Blog Five: Ethnicity

Through the media Orange County, California is a very shallow, rich, and tan place. That is only what the media portrayed it to be. To an extent it is very much shallow, rich, and very tan but, there are is some diversity in ethnicity contrary to popular belief. I grew up in Orange County. Specifically San Clemente where the sun is hot and the waves are great. From my years there, I have noticed that it is largely populated by Caucasian and Hispanic peoples. I would have previously noted these groups of people as an ethnicity thinking it is the politically correct term or some guff. I have only recently learned that this is the claimed definition of race. Ethnicity, I think, is something completely different from race. I have come to this conclusion from the knowledge I have gained so far this year in both my Cultural Anthropology class and also my Ethical Studies class.             

               Through my very limited knowledge to ethics and anthropology, ethnicity is relating to heritage, beliefs, and ancestry. Previously I would have scratched my head looking at these words and simply shrugged saying ethnicity and race are the same. Through a bit of maturity I can see the folly of my old self and hopefully learn as much as I can to increase my knowledge and understanding of ethnicities and their significance. My goals through blogging about my increasing knowledge of ethnicity will hopefully help me make a difference in the ever growingly dark world.

                To better outline my goals, I am going to learn specifically about one or two ethnicities in a fairly modern area. I will also use my knowledge to help others as much as possible through various group conversations or talks. This probably sounds cheesy and really lame but I am fairly serious. Too often do people just throw around terms that are derogatory and based on ethnicity. It is, frankly, disgusting and ignorant and I hope to dispel this slightly through my findings. Through various researching styles and excursions I will accomplish these goals thus bettering the world as it is known currently.

As previously stated, I am striving to better my morals and become a better person through this increased knowledge. With this knowledge I will learn about how other people feel about ethnicity and its issues. Hopefully from just talking to people about the subject I will learn even more about their personal heritage and beliefs and with this knowledge be able to educate people who don’t have the knowledge much like how my previous self was. 

   According to a Humboldt County demographic study, the county is home to many different ethnicities and ancestries. There are tons of United States natives but there are also a lot of people from different countries that may have migrated to the United States. With all of these interesting ancestries and ethnicities, it really adds to the down to earth flavor of Humboldt County.

    When I was researching the demographics for Humboldt County, I stumbled upon the numbers for native residence and non-native residence. A whopping 28.9 % of the people in Humboldt County were new to the county and just started living here. This was very interesting to me because I would think when someone wants to settle down they decide on a certain place to spend their lives and just continue living there. This was proven wrong to me through these numbers. It is very cool that this many people chose just recently to live in the county. I believe it shows that this county is a good county to settle down in and live your life the way you wanted to.

     Another interesting number that was brought my attention through the demographics was the status on war veterans. I myself have seen war veterans around Arcata and Eureka. Be it riding the bus or just walking around town. The number of once active soldiers is 14.5% of the entire county's population of 126,000. That is a large amount! With this I also believe Humboldt is an amazing place to heal and enjoy life as it should be enjoyed. The reason I chose to come to Humboldt was for its beautiful surroundings and just all around good feeling.

     For my blog, I plan on interviewing a Humboldt county native and a war veteran. I will be interviewing the Humboldt county native to get a feeling of how the certain ethnicity operates in Humboldt County and I will be interviewing the war veteran on the reason of what brought them to Humboldt County and also, if they have been here long, what has changed in the county as time has passed.

For Privacy purposes, I have omitted names and locations from this blog post.  

 As previously stated I would be interviewing certain local individuals in Arcata and talking them about their ethnicity and race. Strolling through campus earlier in the year I met an individual. He was a very good man and became a very good friend of mine. His parents are native Pacific Islanders and he is the first generation to be born in America.  He has lived in Arcata for a couple of years and says he likes it. As I dive into the details, he maintains cultural traditions based from the culture of the Philippines but not the culture in its entirety. For instance, he eats cultural dishes but, he only does this because his parents make the dinner for him. I asked him if his ethnicity defines him as a person. He sat for a moment and then burst out laughing. He looked at me as we were sitting and he said, “Not at all! I define myself!” He laughed for a moment longer and then gained his composure back. After talking about it a bit longer he decided that his ethnicity helped shape him as a person but was not a prominent factor in his character. “It helps describe my heritage and background. It doesn’t define me.”

                My interviewee and I parted ways. I told him I would be doing this for an anthropology assignment and he laughed again (He is quite the happy guy) and said, “Nah man, I’ll keep my name out of it.”  I had a great time with the interview and I think he did too! To talk about such a rather taboo but interesting subject openly was new and fresh to me.

                After I had talked to my first interviewee I proceeded to search for a Veteran to talk to about ethnicity. The reason for this is that the amount of veterans in Arcata is rather large and I thought having their opinion could bring out interesting views. Through a bit of searching in Arcata, I stumbled upon one. He had fought in Vietnam and described race and ethnicity as basically the same thing. He was Caucasian and didn’t have any particular background aside from his mother growing up in New York. Through a couple questions I had understood that this man had really been interested in race and ethnicity.

                I asked how he defined it and he replied, “It’s usually thought of as the color of someone’s skin or their upbringing but I believe it is the place we live in that defines our ‘Ethnicity.’” I pondered on this and then asked if it was the same thing as upbringing/culture and what the difference was. He basically said that the difference was that there are certain factors in a place that define your ethnicity. For instance, he talked about governments, the job market, and various other federal establishments. This actually baffled me and I had no idea what to think.

                My initial opinion hasn’t necessarily changed; it is still that race and ethnicity are totally different. Even with this insight of others, I believe that race is fabricated by society. This is due to all these factors that the world is able to generate with media, word of mouth, and other forms of communication. 

                When I first arrived in Arcata, I was actually quite frightened. I had come from a small Orange County town. I looked around and saw only vagrants and vagabonds roaming the streets. The sky itself was dark that day and it was raining ever so slightly. The next day it was sunny and I could finally appreciate the beauty and diversity of the small college town. Instead of my first impression of the roaming vagrants and vagabonds, I instead saw diversity and an array of interesting and cool people.

                Through changing my viewpoint of the town itself I came to appreciate the town’s interesting diversity and ended up enrolling in the school. What I went into this blog questioning was the difference between race and ethnicity, how they differed, and how they factored into Arcata and Humboldt as a county. Did people see race and ethnicity as the same thing? The answer I came to see and concluded was no. Not really. People here came here or live here with an open mind and there is not a great deal of discrimination. Apart from a cultural anthropology course, I am taking an Ethical Studies course. Probably the first week of the class we discussed if race and ethnicity were the same. Everyone said race was socially constructed and ethnicity was your ancestor’s culture. This is what I believe because race is socially constructed just to discriminate and use someone to alienate and ruin. I am actually rather happy that the people I have talked to about race and ethnicity have went into it with an open mind.

 This is not to say that everyone is perfect and doesn’t even see ethnicity or race. There will always be socially constructed prejudices against certain ethnicities due to past differences and histories. When I interviewed a friend of mine from Humboldt County, I found out he was a second generation Filipino and he didn’t care about race or ethnicity but said we are all humans. This was my favorite view I received while talking to people and it really hit home with me. We are all humans and we shouldn’t categorize people as better or lesser because we are all basically made the same way and do the same things.

To an extent, ethnicity is important. Ethnicity makes it so you are able to trace family origins and have a cultural identity. With this cultural identity you are able to feel welcome with other members of the same ethnicity and it makes it so you are welcome and feel loved by a group of people. It is almost like a second larger family.

Ethnicity might not seem like a big deal but it really is because it gives you an identity. This does not mean you should be judged in any way for your identity or for your skin color or just who you are! People are people and should always be thought of humans first.