ethnicity
a sense of historical, cultural, and sometimes ancestral connection to a group of people who imagined to be distinct from those outside the group
origin myth
a story told about the founding a history of a particular group to reinforce a sense of common identity
ethnic boundary marker
a practice or belief, such s food, clothing, language, shared name, or religion, used to signify who is in a group and who is not
genocide
the systematic destruction of an ethnic or a religious group
situational negotiation of idenitity
an individual's self-identification with a particular group that can shift accordingly to social location
ethnic cleansing
efforts by representatives of one ethnic group remove or destroy another group in a particular geographic area
melting pot
a metaphor used to describe the process of immigrant assimilation into the U.S. dominant culture
assimilation
the process through which minorities accept the patterns and norms of the domination culture and cease to exist as separate groups
multiculturalim
a pattern of the ethnic relations in which new immigrants and their children enculturate into the dominant natural culture and yet retain and ethnic culture
state
a autonomous regional structure of political, economic, and military rule with a central government authorized to make law and use force to maintain order and defend its territory
nation-state
a political entity, lactated within a geographic territory with enforced boarders, where the population shares a sense of culture, ancestry, and destiny as a people
nation
a term once used to describe a group of people who shared a place of origin; now used interchangeable with nation state
nationalism
the desire of an ethnic community to create and/or maintain a nation state
imagined community
the invented sense of connection and shared traditions that underlies identification with a particular ethnic group or nation whose members like will never meet