Читать книгу Asian America - Pawan Dhingra - Страница 35

Ethnicity and race overlap at times, and the difference can be more analytical than observable. When someone is treated differently based on their physical appearance, then race is active. Race involves power inequalities and a sense of being acted upon. For this reason, race is a problematic concept, and racebased thinking should be eradicated. For example, being treated as black is unavoidable for most African Americans, even for multiracial persons who “look black.” President Barack Obama’s characterization as America’s first “black” president is a case in point. He is, in fact, multiracial but is treated by virtue of his phenotype as “black.” Similarly, when outsiders refer to a Korean American as “Korean” or “Asian” based on physical appearance, it is a racial interaction. When that African American or Korean American himself or herself adopts that label and feels connected to others similarly identified because of a shared history or upbringing, then ethnicity is at work. So the difference between race and ethnicity in these cases is only analytical. Most of the time, both ethnicity and race are at play. Individuals are assigned an ethnic or racial group and often adopt that group as meaningful to their lives. The difference between ethnicity and race matters because, as researchers, we want to know how to make sense of how individuals inhabit social categories and the origins of the categories. In later chapters, we will discuss how individuals who are categorized as “Asian” occasionally come to adopt that identity for themselves and come together as Asian Americans across ethnic differences, or what is called pan-ethnic identity.