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Vietnamese in particular seem the least likely to integrate. Like there are still old Vietnamese refugees who've been here since the 70s who barely know much English. It really is a sort of ethnic ghetto. I haven't really encountered such foreign sounding accents among the local born in Perth. Pretty much everyone born in Australia, regardless of their background, sounds Australian here. Only in Melbourne was I surprised to find people born here who sound somewhat foreign. There aren't communities that are SO 'ethnic' as over there.
Vietnamese seem to be fiercely protective of their culture. I once looked at a room I wanted to rent in Oakland. the couple that owned it were Vietnamese and while they were some of the nicest people I have ever met, a good part of the meeting involved them explaining how to introduce ourselves to their neighbors. We were not their roommates (I had a girlfriend at the time) but "house guests" as anyone who stays with them is considered family and will be treated as such and the same is expected in return.
Vietnamese seem to be fiercely protective of their culture. I once looked at a room I wanted to rent in Oakland. the couple that owned it were Vietnamese and while they were some of the nicest people I have ever met, a good part of the meeting involved them explaining how to introduce ourselves to their neighbors. We were not their roommates (I had a girlfriend at the time) but "house guests" as anyone who stays with them is considered family and will be treated as such and the same is expected in return.
Yep...I think part of it is the fact their culture is so similar to Chinese. They are very family orientated. When I was staying in a hotel in Hanoi the hotel owner invited me to eat lunch with her family which was cool.
I was just thinking about how American categories of race and ethnicity are pretty broad.
They are white, black, Asian, Hispanic. These are typically the government categories and they are everywhere. They seem like stock categories that are pretty rigid in people's minds. I find people try to box people into these broad categories too much.
For a nation of immigrants and settlers, you would expect more nuanced categories on ethnic diversity. When people argue about diversity in the US, there is too much emphasis only on how many people as a percent are non-white. Almost every talking point is how many non-whites are there? How many blacks? How many Hispanics? How many Asians etc.
But there is so much more than that. A Nigerian is so much culturally different from a Somalian or Afro-Jamaican. An Indian Parsi is so much different from a Chinese Singaporean. Some people around city-data who are Canadians even mentioned Canadians have a more nuanced definition of diversity in ethnicity where culture is taken into account. Something I've heard too is that say a French-speaking Haitian is seen as more in common with a white French-Canadian while English-speaking Jamaicans have more in common with Anglo-Canadians, it's claimed, because there language is the main divider, not race. Doesn't language and culture trump physical appearance or at least sometimes?
Technically ethnicity takes into account culture, while race refers to appearance based on ancestry but other than Hispanics being Spanish speaking or having roots from Spanish colonies, few of the US race/ethnicity categories take into account cultural ties (eg. blacks are seen as just one group in the US regardless of culture or continent of origin, but Brits distinguish on their census Caribbean blacks and African blacks).
How are other country's ideas of ethnicity categories, like, or at least perceptions thereof?
As mentioned earlier in the thread, since culture and language better divide people than race (for instance, race would lump East Asians to Native Americans which makes little sense culturally), actually I think either ethnicity or cultural grouping would be a better way of making census categories (so that for instance, Caribbean people of all races can say their origins are in the Caribbean, same with say, Middle Easterners etc.).
Caucasoid is an arbitrary parameter created in the 19th century. It is a residue, an anachronism. Two people can be 'Caucasoid' and not be closely related. Craniofacial plasticity is much more variable than was originally thought, so racial claims on craniofacial parameters are foolish. In microcosms, you might be able to show some relationship, but in global macrocosms, there are more mistakes than accuracy. Polytopicity is when two different groups of organisms that are not related end up having similar traits.
More like, if they are in similar environments, common factors may play a role in similar attributes. For example people in the circum Sahara developed thinner noses overall because of the dryer, hotter air. In Europe the colder dryer air had a similar effect. When we see broader features, they tend to be more recent migrations to dryer regions from more humid climates. Of course other factors can come into play as well. For example Neanderthals had wide nasal cavities but a very long nose that did a similar function to a thin nose. Clothing has played a huge role in allowing people with certain traits to migrate to regions they did not do so well in naked.
Humanity is infinitely diverse and a beautiful thing. We are playdoh to the environment. And now we change the environment to us.
Caucasoid is an arbitrary parameter created in the 19th century. It is a residue, an anachronism. Two people can be 'Caucasoid' and not be closely related. Craniofacial plasticity is much more variable than was originally thought, so racial claims on craniofacial parameters are foolish. In microcosms, you might be able to show some relationship, but in global macrocosms, there are more mistakes than accuracy. Polytopicity is when two different groups of organisms that are not related end up having similar traits.
More like, if they are in similar environments, common factors may play a role in similar attributes. For example people in the circum Sahara developed thinner noses overall because of the dryer, hotter air. In Europe the colder dryer air had a similar effect. When we see broader features, they tend to be more recent migrations to dryer regions from more humid climates. Of course other factors can come into play as well. For example Neanderthals had wide nasal cavities but a very long nose that did a similar function to a thin nose. Clothing has played a huge role in allowing people with certain traits to migrate to regions they did not do so well in naked.
Humanity is infinitely diverse and a beautiful thing. We are playdoh to the environment. And now we change the environment to us.
When I was working in hospice in Seattle, there was an older Native man there who took a shine to me. One of his first questions: "Is your family Scandanavian?" "Yeah, we're ethnic Sami from Northern Sweden." "Ha, I knew it. You're built like me: you have a big, long body, but shorter legs and arms... we're like that to keep the heat trapped in us in cold climates." He was from an Alaskan tribe.
The human race is a fascinating thing
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