Ethnic Studies Issues And Approaches Summary

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Reading Chapter four of Ethnic Studies Issues and Approaches, by Philip Q. Yang, one receives a profound understanding of ethnic stratification. First of all, Yang describes ethnic stratification as a “institutionalized ethnic inequality” (61). This definition means the system of ethnic/social rules allowing certain ethnic groups to have access to more wealth and resources, which is unfair to the minority groups. There is a division between majority and minority groups, this is based on who is given more power, wealth and resources not because of a larger number of an ethnicity group. According to Yang, White people are the majority in the United States, but they are called majority for their share of wealth/power unlike the minority group. …show more content…

One very important form of ethnic stratification is the colonialization of the Americas, truly the Spaniards destroyed a highly advanced civilization when they took over the lands of the Native Americans. Yang uses the colonization of Puerto Rico to portray how ethnic stratification occurs, when the Puerto Ricans had contact with Americans in 1898 (65). Colonization and ethnic group interactions alone are not enough for ethnic stratification, Yang mentions there are “conditions” that cause stratification. These conditions are the “Social-Darwinian approach, the social-psychological approach, the functionalist approach, the conflict approach, and the Donald Noel hypothesis (66). These theories share what is the conditions causing stratification, though some theories have some holes in them, these are very important in understanding ethnic stratification. Personally, I do not like being called a “minority group” because the title describes what the society thinks of my ethnic group and at the bottom of the hierarchy. People have told me I need to be diligent to succeed in education, implying everyone has an equal opportunity to receive the most benefits from society. I did not realize living in the projects, having a low social class or being a minority group affected your chances of becoming successful, because of people around me who had an abstract-liberism

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