The Invention of Ethnicity and Dynamics of Multiculturalism in the U.S. Two Case Studies

Authors

  • Tamar Shioshvili International Black Sea University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.31578/hum.v3i1.299

Keywords:

self-identity, ethnicization, Americanness, mainstream, ethnoculture, symbolism

Abstract

There are huge variations in the makeup of the United Stage. The nation has grown from diverse cultural backgrounds. As immigrants dis- continued to be “foreigners” and yet did not become “One Hundred Percent Americans”. From immigrants they are described to have become ethnic Americans of one kind or another. Ethnic group limits must be repeatedly renegotiated, while ethnic traditions must be repeatedly redepicted. Inventions of ethnicity is a social phenomenon, which has demonstrated unforeseen flexibility in the contemporary world. It implies a dynamic process of ethnicization among diverse sidestream ethnicities and results in changes in several directions. This is a dialectical change due to the mainly political as well as socio-economic condition in the new homeland as well as their original one. The Italian Americans have displayed great fluency, creativity and efficacy in defining their position in the American reality. This chosen way of refashioning of Italian-American ethnicity will probably continue as individuals plunge into their cultural tank and choose prospects that suit their needs at specific moments in time. There have been three waves of Georgian immigration in the U.S. The first wave immigrants were political refugees, representing anti-Bolshe- vik forces of 1920s. They came to the United States via Europe. The number of the second wave Georgian immigrants after the end of World War II didn’t grow significantly, probably because of the second “Red Scare” towards Bolsheviks that the United States went through. The most substantial number of Georgian immigrants arrived in the U.S. through the third wave after the collapse of the Soviet Union, due to the hard socio-economic problems arising in Georgia in 1990s.

Author Biography

Tamar Shioshvili, International Black Sea University

Dean of the Humanities Faculty

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Published

24-09-2014

How to Cite

Shioshvili, T. (2014). The Invention of Ethnicity and Dynamics of Multiculturalism in the U.S. Two Case Studies. Journal in Humanities, 3(1), 5–11. https://doi.org/10.31578/hum.v3i1.299

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Articles