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>Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1997 19:04:05 -0500 (EST)
>From: [log in to unmask]
>Message-ID: <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Ethnicity
>
>Re: Bonnie Clark and  Stanley Copp's comments on ethnicity. Could it be that
>we are not seeing the forest of ethnicity for the trees of preconceived
>notions about what we should see? Perhaps the "ethnicity" we are seeing is a
>result of the culture that the individuals are living in: American! How many
>"English or "Anglo-Americans actually were present in the west anyway? I
>thought they were mostly scotch-irish rednecks (these are my people so I can
>use the term) in the southern tier, and  Northern Europeans in the Northern
>tier--but most were American born. Discussing Afro-Caribbean ethnicity Sidney
>Mintz and Richard Price suggested that we should look more to cognitive
>orientations than to material "Africanisms."  Indeed, the survival of
>"immaterial culture" items like folktales, songs, religious beliefs,
>approaches to work, play, and living is much more common than material goods.
>Take people regardless of their ethnicity and put them into an environment
>where the aquisition of  proper "ethnic" goods is constricted and they will
>use what they have at hand. In North America (I think of our Nafta buddies to
>the North and South as Americans too--hope no one is offended by this)
>industry dominates the landscape of material goods in most places. Up to
>about the 1820's this can be thought of as the British World System (ala
>Immanuel Wallerstein), but once American industry emerges it begins to reach
>markets worldwide. By the time we see active settlement in the far West the
>"American Material Culture Complex" dominates the toolkits of all who
>participate in the capitalist system--which includes pretty much everybody. I
>think it is the degree of participation that is significant here: study
>isolated enclaves of Chinese, Native Americans, Spanish Americans or even
>Swedish Americans practicing traditional lifeways and I bet ethnicity is more
>evident. So, in summary, I think we are seeing the "ethnicity"--but its
>American, and people want to see something else. Any opinions?
>
>Just a thought...Carl Steen
>
>
Anita Cohen-Williams
Listowner of HISTARCH, SUB-ARCH, and SPANBORD
Center for Spanish Colonial Archaeology
4060 Morena Blvd., Suite G-250
San Diego, CA  92117
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