Biological Difference Between Race And Ethnicity

What is the different between race and ethnicity? As a matter of fact these are complex terms that could be used interchangeably. From the anthropological perspective, “race” ands “ethnicity” are completely different terms because they hold such numerous implications about how we view others and ourselves.

According to anthropologists ethnicity is one’s conception of cultural identity and refers to exclusion between and within societies. Ethnicity refers to one’s culture, which has nothing to do with our DNA. While on the other hand “race” is problematic to define because there isn’t a universal definition. Anthropological point of view on “race” refers exclusively to biological variation or DNA. Biological variation is caused by phenotypical

and see how we classify “race” and “ethnicity”. With the U.S. census is being completed every ten years, it is an efficient tool that provides interestingly important information about race and ethnicity on the general population. The latest U.S. census form has the following races to select from; the six categories include “white”, “Black or African American”, “American Indian or Alaska Native”, “Asian”, “Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander” and “Some Other Race”. From decade to decades, small changes have been made to these categories in order to reflect the politics and in the ways in which Americans think out race and ethnicity. In contrast with 1990 census questionnaire, the 2000 census questionnaire had “American Indian” and “Alaska Native” categories combined and also the “Asian” and “Pacific Islander” response categories have been split in

Within the classification system the government only recognizes two ethnic groups, Hispanic/Latino or not Hispanic/Latino. According to the government, being defined as Hispanic/Latino is having any Spanish culture or origin regardless of race. The government fails to identify Hispanic or Latino as a race because those categories cannot be used to tell people apart phenotypically, thus disqualifying them as being qualified as a race, and is instead descent lines that people of differing races can identify with. The term Hispanic originally denoted a relationship to ancient Hispania (Iberian Peninsula), but now it relates to Spain as a nation, its history and its culture. Not to get confused with Hispanic, Latino merely means to persons or communities of Latin American origin. Any race can pick Hispanic/Latino because it’s not about your skin color, physical features; it’s about your origin. Shockingly enough only 24% of Hispanic adults identify themselves as Hispanic/Latino and about half of them say they identify themselves most frequently by their family's national