I am white, I am black, I belong to African decent, I am Chinese, I belong to Korean decent, I am Canadian, but I do not have culture or race. All such statements are very common examples and general reflecting on the way people view their own identity and race. Even though several people are unaware or unsure of what actually the culture is? And how this will affect them? And still they make claims everyday about it. Some individuals feel that they have race, whereas other think they do not have any. This include the basis of who fits in this ideal world and exclude those who do not fit in this. However, the fact is that culture is very complex, and learned from interaction, conflicts, experience, contradiction, and communicating with others. It is relational because of its learnings from others, and also per formative due to its interactions and performance are in public domain, it is something which people never think of, until the situation has not come, and then they realize about their differences and preferences. Knowledge of ethnicity, identity, race, and culture is somehow subconsciously internalized on the basis everyday with continuous social interactions. Although the race, ethnicity and minority groups concept is socially constructed, but they have real consequences (Karlsen, and Nazroo, 2002).
In the world, where societies are usually driven by individual’s faults, families could be a relative term, which bring all of it back on earth. As societies are extremely divided among sub-categories, it is necessary to have strong backbone and community, which understand the values, practices and customs of individuals. It has been believed that minority groups, are considered anyone who do not belong to any famous culture, less stable in terms of function and form as compare to families who are belong to majority of the societal group. From the racial, ethnical and cultural differences, people are relying on each other and expanding as one unit, and is quite evident that minorities have stronger relationship as compare to majorities.
First of all, individuals need to decide what exactly minority group is. In Arabs or the Muslims, African Americans, Sikhs, Hindus and Indians, even Asians too are few of the minority groups. On the basis of ethnic minorities, it has been found that the study examined the effects and influence of the income status (non-low income vs low income), on functioning of family, quality of the life, and social support in the community. The researches has shown that there are around 17% of African or Black Americans, 4% Asian, 66% white and 7% Latino (Song, 2004).
It seems like such minorities groups are very uncommon, and become the norms due to the fact of migration, repopulation or immigrants in other countries rather than their own country. Such minority groups are misunderstood and usually uncommon, which require from them to be open and must understand cultural and racial differences of each other. When minorities are very small, it is necessary to work altogether and be a stable unit, which makes them stronger and powerful and give the view of not considering them less stable (Ponterotto, and Casas, 1991).
As the characteristics of school are relatable with the acceptance of the ethnic minority neighborhood and class-mates characteristics, are often linked with acceptance of the minority neighbors. It is more likely that in the context of family, acceptance of the minority neighbors irrespective of their ethnicity and race is necessary. This reflects on the difficulty for ethnic minorities for being acceptable in society. Different practices and cultures need acceptance from every single dominating ethnic or majority groups and this goal is very difficult to accomplish. Growing in 90s or little earlier, it was really difficult in finding classmates, or friends or fellows who share same customs and values as one do. But with the passage of time, society started to practice different activities and accept other cultures and the major fact that “everyone is not same”. This has led to confiding and relying on those who are part of minorities. However, it is difficult to find people of the same ethnic minority, but still it forms the sense and bond of reliance upon one another. These families believe that they have no one, except each other (Healey, Stepnick, and O’Brien, 2018).
References
Healey, J.F., Stepnick, A. and O’Brien, E., 2018. Race, ethnicity, gender, and class: The sociology of group conflict and change. Sage Publications.
Karlsen, S. and Nazroo, J.Y., 2002. Relation between racial discrimination, social class, and health among ethnic minority groups. American journal of public health, 92(4), pp.624-631.
Ponterotto, J.G. and Casas, J.M., 1991. Handbook of racial/ethnic minority counseling research. Charles C Thomas, Publisher.
Song, M., 2004. Choosing ethnic identity. Australian Journal of Social Issues, 39(4), p.478.