I think you're much more likely to get the information you want in terms of the yes/no questions you're coming up with in the comments (are you a member of the majority race in your country? are you a member of the indigenous population of your country?) than by asking people to categorise themselves with the labels you give in the post.
For example, I am a member of the majority group in my country, and think of myself as 'Pakeha' (despite being uncomfortable with seeing myself as a 'stranger', which is what the word orginally meant). I'm descended from northern Europeans.
However, it's not all that uncommon for people with my ethnicity to fill out forms saying they are Pasific Islanders or simply New Zealanders, rather than European. How can we be European, when the most recent members of our families to live in Europe were our great-great-great-grandparents? And if I say I'm European, does that mean I'm in the same group as a recent immigrant? We live on a Pacific Island, so we're Pacific Islanders. I don't do this one myself, but it's definitely done.
I actually went through a phase of filling out forms that asked this sort of thing as 'Scots New Zealander', in my teens. I figured that if we all broke down the idea of people of European descent as one monolithic group, we wouldn't have the unpleasant majority/minority culture thing going on. Also, I wasn't very happy with being identified with the English.
To answer your other question as far as I can, my Welsh friends have never seemed to see themselves as racially distinct from the English, just nationally distinct (not that that's a small thing for them).
I do have some trouble telling about this, though, because 'race' is a confusing concept.
I can sort of understand dividing people up into East Asians, Southeast Asians, Polynesians, Melanesians, Aborigines, North Europeans, South Europeans, various groups of Africans that I'm scarily ignorant about (North and South? or probably some Central as well), South Asians (India and so on), Central Asians, various groups of Americans that I'm again unhappily ignorant about, Inuit/Eskimo/Sami(?), Arabic, and so on. (This system would put the Rom into the south Asian category, I think.)
These are the sorts of groupings where I can look at a person and guess where their ancestors came from. (Unless they're like my cousin who has north European and south Asian parents and looks Melanesian.)
I can't understand, as race, a system that says that if you're in Europe you're a European and if you're in America you're hispanic. That sounds like ethnicity to me, not race.
no subject
Date: 15 May 2010 09:39 am (UTC)For example, I am a member of the majority group in my country, and think of myself as 'Pakeha' (despite being uncomfortable with seeing myself as a 'stranger', which is what the word orginally meant). I'm descended from northern Europeans.
However, it's not all that uncommon for people with my ethnicity to fill out forms saying they are Pasific Islanders or simply New Zealanders, rather than European. How can we be European, when the most recent members of our families to live in Europe were our great-great-great-grandparents? And if I say I'm European, does that mean I'm in the same group as a recent immigrant? We live on a Pacific Island, so we're Pacific Islanders. I don't do this one myself, but it's definitely done.
I actually went through a phase of filling out forms that asked this sort of thing as 'Scots New Zealander', in my teens. I figured that if we all broke down the idea of people of European descent as one monolithic group, we wouldn't have the unpleasant majority/minority culture thing going on. Also, I wasn't very happy with being identified with the English.
To answer your other question as far as I can, my Welsh friends have never seemed to see themselves as racially distinct from the English, just nationally distinct (not that that's a small thing for them).
I do have some trouble telling about this, though, because 'race' is a confusing concept.
I can sort of understand dividing people up into East Asians, Southeast Asians, Polynesians, Melanesians, Aborigines, North Europeans, South Europeans, various groups of Africans that I'm scarily ignorant about (North and South? or probably some Central as well), South Asians (India and so on), Central Asians, various groups of Americans that I'm again unhappily ignorant about, Inuit/Eskimo/Sami(?), Arabic, and so on. (This system would put the Rom into the south Asian category, I think.)
These are the sorts of groupings where I can look at a person and guess where their ancestors came from. (Unless they're like my cousin who has north European and south Asian parents and looks Melanesian.)
I can't understand, as race, a system that says that if you're in Europe you're a European and if you're in America you're hispanic. That sounds like ethnicity to me, not race.