Dissertation Research: Ethnic Identity Switching Among Latinos in Two Queens, NY Communities

随着国家种族多样性的持续增长，资源的分配、种族冲突和同化不能用竞争中整齐包装的身份来理解。通讯和交通的进步使移民既能在原籍国又能在定居国保持联系。来自不同种族、民族和民族背景的人的高度集中是纽约市等城市中心的特点，促进了族群间网络和族群间联盟的形成。在人口普查等人口调查中，越来越多的人报告自己是混血或混血血统。综上所述，这些因素表明，越来越多的人可以声称拥有多重民族身份。这个论文项目由一个文化人类学家将研究如何拉丁美洲人在皇后区，纽约在日常环境中的多个民族身份之间的谈判。这项研究建立在一个命题的基础上，即越来越多的人在正常的话语中经常从一个民族转换到另一个民族，试图最大化他们的经济和政治利益。通过对参与者言语互动的密切观察、访谈、话语分析、社会网络评估问卷和家庭调查来确定族群身份转换发生的背景和转换是如何发生的。虽然人类学家长期以来一直认为种族认同是一种语境现象，但人们对种族认同转换的过程是如何运作的却知之甚少。这个项目更广泛的意义，除了有助于博士生的教育之外，还包括它对理解人们在日常环境中如何选择种族身份的贡献。这项研究将专门研究西班牙双语者的语言使用作为种族身份标志。研究结果将对有意改进目前收集和分类族裔身份数据方法的决策者具有实际应用价值；教育工作者也有兴趣在课堂上采用双语教学。

As the nation's ethnic diversity continues to grow, the distribution of resources, ethnic conflict, and assimilation cannot be understood in terms of neatly packaged identities in competition. Advances in communication and transportation allow immigrants to maintain ties in both their country of origin and in the countries where they settle. The great concentration of people from diverse racial, ethnic and national backgrounds characteristic of urban centers like New York City promotes the formation of inter-ethnic group networks and inter-ethnic unions. An increasing number of people report being of mixed-racial or mixed-ethnic ancestry in population surveys like the census. Taken together, these factors suggest that more people can lay claim to multiple ethnic identities. This dissertation project by a cultural anthropologist will examine how Latinos in Queens, NY negotiate between multiple ethnic identities in everyday contexts. The research builds on the proposition that an increasing number of people regularly switch from ethnicity to ethnicity in normal discourse, in an attempt to maximize their economic and political interests. Close observations of participants' verbal interactions, interviews, discourse analysis, social network assessment questionnaires, and household surveys will be used to determine the contexts under with ethnic identity switching occurs and how switching is done. While ethnic identity has long been understood by anthropologists to be a contextual phenomenon, less is known about how the process of ethnic identity switching works. The broader significance of the project, in addition to contributing to the education of a doctoral student, includes its contribution to an understanding of how people choose among ethnic identities in day-to-day contexts. The research will specifically examine language use among Spanish-bilinguals as an ethnic identity marker. The findings will have practical applications for policy makers interested in refining current methods for collecting and categorizing data on ethnic identification; and educators interested in incorporating a bilingual approach in their classrooms.