Religion
In reply to the discussion: Catholic "criminals" [View all]BainsBane
(57,762 posts)From which part of the world one comes from. That is not the same as ethnicity. Ethnicity, like race, is a cultural construction. For example, is there a biological marker to distinguish a Sunni from a Shia Muslim? A Bosnian from a Serb? A Welshman from a Scot or an Englishman? A Basque from a French person just over the border? The factors there are how they are seen culturally, the language they speak, which group holds power, etc. Genetics can trace geographic origin and certain biological markers, but that is quite different from ethnicity. Race and ethnicity are the ideas through which we understand biological traits and geographic origin.
If I am born in a white ethnic neighborhood in Chicago--where white ethnicity still matters to some--to an Irish-American mother from an absent English father, what is my ethnicity? I grow up identifying myself as Irish-American and have no connection to my English roots. I see myself as Irish-American. My community is Irish-American. Therefore I am Irish-American.