So, What's the Difference Between Race and Ethnicity?
"What are you?" Many of us are often posed with this awkward question when it comes to how we identify, and it's hard to know how to answer. Is the person asking you to explain your race, or your ethnicity—or maybe even both? And then, there's another question: What is the difference between race and ethnicity, anyway?
To find some clarification and better understand the significance of each of these two terms, we consulted Jennifer DeVere Brody, Stanford University's director of the Center for Comparative Studies in Race & Ethnicity. When looking at how society, scholars, and the government define the words, the university explains: "There is little agreement on core distinctions between race and ethnicity." Brody herself uses the word "complicated" when asked about how we can genuinely understand race and ethnicity, explaining that over the years, "law, medicine, and common sense" have blurred their true meanings
"As Toni Morrison would have said, race and ethnicity are 'metaphorical terms.' They're concepts that get used every day by different kinds of people to understand difference in the world," Brody says.
Aha. So, essentially...the difference between race and ethnicity is complicated, indeed. But with a little help from Brody, we broke it down below.
How do you define race?
In society, race is often used to define someone by their skin color, as well as other physical, social, and biological attributes. For example, the U.S. Census defines race as "a person’s self-identification with one or more social groups." These personal identifiers are the words you most often see when you're completing official paperwork and are asked to check the box of your respective race. So when considering what the different types of races are, the options are usually: white, Black of African American, Asian, American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, and Other Pacific Islander.
If you want a more official definition, here's what the Encyclopedia Brittanica has to say:
The idea that the human species is divided into distinct groups on the basis of inherited physical and behavioral differences. Genetic studies in the late 20th century refuted the existence of biogenetically distinct races, and scholars now argue that “races” are cultural interventions reflecting specific attitudes and beliefs that were imposed on different populations in the wake of western European conquests beginning in the 15th century.
But as the above definition points out, the word race has a long history of being used to divide members of society, often based on superficial physical attributes. As Brody explains it, for hundreds of years, race has been "defined by ourselves, by the law, by scientists, and the government, often with competing interests" as cultural norms change. For example, she says, the offensive term "mulatto" (referring to people of mixed white and Black ancestry) used to be freely used in the U.S. Census in the 19th century. Now? Not so much.
"We think we know someone's race when we see it, and it's really much more complicated and more powerful than that," Brody says. "They change over time, they have power, and we claim them because they're about our lives. But they're also about our relationships with power... Some people want to exploit difference. And if you want to re-classify people, race is one way of having power over them."
How do you define ethnicity?
Now, when using the word ethnicity, that term most often refers to the way in which one identifies learned aspects of themselves—i.e., nationality, language, and culture. For example, Italian is both a nationality and an ethnicity. To further clarify, Brody explains that when looking at how it's often used in language, someone could say, I identify as Black, but I was raised in Panama, so I'm ethnically Panamanian, or: We are both Black, but I am West Indian. Or, to bring pop culture into it, Jason Momoa identifies his race as Native Hawaiian, but his ethnicity is Polynesian.
The U.S. Census' short-sighted way of defining ethnicity is that it "determines whether a person is of Hispanic origin or not." So, when completing medical or federal paperwork, often your only two options are: "Hispanic or Latino," and "Not Hispanic or Latino."
Merriam-Webster also offers a vague definition of the word ethnicity, saying it's an:
Ethnic quality or affiliation; a particular ethnic affiliation or group.
They then define ethnic as:
Of or relating to large groups of people classed according to common racial, national, tribal, religious, linguistic, or cultural origin or background.
When looking at race vs. ethnicity, is there a real difference?
Brody clarifies that though it seems like they're two different concepts (as explained above), one can't exist without the other, as they have a large influence in how we deal with race in our country. Race and ethnicity are also often substituted for one another, due to how an individual chooses to identify and the historical impact on the perception of the two terms.
You can't really define them separately because they are intimately related.
"You can't really define them separately because they are intimately related... Sometimes people mistakenly think that ethnicity is reserved only to whites or Europeans, but really it just means one's language or culture," she says. "This is why they're kind of interchangeable. There are two ways of understanding. You can think of one: the idea of race earlier in the world—and sometimes now—works like ethnicity in terms of one's cultural ideas. So we don't need ethnicity maybe so much or use it as much."
The professor points to the history book How the Irish Became White because it shows that the concept of race "is something made." It delves into how Irish immigrants in the 18th century fled their homeland, only to be discriminated against because of their country of origin. But over time, the tides were turned, as their skin color (race) gained them the social acceptance that was denied to African Americans.
If you're still confused, here's how Brody puts it to most easily understand: "Race is something we believe to be heritable, and ethnicity is something learned; however, this masks the history of how race has been used to create these concepts for political power."