Race vs Ethnicity in the Diaspora: Wagering Our Collective Identity in the 21st Century

• In Event: Navigating Identity in the African Diaspora

Abstract

This paper considers contemporary changes in the perceived function and application of racial identity among Black people in America. Particularly as the diaspora is continually expanding and more ethnic groups from the Caribbean and African continent are migrating to the United States, there are heightened visibilities in the spectrum and experiences of ethnic groups classified racially as “black”. While the European construction of America is fundamentally based on racial categorization, there have been multiple acculturation processes occurring within and across Black communities that shape Black people’s sense of ‘belonging’ to a group at any given time. This paper considers the meaning and significance of ethnic identity as primary to people of African descent on the continent but also how we observe this phenomenon in the diaspora as diasporic groups become larger and have more cultural contact with each other. I provide an analysis of the negotiations of collective identity during the creation of the diaspora via the transatlantic slave trade wherein various African ethnic groups negotiated their ethnic identities ultimately to create a new ethnic identity as African Americans. This process of self-identification with an ethnic group was established through their cultural orientation to defining a recognizable ‘community’ prior to the imposed categories of race/gender/class constructs as primary in the modern era. The cultural necessity of African people to have an ethnic identity to best apply a practical structure for their practice of unity is further explored. For many African diasporic groups, creating community through ritual practice, ancestral memory, and tradition has been a dominant theme in identity construction and maintenance of relationships although understudied because of the imposition of racial or national identities as the most dominant in predicting cultural outcomes.

Author

• Ifetayo Flannery, Temple University