students. This book exists because I have been blessed with a large and wonderful supply of all of them. Stanley Lieberson encouraged and guided this project from its very beginning. It was in conversation with him that the idea was born, and from that moment on he provided wise counsel, cheerful encour­ agement, useful and supportive criticism, and unfailing humor and accessibility. Christine Williams read every word of every draft of this book with interest, enthusiasm, and keen sociological insight. She had just the right blend of discouragement for my long and wordy digres­ sions, and encouragement for my often hidden ideas. Her red pen was a terrific help throughout the process, but especially with the final manuscript. Since these acknowledgments are the only part of the book that escaped her watchful and ruthless eye, the reader can judge from their length how unwieldy the book would have been without her. Judy Auerbach also endured countless early drafts and provided much advice, criticism, and enthusiasm and good spirits along the way. I am very grateful to the many others who also took the time to xv

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