group names

[Adam Blatner]

What do you want to be called? 
        Some folks did a survey---I think it was part of the census---I heard the following in a lecture yesterday:

White 62%,  Caucasian 17% 
Hispanic 57%  Latino 11.5 %     Chicano / Chicana?  
Black 34%, African-American 28%   ? "Colored" "Negro" ?
American Indian 50%   Native American 36%    ? First Peoples? 
    Other groups?
        Among South Asians?   East Asians? Where is the identity?
  Chinese in Singapore?  Chinese in Phillipines?   How do groups identify themselves?
           Many sub-groups reject the larger group names given by outsiders. 
     Homosexuals?  Gay and Lesbian?   Queer? (That last used to be in-group, then pejorative and rejected, and more recently, I'm told, has become fashionable and preferred in some sub-cultures.) 
           Different regions, too. 
     Classes. Some folks claim their class: I'm working class. (One seems not to hear anyone claim to be "lower class.")
        I'm middle class. (Upper class folks seem not to own that label, either. Sort of a if-you-have to ask the price you can't afford it dilemma)

    Are there sub-groups among classes, Yuppies, Upwardly mobile? Do any folks admit to being "downwardly mobile"? 
            Then there are gradations of status within a group, such as lighter- and darker-skinned African-Americans, South-Asian Indians... 
        And those who would deny such class differences or gradations... (beyond those who might suggest that we not believe in such differences)
  
Irish? Irish-American? American of Irish heritage?  Ditto for other ethnicities: Greek, Italian, Polish, Jewish, Swedish, etc. 
      Mixed race, biracial, mulatto, half-breed,   -- ah, terminologies.. --  and who cares? And why?
             What about 1/4,  1/8,  1/32  part this or that race, ethnicity... 

   On NPR last night, a discussion of Brazilians coming to the USA, and Iranians,  people who consider themselves "of color" or as "white" and sometimes they are not perceived or treated officially or non-officially according to their own self-perception! 

     Sometimes it's more than just a preference. Some terms for some groups become actively offensive. 

   it's a predicament. 

Don't call me nothin'. I am who I am. 
      Call me by my name. 
    (Ah, but then there are those folks who are called one name by friends, another by family, and a third goes on paperwork. 
            Or they don't tell you which name is preferred.) 

          Names are a whole 'nother topic. Discussion makes for a good warm-up.  I'd be interested in hearing anecdotes or variations I haven't mentioned.. I suspect there are sub-categories I've not even heard of... 

   Of course there are also negotiations regarding "who" does or has the right to draw such distinctions
           and who does not or should not.. 
                   ...anyway, it has got me wondering..   your help is invited.. 
Adam Blatner, M.D.
   website: www.blatner.com/adam/   
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