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I've noticed how more and more people use the term "ethnicity" to mean "race". Here's an example from 1:26:20 in the latest Honestly with Bari Weiss podcast episode "Has Freedom Failed Us? A Debate" (which is otherwise excellent, I might do another post on its contents later):
It might be pedantic, but this annoys me. My understanding is that ethnicity is cultural: If a Hungarian couple adopts a Chinese baby and raises it in Hungary, that child will be ethnically Hungarian when grown up (but it will "have Chinese decent" or more controversial "be racially Chinese" or "be racially Asian").
I understand that people tiptoe around the word "race" since misusing it can get you cancelled but replacing it with another word that means something else is just wrong.
This is the end of this rambling. Has anyone else noticed this?
Like some others here, I have never heard "ethnicity" used to refer to anything other than ancestry in the past several decades I've heard the term. The person of Chinese descent living in Hungary is ethnically (Han or whatever his biological ancestors were), and culturally Hungarian, if it's important to make the distinction. Or if not, he is Hungarian, and racially Asian.
This may be because I'm American, and the usage is different in Europe. But if it's different, it's not recently different. If a person's biological ancestors are from France, but he's raised by Greek Americans, he is ethnically (some kind of French) and culturally American or (regional) American or Greek American, depending on how much he participates in Greek specific cultural customs. Calling him ethnically Greek would not so much confuse people as simply miscommunicate his background. And nobody calls anyone ethnically American unless they're emphasizing that they don't know where their ancestors are from.
The Census categories in America differentiate between Races and Ethnicities. With Hispanic being the only allowed ethnicity. This is because Hispanics can be pure European in ancestry or any amount of European, Native American or African.
It's especially ironic you use Hungarian as your example. Since the Magyars were originally East Asian Siberians. It's laughable for a Hungarian to talk about the dangers of race mixing.
Yeah, and I find that kind of odd, and refuse to answer that question. Apparently my state is about half and half hispanic and non-hispanic; hispanic is larger by far than non-hispanic white. This seems a little silly. "My abuela speaks Spanish, so I guess that's my ethnicity." Especially since it's asked as a yes/no question on forms, with no other options.
Come to think of it, I have heard "ethnic" used in a cultural adjacent way before -- "ethnic restaurants" serve food that can be traced back to a more specific culinary tradition than non-ethnic restaurants -- be that India or Ethiopia or Serbia or whatever, but are not regionally prevalent. American diners and Mexican restaurants are not ethnic in my region.
I used it because the OP did -- I admittedly know nothing about Hungary, and they may well use different distinctions than Americans. If a Hungarian-American said they were ethnically Siberian, I would believe them.
The point is race is a legal term in the USA. It used to be the case up until the mid 20th century that only people of the 'white' race could be naturalized as citizens. There was a case brought against Finnish people who sought naturalization and eventually the judge ruled that they despite being originally of East Asian Siberian origin were of enough Nordic stock to be considered white to be naturalized as citizens.
See also miscegenation laws.
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