What decides ethnicity and nationality?

 

Nationality is a easy one, most countries have quite comprehensive legislation covering it, admittedly different in each. Personally I subscribe to the, what does it say in your passport? Solution. Saves a lot of trouble.

 

I agree with this however, in my opinion the real juicy section is ethnicity and needs much greater analyses.

 

Ethnicity is not controlled by borders, by governments or pollitics, it's very pychological and can have a much deeper meaning than "Nationality".

 

The primary factor's can be summarised as, mother-tongue, culture, identity, family values plus the ideas regarding identity that they provide, a sense of belonging and acceptance.

 

Mother-tongue is of great importance, as it's the language which you first come into contact with. However, there are exceptions, this can be especially seen for example in Afro-American, Afro-Brittish, Afro-French etc, while their mother-tongue's may now be English this does not give them an English or American ethnicity, unless ofcourse they percieve themselves to have one.

 

Culture is of high value, the songs, music, arts, styles etc your exposed to can help shape who you are and make you feel a connection to those who share your cultures, values and traditions.

 

Family values and the ideas they pass down to us regarding identity are extremely important. Families are the first to shape us into what we will become, they teach us about are forefathers, who we are, our history, our family, who were a social part of and so on.

 

Then there is the sense of belonging, this is key. If you speak the language, share the culture and values, have the identity, other's who have this are also like you giving a sense of belonging. However, if you have these similarities but are rejected, it makes you search for the reason as to why. Is it skin colour, religion, where we've been living and so on. This causes people to search for the society that they belong to and are accepted into. The point raised hear connects back to the mother-tongue issue, even though a person may not share the mother-tongue based upon these reasons they may feel the sense of belonging to another community who he/she doesn't share the same language with but feels a historical link to.

 

There are so many other factor's, its a very deep issue, and pretty subjective and personal.