Interethnic relations (in the USA and Great Britain)

To begin with I would like to say that cultural anthropologists categorize people into smaller groupings based on ethnicity. The word “ethnicity” is derived from “ethnos”, the Greek word meaning “nation”. The term “ethnic” is used to denote some commonality in religion, culture or language. Each racial group includes a number of ethnic groups.

There should be a differentiation between a race and ethnos.

A race is a large population of individuals who have a significant number of genes in common. So they have a certain type of skin, hair, blood type. Only physical features are involved. But at the same time they are mutually bound since ethnic groups and races are often determined by a mix of behavior and biological trates.

People have been migrating to different countries for centuries. It must be stressed that the reasons for migration are different. Some people want to avoid political or religious persecution, others to find a better way of life or to escape from poverty. And there are many examples practically in all countries of the world proving this fact.

If we take GB, recently there have been many waves of immigration and movement within the country. For example, a lot of people from Wales, Scotland and Ireland have settled in England; Jews, Russians, Germans and Poles have come to Britain during political changes in the rest of Europe.

The new immigrant communities are concentrated in London, Birmingham, Bedford and other cities. Nowadays the policy is to encourage these communities to continue speaking their own languages, as well as English. The children of immigrants are often taught their own languages in school, and there are special newspapers, magazines for different communities.

But immigration can cause various problems. There is certainly racial tension and racial predjudice in Britain today. There is still discrimination against Asian and black people, many of whom are unemployed or in low-payed jobs. This racial discrimination and poor living conditions have contributed to racial violence, especially in the day-to-day form of relation between young blacks and the police.

There are few industrial areas where big Asian communities remain closely knit, with many of their people working in local factories. Many Asians work for public services and many others run their own business: for example Indian restaurants are very popular and provide an excellent addition to the great variety of eating places.

The popularity of the USA includes a large variety of ethnic groups coming from many races, nationalities and religions. People have been arriving in the USA in great numbers to find better conditions and better life in general. The process by which these many groups have been made a part of a common cultural life with commonly shared values is called “assimilation”. It must be stressed that again this process has been much more successful for white ethnic groups than for non-white ones. The USA represent a really multicultural society as far as it includes a great diversity of ethnic groups though the problems connected with it are still the same: racial prejudice, violence and discrimination.

But to my mind no one can deny that the British and American culture is being enriched through its contact with other countries. So the situation with the immigrants is gradually improving and the different races are slowly learning to trust one another.

USA today is both a “salad bowl” and a “melting pot” of nations represented in the country. Even though nowadays the whole world tends to grow cosmopolitan, the USA remains the best example of tolerance and homelike atmosphere for aliens.

There are also other “ingredients” in the “salad bowl” of the American nation. These are Hispanics who “form the second largest cultural minority in the United States, after the nation’s 30 million blacks”. This group is actually quite diverse as it embraces the whole number of people of different nationalities — Cubans, Mexicans, South Americans, Puerto-Ricans, Brazilians and other. Though many of them have long ago become an integral part of the American culture, got assimilated, in general this group is still among those who are facing hardships, discrimination, sometimes even disdain. And many of them somehow fail to enter the society on equal terms with others. Though for that there are reasons and explanations, the most common of which being “lower levels of education, difficulties with English”. It should be mentioned though that Cuban population, for example, is “largely middle-class. Many of these immigrants are educated people with backgrounds in professions or business. As a result, they have had more economic success in the USA than many other Hispanics”. Thus it proves to a certain extent the fact that it depends on the person himself if he manages to integrate in the society or not.

Apart from these large groups, the American nation is constituted of the whole range of other nationalities, less numerous but not less important. Basically a representative of almost every nation in the world can find his fellow countryman in America. Numerous Europeans, countless Arabs, multitude of Chinese and Japanese cohabitate and make up one nation, however different they all might be. In the streets of big American cities one can easily meet an Indian or Arabian woman in their national dresses and everybody is just glad to tolerate this, as one of the peculiar aspects of American life, as soon as it doesn’t come in contradiction with law, common sense and ideas of the nation. Otherwise it inevitably leads to misunderstanding on the both sides and as a result — to problems and conflicts which are hard to solve.

Let’s outline the main problems ethnic minorities face.

The first and the major one is the problem of racial discrimination. Although numerous laws in the US as well as in GB make it unlawful to discriminate on racial grounds in employment, training, education, the provision of goods, facilities and services and other activities, people from ethnic minority groups are more at risk of being the victim of a racially motivated attack than white people.

Besides they have lower levels of economic activity than white people.

Another big problem is breaking out between these minority groups. For example, in the US two largest minorities – Blacks and Hispanics – are often at odds over such issues as jobs, immigration, political empowerment and what leaders in both camps fear most is that white politicians will try to play off the two groups against each other.

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 1478