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能够在其原籍国和他们定居的国家保持联系。纽约市等城市中心的特点是来自不同种族、民族和国家背景的人非常集中，这促进了种族间网络和种族间联盟的形成。在人口普查等人口调查中，越来越多的人报告说自己是混血或混血血统。综上所述，这些因素表明，更多的人可以声称拥有多个种族身份。这篇由一位文化人类学家撰写的论文将研究纽约皇后区的拉美裔人如何在日常生活中在多个种族身份之间进行谈判。这项研究建立在这样一个命题上，即越来越多的人在正常话语中经常从种族转换为种族，试图最大化他们的经济和政治利益。对参与者的言语互动、访谈、话语分析、社会网络评估问卷和家庭调查的密切观察将被用来确定种族身份转换发生的背景以及转换是如何进行的。虽然族群认同一直被人类学家理解为一种语境现象，但对族群认同转换的过程却知之甚少。该项目的更广泛的意义，除了有助于博士生的教育外，还包括它有助于理解人们在日常生活中如何在种族认同中做出选择。这项研究将专门调查西班牙语双语者作为种族认同标志的语言使用情况。这些发现将对政策制定者有兴趣改进目前收集和归类种族认同数据的方法，以及有兴趣在课堂上采用双语方法的教育工作者具有实际应用价值。

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.