Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Chapter 4: Racial and Ethnic Families

Summary
The chapter begins by explaining the differences between assimilation, cultural pluralism, and acculturation to understand how cultured families adapt to living in a new nation. The author points out some changes in immigration over the years: the percentage of foreign-born U.S. residence has decreased from 15% to 12.6% and more immigrants come from Asia and Latin America than Europe now. Although some people see illegal immigrants as “moochers,” the book points out how false this is. Attitudes about immigration vary from people that believe “immigrants have made positive contributions in terms of food, music, and the arts” and others that think immigrants raise “taxes and crime.” About 53% of Americans believe illegal immigrants should return to their homes, but people have more important things to concern themselves with than this minute problem. The author illustrates what the critics and supporters of immigration believe in order to show both sides of this controversial topic.
The next section of the chapter differentiated between racial groups and ethnic groups, which was very helpful considering I was unaware there was a difference. Several conflicts arise with these types of groups, such as: racism, prejudice, and discrimination. Again, the author differentiated between these conflicts. The rest of the chapter analyzed different types of racial families. These included African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Middle Easterners, and interracial families.

Points of Interest
On page 80, the author gave us 3 statistics: “21% of all farm workers, 16% of the workforce in cleaning occupations, and 30% of those in construction and food preparation industries.” There are many stereotypes associated with cultures and jobs. For example, Latinas are common cleaning-ladies in hotels, Asians are associated with painting nails, and Mexicans work in construction. These are generally low-income jobs, so it is easy for us categorize foreigners in this way. However, how many foreign professors and doctors do you see? At my doctor’s office, I have never had a Caucasian pediatrician that spoke fluent English. I am glad that the book also pointed out these tremendous accomplishments.
In reading through the Latino section, I continued to relate it to my youth leader that is from the Dominican Republic, Samuel. They say that men sometimes are associated with this idea of “machismo.” Samuel acquires most of the positive elements of machismo, but he is the exact opposite of the negative stereotype. He is extremely chivalrous. For example, he constantly goes out of his way to open the doors for women, even walking around the car to open the door for a girl. Overall, he is gentle and respectful, unlike the stereotype in the book.

Concern
Among the various statistics throughout the first couple pages of the chapter, I wish there would be a statistic on the percentage of immigrants that receive welfare. It would help us determine if immigrants are using too much of the government’s money.

1 comment:

  1. Kelly,

    I like the points of interest you provide. They remind me of a film I watched in another sociology class about Tijuana; the movie discusses many ethnic minorities working in the Tijuanan factories and making little to no profit. How many more of these factories exist as the main means of income regarding ethnic minorities in the U.S., I wonder?

    Also, if you wouldn't mind, I don't remember the idea of machismo? Easy to look up but we've got to blog in the class!

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