Racial Ethnic Identity Sometimes Fiction Echoes Real Essay

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Racial Ethnic Identity

Sometimes fiction echoes real life, and that can become a powerful influential force on how culture is defined and molded through the participation of the arts with real life. This can be seen in the case of examining both a theoretical and fictional presumption of modern culture and identity. Joane Nagel presents a thesis that ethnicity and culture are fluid, being pliable based on the conditions both within and outside of the group(s) in question.

Nagel presents a thesis which is essentially moving away from the traditional connotation that the United States is a melting pot, where all these different types of ethnicities are melting together based on their close proximity here in the United States. Despite years of thinking ethnic lines were blurring, the contemporary environment does provide evidence showing the contrary, that there has been an increase in differentiation between ethnic identities, mainly as a symbolic gesture based on nostalgia and pride in one's ethnic group. Here, Nagel posits that "the constructionist model constitutes an argument for the durability, indeed the inevitability, of ethnicity in modern societies," (Nagel 260). All groups will not inevitably melt into one multicultural consistency. People are in many ways choosing when and where to invoke symbolism of their ethnic identity, and allowing themselves to assimilate more into the larger community group in other situations. This is an attest to Nagel's idea that ethnicity is fluid.

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It varies, and is socially constructed, allowing it to vary depending on different social structures. In this, culture itself is also a fluid concept; "culture is constructed in much the same way as ethnic boundaries are built, by the actions of individuals and groups and their interactions with the larger society," (Nagel 251). Culture is formed in two primary models, reviving what was prominent in the past and shaping an entirely new form of culture based on a new set of modern needs and connotations within the subgroups of that culture, which is more of a cultural innovation rather than restoration. Both ethnicity and culture are changed and molded to fit the actions and perceptions of the members of the various groups within society.

This is a process that is continually occurring, not simply conducted once and then defined for generations. Here, Nagel writes "Ethnicity is created and recreated as various groups and interests put forth competing visions of the ethnic composition of society and argue over which rewards or sanctions should be attached to which identities" (Nagel 239). There is a very complicated relationship between identity groups. Ethnicity creation occurs from both within the group itself, as well as externally from other groups which aim to place stigmas and connotations to that ethnicity as well. Here, Nagel states that "externally enforced ethnic boundaries can be powerful determinants of both….....

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"Racial Ethnic Identity Sometimes Fiction Echoes Real" (2012, February 16) Retrieved June 29, 2025, from
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