Many archaeologists have been concerned with expressions of ethnicity and/or ‘race’ in cities, and the ways in which they intersect with class. Ethnicity is an identity held by an individual that is based on a place of origin (either real or imagined) and is defined in opposition to other ethnicities. Such identities are often expressed materially and are thus accessible to archaeological study.
Discussions of ethnicity have been approached in several ways. One early method involved the search for traits - either individual or patterned - found in association with specific ethnic groups which could thus serve as ethnic markers. For example, the discovery of opium pipes at a site would indicate the presence of Chinese residents there.
More recently, archaeologists have become more sophisticated in their analyses. They view the material world as the expression of complex forms of intersection, in which groups of individuals negotiate identities through a variety of strategies. William Askins, for example, has used material culture to examine the intersection of ethnicity and class among African-American oystermen in Sandy Ground, Staten Island,
NY. Edward Staski has examined diet as a mirror of the relationship between Mexicans and Anglos in El Paso, TX, suggesting the development of a combined ‘border diet’. Contemporary archaeologists have become involved in a discourse about the ways in which members of different ethnic groups interact, using models of acculturation, assimilation, creoliza-tion, and hybridity to represent cultural and sometimes genetic mixtures of peoples. This discourse often relies on the identification of specific traits and a range of theories about stimuli resulting in certain forms of blending. Not all of this discussion centers on cities but much of it does, especially in postindustrial settings, because cities and towns are where the greatest heterogeneity is found.
Much of the conversation on ethnicity focuses on easily identified, visible, ‘racially’ marked groups such as African-Americans and Chinese. Cities, perhaps particularly those in the American South, were appealing to free African-Americans, especially prior to the Civil War, because they were places of relative freedom and economic opportunity, where residents could learn skilled trades and hide if need be. Cities, both in the South and North, brought people of many backgrounds together and helped to foster the development of an African-American culture there.
Free African-American settlements in several cities reflect some consistent traits. In cities like Alexandria, VA, and New York free African-Americans settled in clusters on the urban periphery, often with a church at the settlement core. As these cities grew, the settlements became incorporated within them. Other African-American communities were formed in contested, interior urban places, such as back-alleys in Annapolis, MD, and Washington, DC. As a consequence of this settlement pattern, several cities were places of notable residential integration between blacks and whites, although a clear class hierarchy based on race was strongly maintained.
Several archaeologists have examined African-American consumption of material culture. Mullins, for example, focuses on these patterns among African-American in Annapolis, MD, suggesting that a variety of practices were used to resist and reject racism and the dominance of white culture. He shows that the use of material culture is complexly determined and specific practices must be deconstructed. For various reasons different ethnic groups may prioritize different items of material culture on which to spend money.
New Orleans was an unusual city in that it exhibited a specific ethnic culture referred to as Creole. The term Creole originally referred to a Francophone individual of French, Spanish, or African descent who was born in the New World; it was a category that crosscut race and class. Later, it came to mean a person of mixed European and African ancestry. Creole homes are distinctive in New Orleans in that they featured interior patios.
There has also been extensive archaeological investigation of overseas Chinese communities, as many workers left China to labor in Anglo-American cities and mining towns and on transport systems such as railroads. Some recent studies focus explicitly on the degree of cultural change among the Overseas Chinese. Both Jane Lydon, who studies the Chinese community in the Rocks, in Sydney, Australia, and Mary and Adrian Praetzellis, who examined Sacramento, CA, explored the relationship between Chinese and Westerners in the nineteenth century. Lydon points out that although Euro-Australians stereotyped Chinese people and saw them as exotic and frightening, poor and immoral, in fact little united the Chinese community but Western perceptions and a common origin; the community was subdivided by class and included a range of occupations. Chinese merchants in Sacramento were similarly responsible for managing immigration for their countrymen and mediated between the larger California sociopolitical system and the Chinese community, many of whom came through Sacramento on their way to employment elsewhere. The Praetzellises also found a similar collection of mostly Chinese material culture with admixtures of Victorian ceramics, the dishes of choice among Euro-American Californians.
Ethnicity that is self-selected (as opposed to that assigned by others) and class aspirations are both relevant here. Ethnicity may crosscut or parallel race and class. Boundaries are created on the basis of shared traits (language, cuisine, religion, dress, customs) and peoples’ notions of their own history, but all of these factors are amenable to change. It is not uncommon to see people suspend their identification with an ethnic group when an opportunity for socioeconomic advancement presents itself. Such upward mobility is less possible for those who are racially (i. e., visibly) different than for those who visually resemble members of the dominant group.
World History
