Immigration refers to a situation where individuals move to a foreign country and settle there. America has the biggest number of immigrants in the world. As a result, the movement has impacted the United States positively and negatively, although the pros outweigh the cons (Walker et al., 2016). The advantages include economic productivity, more innovation, a better-educated workforce, enhanced occupational specialization, and better skills matching with employments. Walker et al. (2016) explains that the disadvantages are overcrowding, increased costs of education and healthcare, and disagreement between various religions and cultures because individuals from different areas converge and live together.
A social construct is defined as the thoughts or ideas established and accepted by individuals in society or a country. Walker et al. (2016) explain that human knowledge and perspectives play a primary role in forming firm social constructs. Human beings create them to make sense of the objective world. For example, people develop social constructs by structuring what they experience or see (Walker et al., 2016). Observing a person with a different skin color establishes the race social construct while tall plants with branches and thick stalks indicate a tree.
Race is a different population found within larger species, while ethnicity refers to people’s culture in a particular geographic area who originated from natives of that place. The two terms are used interchangeably, although they have distinct meanings. Race is biological and defines an individual’s physical characteristics such as color, eye, hair, or skin. On the contrary, ethnicity is a social science construct that describes a person’s cultural identity, including nationality, religion, tribal affiliation, or languages. Ethnicity can be hidden or displayed depending on an individual’s preferences, while racial identities cannot be concealed and exhibited in different degrees.
Reference
Walker, S., Spohn, C., & DeLone, M. (2016). The color of justice: Race, ethnicity, and crime in America. Cengage Learning.