Ethnicity. The Encyclopedia Britannica Online describes this as being a quality or affilitation with, "a social group or category of the population that, in a larger society, is set apart and bound together by common ties of race, language, nationality, or culture".
Culture. Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines this as, "the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group...the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes a company or corporation".
Two words that have different meanings. Unfortunately, in today's "politically correct" world, the two are often tied together--or connected in some way--by the hyphenation of each (African-American, Japanese-American, etc). This is a dangerous way of defining children...especially those of mixed-race. By definition alone, one can see how different the two words are. Even if the differences in their meanings aren't clear at first glance, one only has to look at the following example to get a better picture:
Little Xiao is born in China. By the tender age of one she is adopted into a Jewish family in California. She grows up attending Jewish schools, going to temple, and speaks only Yiddish and English. She dates Jewish boys, graduates from USC and marries a Jewish man. They have mixed-race children and bring them up in a Jewish neighborhood. Her children have her dark, almond-shaped eyes, her bone-straight black hair, and milky white complexion. They are often described as "exotic". Their friends know they have parents of different ethnicities and they are categorized (on government forms, school records, etc) as "Chinese-American" even though neither of them speaks nor has ever visited China. Xiao never once traveled to China, the land of her birth. She never sought out her Chinese parents and never learned the language, customs, or traditions. Why should she? Her home was here, in America. Her culture is Jewish--the only culture she knows. Thus, her children only know the Jewish way of life...the Jewish culture. It's how they were brought up and taught. They are proud of their culture and their family and have been told that what matters in NOT the type of blood you have flowing through your veins nor is it the title or label or box unsophisticated people want to stick you in to make themselves feel better, instead, it's WHO you are as a person and citizen that matters most. Your ethnicity does not make you choose right from wrong. Your DNA does not give you the character and moral fiber to be a respectable person...it's the way you were brought up, your beliefs, your values, your culture that helps define WHO you are. Sadly one day, a school project comes home and tells them that everything they have been taught and everything they believe is wrong.
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