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