What Does Ethnicity Affect A Person s Identity - 1735 Words

In a multicultural society like the United State, people are often defined by their ethnicity and background rather than their characteristics. It is often difficult to look past a person’s ethnicity because many people make these assumptions in their head before even knowing the person. This issue leads to the question to what extent ethnicity affects a person’s identity in the United States. I believe that ethnic background plays a big role in determining a person’s identity in the United States, these assumptions create phenomenon like institutionalized racism, redlining, and racial scripts. I conducted interviews with a Japanese American and a Mexican American to see how their ethnicity has affected them when it comes to interaction with other people. I am interested to see how big of an impact would being a model minority or being stuck in negative stereotype affect how they are treated. Through these interviews I believe that it will show how big of a role ethnicity plays in a person’s identity in a multicultural society. For the past decades, Japanese Americans have been considered as model minorities because of how well they assimilated into the United States culture and how they are financially stable (source). On the other hand, Mexican have a more difficult time with dealing with the American people. Mexican were racially scripted, meaning that they got the negative stereotypes from the African Americans (source). Statistically, they are not as economicallyShow MoreRelatedEssay about Race and Ethnicity in Social Sciences877 Words   |  4 PagesUse of the Terms Race and Ethnicity in the Social Sciences Defining identity can be complex and therefore we have to investigate the factors involved that make us who we are and how we are seen by others, collectively or individually. 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