Ethnic Polarization in Diverse Environments 1 Running head: ETHNIC POLARIZATION IN DIVERSE ENVIRONMENTS

Ethnic Polarization in Diverse Environments Anna Mueller University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Fall 2013

Ethnic Polarization in Diverse Environments 1 Introduction: Ethnic Polarization in Diverse Environments When you are walking down W Trade St. of downtown Charlotte on any given day, you may pass more than hundreds of different looking faces all with different features that stem from different stories and cultures. Whether it be the Bank of America businessman late for his meeting, the mother of four herding her kids towards Discovery Place, or the cheerful musician playing I got sunshine, on a cloudy day on his violin. This rich diversity is one of the very special qualities about this city, and a reason for why many people are attracted here. This same factor was a major influence ten years ago when my parents made the decision to uproot our family once again, for the third time, and restart a home on our third continent of residency. Coming from such a culturally rich background and family, it was essential to my parents that my brother and I would continue to be surrounded by the numerous opportunities and benefactors that diversity offers. Of course ten years ago when I was nine, the most I comprehended about this word diversity was that my best friends were named Almina, Dilan, and Yamile instead of Sally, Sarah, and Tim. They had ethnic roots from all over the world, just like I did, and in a nine year olds eye, that had been sheltered in a way to always be surrounded by multiracialism; it was absolutely normal to me. When we first moved here in 2003, my parents enrolled me into Smith Academy of International Languages, now relocated and renamed to Waddell Language Academy. It is a magnet school that not only offered education from K-8, but also offers it in five different languages. This fulfilled the important wish that foreign parents like my own had, which was for their children to continue learning their native language. Because of this enormous community of

Ethnic Polarization in Diverse Environments 1 ethnically diverse families, my school was very popular and the destination for the majority, if not all of those families, and you can easily see how every German, Chinese, French or what ever you were, somehow knew each other. It wasnt until I got slightly older that I realized that the real world is not, and has never been this perfect colorful blend. I started to realize that even though I was constantly in diverse environments, people around me have always gravitated towards others who they felt are similar to them. This brings us to the main topic and paramount question, as to why humans in this day in age, and in these highly diverse environments, still tend to polarize toward their own ethnicity? Because of my exposure, I was able to gain this awareness at a very young age, which created many curiosities and questions that I further researched throughout this paper. Research: Rise of immigration in history The oldest questions concerning ethnic polarization are simply; when, where, and how did it all start? And what exactly is meant by this idea of ethnicities naturally polarizing to their own? Although this paper mainly concerns the modern aspects of ethnical diversity, the most underlying questions take us decades back into history to the rise of immigration into American neighborhoods. According to Allen and Turner (2005) it was around 1970 when a major increase in the number of immigrants migrating into the United States was present, and ethnically concentrated neighborhoods emerged all over the nation. For Americans in Metropolitan areas who have been living in white neighborhoods with a 100% white population all their lives, the start of many concentrated communities of various races was alerting. This growing situation caused many questions and concerns as to why there was not an equal distribution of races

Ethnic Polarization in Diverse Environments 1 throughout the existing neighborhoods, but instead a clear polarization and creation of new ones. Just like any other question and thought provoking event in history, researchers try to find answers to the questions and therefore a combination of old words were put together creating new concepts to define this new situation. The first concepts is ethnic residential concentration, which can be defined literally to what was present: people from the same ethnic groups migrating and residing in very close proximities of each other, compared to the case if they had distributed randomly. Allen and Turner (2005) believe that the methods used to define these concentrations are very complex, and refuse to use the other term that is used interchangeably with ethnic residential concentration, which is ethnic enclave. I found this term commonly stated in my other research, one in which Varady (2005) defines that ethnic enclaves, are characterized by two factors: voluntary residence and serves positive social and economic functions. The detail of economic functions is where Allen and Turner (2005) strongly disagree, because they believe that economic factors are not a part of every ethnic concentration, proclaiming that some of their smaller concentrations researched show no evidence of that detail. The third and last term is much more consistent in definition and agreement throughout all the sources I have researched. The concept of ethnic ghettos describes negative concentrations where residents have no choice and restricted by borders that forcefully create a concentration for the purpose of hierarchy and domination. There is no need for statistical data to validate that the acceptance and spread of diversity in todays society is at an all time high, but historically these two topics were very neither favorable nor common. In research done by Allen and Turner (2005) there is clear evidence of a negative view towards ethnic concentrations that are based on

Ethnic Polarization in Diverse Environments 1 concerns of settlement patterns. The question of to which degree these concentrations will form, or worse, to which degree they might disperse into white communities worried many who hold those views (as cited in Alba et al., 199). Considering that the history of the United States is known to not be extremely heart warming and welcoming to foreigners, I ask, why wouldnt immigrants concentrate? Who would want to be in an environment where negative assumptions and thoughts where placed on you just because of your ethnicity? (Wen, Lauderdale, & Kadula, 2009) explain that immigrants were only offered low level jobs with minimal pay, and lived in low quality areas compared to the white neighborhoods. Even though they voluntarily formed concentrations instead of forcefully being put in ghettos, there is still a slight underlying layer of racism and discrimination, and a very thin line between these two. So yes, you can say that immigrants chose to polarize towards their own, but only because of the distrustful and unfavorable views that Americans already had against them. According to Somer (2001) Ethnic divisions undermine development only to the extent that people from different ethnic backgrounds distrust each other and exclude each other from their social, political, and economic interactions. Research: Psychological element I believe that this demographic shift in 1970 shows a small layer of justification for my theory that minor ethnic polarization is an innate human behavior that can be continuously evolved by changes in social and cultural influences. Authors of the article, Ethnic Neighborhoods in Multi-Ethnic America, 1990-2000: Resurgent Ethnicity in the Ethnoburbs? (Wen, Lauderdale & Kandula, 2009) give insight on how the classical spatial assimilation model applies to ethnic concentrations and beliefs of evolvement

Ethnic Polarization in Diverse Environments 1 that are parallel to those from the previous theory. According to (Wen, Lauderdale & Kandula, 2009) when immigrants start to adapt to their environment by creating friendships, working jobs that are considered non-ethnic, and building a more solid foundations for their lives, they tend to move away from their ethnic concentrations in order to relocate into whiter communities that provide better benefits. The continuous flow of new immigrants to ethnic concentrations create a permanent adherence to instability, and low socioeconomic resources for these communities because of the high volumes of new immigrants that are unfamiliar with American culture and language. Based on the theory of immigrant spatial assimilation theory formalized by sociologists at the University of Chicago, Allen and Turner (2005) explain this theory that immigrants settle initially together and only assimilate spatially or disperse after they have become able to function culturally in American society and have achieved some economic success (as cited in Massey, 1985; Alba and Nee, 1999.) The immigrants that have been living in the US for a good amount of time now view themselves different as the new immigrants, even though they were once in their shoes. This leads to my questions of whether or not, psychology and biology play into ethnic polarization. A research done by Myers and Bishop (1970) provides some detail about this being true when they predicted discussion would enhance dominant group values leading to increased polarization between homogeneously composed groups. What they did was ask high school students questions about their racial attitude, see how they responded on the scale of -9 to 9, and then group into groups with people that had similar answers. Next they were asked to discuss their reasoning for their answers listen to what other people on the same spectrum of the scale had to say. Then after the

Ethnic Polarization in Diverse Environments 1 discussion all the students from both groups were asked the same questions again and the result showed that each students score increased toward each end of the spectrum that they were apart of. This can be related to ethnic concentrations because of evidence from the research that supports the notion that humans subconsciously polarize toward people they are around and share similar thoughts and beliefs with. Research: Cultural Comfortability and Familiarity We are what we know. And we only know what we have been told, this quote by Dr. Prodosh Aich further builds on the concept that we feel most comfortable with what we know and are naturally doubtful of things that are not familiar. An example of this is how different cultures abide to personal space. According to Fadel (2013) our norms of the places we inhabit have a big effect on how we perceive personal space and what we consider is comfortable. She doesnt think that invasions on personal space always have to be an awkward situation, but being familiar with cultural sensitivity is important. A professor at California State University Northbridge Kathryn Sorrells claims that cultural space tells us a lot about the nature of a relationship and it is something that people are constantly reading into, even if you dont realize it. Sorrells also states that Personal space is a great example of why cultural sensitivity and knowledge is so important because certain actions can be perceived two completely different ways. If someone invaded your personal space more than you are usually used to, you might get a negative vibe just because you arent aware of the cultural background of that person to understand that there was no harm meant (Fadel, 2013). What we personally feel as comfortable has a big effect on who and what environments we surround ourselves with. Different cultures have different backgrounds and people that stem from these various

Ethnic Polarization in Diverse Environments 1 places, might inevitably clash because of what they are familiar with. This would cause people of the same cultures and traditions to naturally feel more comfortable with each other than they would around someone who has a totally opposite cultural habit and behavior. Based on her personal experience Fadel (2013) gives us an example of how much cultural space varies in Cairo, the capital of Egypt. She says that standing in a crowded part of Cairo such as Giza Square, there is no sense of personal space because of the fact that there are just too many people to have personal space. With an overflowing population and no traffic rules as to when it is okay to cross the street, people do whatever is necessary to get to where they need to be. She also mentions that when she was walking a man brushed up against her and continued walking without apologizing, because in their culture it is common and acceptable. Compare this to New York City, arguably the rudest place in America, and you realize that even in a crowded city like NYC, traffic rules are still followed and if someone were to bump into you, 90% of the people would certainly take the time to apologize before walking off. Now if you take an American and place them in the middle of Giza Square, do you think that they would feel somewhat uncomfortable and want to be in NYC around what they are familiar with? My guess would be most likely, yes. Enter Conversation: personal observations My views about this issue and topic before my research were mainly from my personal experience and things that I observed while going about my day, but now I have a broader perspective and new ideas that I didnt take into consideration before. Finding sources and data about my topic was challenging and frustrating to me because I couldnt find anything exactly fitting to my topic, but instead hundreds of historical research. This

Ethnic Polarization in Diverse Environments 1 made me realize that it all had to start somewhere and past events were important to understand in order to understand current situations. Once I got deeper into the many factors of my topic, I developed my own theory that minor ethnic polarization is an innate human behavior that can be continuously evolved by changes in social and cultural influences. This is my position on ethnic polarization and I believe that all of my research somewhat support this. Though I did not find a substantial amount of evidence that backs up the psychological element, I still think that humans subconsciously polarize because it is an innate behavior. The natural need for acceptance and love is also a good example for why I think this is true. No one wants to be left out, feel like the black sheep of the group, or be the last one to be picked to a team because that is just something that we were born with. This can be translated to the fact that no one wants to be looked down upon or stick out because of their ethnicity, and much rather blend in with people similar to them. Leila Fadels podcast was very interesting to me because personal space was something that I had observed before but didnt realized played into my topic until I heard her research. I agree completely with what she says on the importance of cultural sensitivity and I believe that it is one of the biggest reasons for why people in modern times like today, polarize to their own ethnicity. My observations from my figured world, club phoenix show how cultural norms are the big reason behind polarization. Phoenix has three rooms with three different Djs that play different music. One of the rooms plays rap and R&B music all night long and I observed that 98% of the people in this room were of African American descent. On Friday nights, Phoenix hosts Ultra Fridays which is a night where Latin music is played in all of the rooms. I observed that on Friday nights the demographic of population at phoenix shifted greatly from a very

Ethnic Polarization in Diverse Environments 1 diverse population on Thursday night, to a highly concentrated population of Hispanic and Latino customers. This tiny factor of just music shows that people who come from certain cultural backgrounds are familiar with different things. Conclusion People hanging out with people of the same race, so what? Well, I think that there is a lot more to it than just that. I wanted to do this topic because it isnt the fact that people like hanging out with their same race, but the fact that society labels our generation as so diverse, that it blinds our perspective to really see what diversity means. What I call this is social sugar coating. There is such an emphasis on how far we have come as a society in creating diversity and being more accepting of diversity, which I by any means, agree very strongly with. But what is forgotten and left out to mention is the truth, which is the fact that there will always be racial barriers and discrimination that make a perfect diverse world inevitable. I dont think our goal should be to achieve this social sugar coated idea of a perfect colorful blend, but instead open our eyes to see that all these colors in the world do not need to be blended together to be perfect. That is the reason I feel that this topic is important, is because people dont realize that our highly diverse generation is not that diverse at all as diverse as we think, just more knowledgeable on the fact that many ethnicities surround us. Being diverse does not mean to just see it and accept it, but instead to understand it. It is about stepping out of your comfort zone and being vulnerable to the beautifully unique cultures and views of others.

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