Portal:Ethnic American


Ethnic American Portal

What is your ethnic background? For most Americans the ethnic and/or racial group identity of their biological parents was placed on their birth certificates at birth. In many cases it can be recited by them as percentages of their blood, nationality or ancestry. Every American can rightfully consider themselves and their forebearers as belonging to some ethnic group. This portal is designed to assist in that national, cultural, and ethnic identity search. You are invited to read and participate in ongoing discussions, join one of the WeRelate ethnic projects listed (or create your own), invite collaborators, ask questions, and learn what tasks need to be done in this area to assist other users in their search for background information.

Primary Portals

Description

Ethnicity is an important means through which people can identify themselves. An ethnic group is a group of humans whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage that is real or presumed. Ethnic identity is further marked by the recognition from others of a group's distinctiveness and the recognition of common cultural, linguistic, religious, behavioural traits as indicators of contrast to other groups. To one interested in social sciences, usage has become more simplisticly generalized to include all human groups that explicitly regard themselves and are regarded by others as culturally distinctive.

The terms "ethnicity" and "ethnic group" are derived from the Greek word ethnos, normally translated as "people" or "tribe," meaning more specifically, "Of, relating to, or characterized by a sizable group of people sharing a common and distinctive racial, national, religious, linguistic, or cultural heritage." While some still may use the term Hyphenated American as a disparaging epithet, the hyphenated or compound term is more often used now with pride or used respectfully. In a literal sense, all Americans may be considered hyphenated to a certain--or uncertain--degree. Every American can rightfully consider themselves or their forebearers as belonging to some ethnic group, and therefore, a hyphenated American.


Ancestry with largest population in each state

Acceptable or politically correct terminology changes with time for ethnic groups. For whites in America, the term European American (or Anglo-American) is sometimes used as a synonym for White American to denote their ethnical or colonial origins, although their actual ethnic background may be more precisely considered English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Russian, Swiss, etc. For most blacks in America, African American seems to be the preferred designation of their ethnic identification, although their ancestral background may be identified more specifically as Congolese, Ethiopian, Haitian, Jamaican, Nigerian, etc. For most hispanic & latin Americans, their ethnic background may be Argentinian, Columbian, Cuban, Honduran, Mexican, Spanish, etc. For most oriental Americans, their ethnic heritage may be Asian, Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Korean, Malaysian, Samoan, Thai, etc. For Americans of Middle East ancestry, their ethnic background may be Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Jewish, Kurdish, Armenian, Greek, etc.


Top reported ethnicities in the United States

While the Federal government of the United States changes its criteria every ten years for what races and ethnicities are officially recognized for that year's census (it now categorizes only seven racial categories and two ethnicity terms for the 2010 census), genealogical researchers and family historians recognize ethnicity in the conventional broader sense as an intertwined component of race, ancestry, language and national origin; connoting shared cultural, linguistic, behavioural, religious, and, in some cases, even nationalistic traits.

This Ethnic American Portal is meant to serve as a compilation of research on all occurrences of ethnic groups in America, sources and references on WeRelate, as well as other Internet sites, literary citations, periodicals and other publications, and related collections and documentation, necessary to identify ethnic connections and origins.


Titling Conventions for Ethnic American Pages

A number of Ethnic American pages in WeRelate are written as "Research Guides" and are created manually when a particular WeRelate member contributes information and Internet links to their collection of source material, or when a user considers a need for or has an interest in further research on a particular ethnic group. The title follows the filename convention below:

<Ethnic Group> American Research Guide, where <Ethnic Group> is the hyphenated portion of the compound name, such as African American Research Guide, Irish American Research Guide, or Native American Research Guide. Then add to or update the page as you would for any Article. (See Article help page.)


Ethnic American Pages and Categories

WeRelate users may create or add to any Research Guide or Article. If added as a Research Guide, it will add the document automatically to the Research Guide category. If created as an article, links to categories will be added based upon the locale or country data provided. Any category can be "force fed," that is, added to the page manually for automatic linking to an appropriate category page.

For example, users of the Polish American Research Guide may want to add Category:Poland to their page to link to other articles, information, data, families, images and sources under the "Poland" placename category. (See Cateogry help page.)


How You Can Help
  • You are invited to read and participate in ongoing Ethnic American discussions at one of the WeRelate sites below
  • If a page for an Ethnic American site has not been created for an area of interest, can create your own
  • You can invite collaborators, relatives, and others interested in aspects of their own Ethnic American background to add information
  • You can learn what tasks need to be done in this area to assist other users in their search for background information
  • You can search WeRelate and the Internet for Ethnic American site of interest and add these links below


Sample Ethnic American Pages

Here are two examples of WeRelate Ethnic American pages, both composed as Research Guides.

Featured Ethnic American Page



Help Files & FAQ's

The following resources may assist users with subject-related FAQs:

To add a useful help-link to this list, please edit this box


WeRelate Ethnic American Pages

The following WeRelate Articles, Ethnic Pages, Ethnic Sources, Ethnic Categories, Ethnic Studies and Ethnic American Research Guides have content that qualify them as Ethnic American resources.

Research Guides (By Ethnic Type):

WeRelate Sources, Categories, References:

To add a WeRelate Ethnic American page or a WeRelate ethnic reference to this list, please edit this box. Then return to the Ethnic American Portal.

External Ethnic American Links

The following external Ethnic American links and Ethnic Study sites are identified for reference purposes.

To add an External Site to this list, please edit this box. Then return to the Ethnic American Portal.

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