Ethnic labels carried agency that racial ascription denied

Evidence

After World War II, ethnicity, as opposed to race, became the primary differentiating characteristic between Americans of different European national origins. As Richard Alba and Victor Nee note, “Ethnicity involves both social structure and the more elusive factors of subjective meaning.” For Americans of Irish, Italian, and Eastern European descent who were Catholic and Jewish, being labeled an ethnic group gave members an opportunity to become socially White on condition they assimilate into mainstream Anglo-Protestant culture and normativity. Ethnic identity, therefore, granted a person agency not available to those ascribed a racial identity. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 359

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies the race-versus-ethnicity distinction: ethnicity is chosen and conditional on assimilation; race is ascribed and not conditionally redeemable.
• XREF: connects to: Militia membership let ethnic groups claim rights that Blacks were denied — Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White, 504