Three attributes characterize ethnic identity entrepreneurs. First, ethnic identity entrepreneurs appeal to an essentialized image of identity in which ethnicity ‘trumps' all other bases of affiliation and authenticity. Second, ethnic identity entrepreneurs invoke this essentialized identity and group membership to justify a claim to, or, monopolization of, scarce resources and entitlements by way of a process of social closure. Third, the activities of ethnic identity entrepreneurs which are often initially motivated by the desire to open up options and to facilitate choice among members, induce conformity and functions as a mechanism of social control. In this paper I emphasize a particular subset of ethnic identity entrepreneurs, namely, those who represent subordinate/minority groups and who work in bureaucracies -whether governmental or community based- and who have acquired a very extensive power by virtue of their office and their professional expertise, which enables them to construct and enforce their specific conceptions of what ethnic identity is and the cultural requirements this essentialized identity entails. Illustrative of these processes is the role of the social worker ethnic identity entrepreneur in formulating policies inhibiting both domestic transracial and transnational adoption which more and more frequently is involving moving children without parents or a permanent home from the Asian Pacific region to families in the United States or Britain.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AndersonB.1991Imagined Communities: Reflections of the Origins and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.
2.
BackL.1996New Ethnicities and Urban Culture. London: UCL Press.
3.
BackL.1991“Social Context and Racist Name Calling: An Ethnographic Perspective on Racist Talk Within a South London Adolescent Community,”The European Journal of Intercultural Studies1(3):19–38.
4.
BagleyC.1993“Transracial Adoption in Britain: A Follow-up Study with Policy Considerations,”Child Welfare, 43(3):285–299.
5.
BagleyC.YoungL.1979“The Identity, Adjustment and Achievement of Transracially Adopted Children: A Review and Empirical Report.” In Race Relations and Cultural Differences. Edited by VermaG.BagleyC., London: Macmillan.
6.
BallardR.KalraV.S.1994The Ethnic Dimensions of the 1991 Census. Manchester: The University of Manchester.
7.
BarthF.1981“Ethnic Groups and Boundaries.” In Process and Forins in Social Life: Selected Essays. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
8.
BartholetE.1993aFamily Bonds, Adoption and the Politics of Parenting. New York: Houghton Mifflin.
9.
BartholetE.1993b“International Adoption,”The Future of Children, 5(Spring):89–103.
10.
BartholetE.1991“Where Do Black Children Belong?: The Politics of Race Matching in Adoption,”Pennsylvania Law Review, 139:1163, 1198–1199.
11.
BeckerH.1966“Moral Entrepreneurs,”Outsiders, Studies in Deviance, 147–163.
12.
BensonS.1980Ambiguous Ethnicity, Interracial Families in London. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
13.
BillingsleyA.1968Black Families in White America. New York: Simon and Schuster, Touchstone.
14.
BlumerH.1969“The Methodological Position of Symbolic Interactionism.” In Symbolic Interactionism, Perspective and Method. Englewood Cliff, N.J.: Prentice Hall.
15.
BlumerH.1958“Race Prejudice as a Sense of Group Position,”Pacific Sociological Review, 1(1):3–8.
16.
BlumerH.DusterT.1980“Theories of Race and Social Action,”Sociological Theories: Race and Colonialism, 211–238.
17.
BonacichE.1994“A Theory of Ethnic Antagonism: The Split Labor Market.” Reprinted in Social Stratification in Sociological Perspective. Edited by GruskyD., Boulder: Westview Press.
18.
British Agencies for Adoption and Fostering1987Practice Note 13: The Placement Needs of Black Children. London: BAAF.
19.
CalhounC.1994“Nationalism and Civil Society: Democracy, Diversity and Self Determination,”Social Theory and the Politics of Identity. Oxford: Blackwell.
20.
CarmichaelS.HamiltonC.1967Black Power, The Politics of Liberation in America. New York: Vintage Books.
21.
CheethamA.SmallJ., eds. 1986Social Work with Black Children and Their Families. London: Batsford.
22.
CheethamJ.1982“Some Priorities.” In Social Work and Ethnicity. By CheethamJ., London: George Allen Unwin.
23.
ChestangL.1972“The Dilemma of Biracial Adoption,”Social Work, 17(3):100–105.
24.
ChimezieA.1977“Bold but Irrelevant: Grow and Shapiro on Transracial Adoption,”Child Welfare, 56(2):75–86.
25.
CrouchS.1993“Who Are We? Where Did We Come From? Where Are We Going?” In Lure and Loathing Essays on Race Identity and the ambivalence of Assimilation. Edited by EarlyG., New York: Penguin.
26.
DominelliL.1988Anti-Racist Social Work. London: Macmillian.
27.
DrakeSt. ClairCaytonH.R.1945Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in A Northern City. New York: Harcourt, Brace.
28.
EarlyG., ed. 1993Lure and Loatling, Essays on Race Identity and the Ambivalence of Assimilation. NewYork: Penguin.
29.
EspirituY. L.1992Asian American Panethnicity: Bridging Institutions and Identities. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
30.
FeigelmanW.SilvermanA.R.1983Chosen Children. New York: Prager.
31.
FernandezC.1996“Government Classification of Multiracial/Multiethnic People.” In The Multiracial Experience. Edited by RootM., Thousand Oaks: Sage.
32.
Flechman-SmithB.1984“Effects of Race on Adoption and Fostering,”International Journal of Social Psychiatry30(1–2):121–128.
33.
FolaronG.HessMcCartt P.1993“Placement Consideratios for Children of Mixed African American and Caucasian Parentage,”Child Welfare, 72(2):113–125.
34.
FredricksonG.1995“Demonizing the American Dilemma,”The New York Review of Books, Oct. 19.
35.
FrazierE.F.1957Black Bourgeoisie. New York: The Free Press.
36.
FrazierE.F.1939The Negro Family in the United States. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
37.
FrazierE.F.1932The Negro Family in Chicago. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
38.
GaborI.AldridgeJ.1996In the Best Interest of the Child, Culture, Identity and Transracial Adoption. London: Free Association Book.
39.
GellnerE, 1983Nations and Nationalism. Oxford: Blackwell.
40.
GillO.JacksonB.1983Black, Asian and Mixed Race Children. London: St. Martin's Press.
41.
GilroyP.1987There Ain't No Black in the Union Jack. London: Hutchinson.
42.
GitlinT.1994“Fragmentation of the Idea of the Left.” In Social Theory and the Politics of in White Families Identity. Edited by CalhounC., Cambridge: Blackwell.
GossettT.1965Race: The History of an Idea in America. New York: Schocken Books.
45.
GrahamS.1996“The Real World.” In The Multiracial Experience. Edited by RootM., Thousand Oaks: Sage.
46.
GriffithE.1995“Forensic and Policy Implications of the Transracial Adoption Debate,”Bulletin of the American Academy of Psychiatric Law, 23(4):501–511.
47.
GrowL.ShapiroD.1974Black Children, White Parents. New York: Child Welfare League of America.
48.
HayesP.1993“Transracial Adoption: Politics and Ideology,”Child Welfare, 72(3):301–310.
49.
HollingerD.1996Postethnic America. New York: Basic Books/Harper Collins.
50.
HortonJ.1995The Politics of Diversity: Immigration, Resistance and Change in Monterey Park, California. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
51.
Institute for the Study of Social Change1991Diversity Project, Final Report. Berkeley: University of California.
52.
JacobyR.1994“The Myth of Multiculturalism,”The New Left Review, 208 (November): 121–127.
53.
KimS.KimB.S.1979“Adoption of Korean Children by New York Area Couples,”Child Welfare, 5:419–427.
54.
LadnerJ.1977Mixed Families. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
55.
LalB.B.1995“Symbolic Interaction Theories,”American Behavioral Scientist, Special Issue, 38 (January):421–441.
56.
LalB.B.1992“Identity and Social Policy.” In Non-European Youth and the Process of Integration For a Tolerant Society. Edited by TomasiL., Trento, Italy: Reverdito Edizioni.
57.
LalB.B.1990“The Romance of Culture in an Urban Civilization.” In Race and Ethnic Relations in Cities. By ParkRobert E., London: Routledge.
58.
LalB.B.1987“Black and Blue in Chicago: Robert E. Park's Perspective on Race Relations in Urban America, 1914–1944,”British Journal of Sociology, 37 (December):546–566.
59.
LalB.B.1983“Perspectives on Ethnicity: Old Wine in New Bottles,”Ethnic and Racial Studies, 6(2):185–198.
60.
Forthcoming “Identity, Identity Entrepreneurs and Other Issues in Transracial and Intercountry Adoption,”Department of Sociology. UCLA.
61.
LeeDong Ok1992“Commodification of Ethnicity, The Socio-spatial Reproduction of Immigrant Entrepreneurs,”Urban Affairs Quarterly, 28(2):258–257.
62.
LightIvan1972Ethnic Enterprise in America: Business and Welfare Among Chinese, Japanese, and Blacks. Berkeley: University of California Press.
63.
LightIvanLeeC.1997“And Just Who Do You Think You Aren't?,”Society, 34(6):28–30.
64.
LiptonM.1986Apatlteid and Capitalism. Aldershot: Gower Press. Philadelphia:
65.
LopezD.1996“Language: Diversity and Assimilation.” In Ethnic Los Angeles. By WaldingerR.BozorgmehrM., New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
66.
Lythcott-HaimesJ.1994“Where do Mixed Babies Belong? Racial Classification in America and Its Implications for Transracial Adoption,”Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Lazo Review, 29:531–558.
67.
McAdooH.P.1997“Preface to the Third Edition.” In Black Fantilies. Edited by McAdooH. P., Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
68.
McRoyR.ZurcherL.1983Transracial and Inracial Adoptees: The Adolescent Years. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas.
69.
MandelaN.1994The Long Walk to Freedom. Boston, MA: Little Brown Company.
70.
MeierA.1964Negro Thought in America, 1880–1915: Race Ideologies in the Age of Booker T. Washington, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
71.
MillsC.W.1963“Situated Actions and Vocabularies of Motive.” In Power, Politics and People. New York: Ballantine.
72.
ModoodT.1992Not Easy Being British. Stoke-on Trent: Runnymede Trust and Trentham Books.
73.
ModoodT.1988“‘Black’, Racial Equality and Asian Identity,”New Connnunity, XIV(spring): 397–404.
74.
ModoodT.BeishonS.VirdeeS.1994Changing Ethnic Identities. London: Policy Studies Institute.
75.
MullenderA.1991“The Ebony Project-Bicultural Group Work with Transracial Foster Parents.” In Ethnicity and Biculturalism. London: The Hawroth Press.
76.
MyrdalG.1944An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and American Democracy. New York: Harper and Row.
77.
National Association of Black Social Workers1986“Preserving Black Families: Research and Action Beyond Rhetoric.” In Family Bonds. By BartholetE., New York: Hougton Mifflin.
78.
National Association of Black Social Workers1978“Transracial Adoption Update” New York Chapter, Social Work and Ethnicity, 78–79.
79.
O'BrianC.1994“Transracial Adoption in Hong Kong,”Child Welfare, 73(4):319–329.
80.
OsofskyGilbert1966Harlem: The Making of a Ghetto. New York: Harper & Row.
81.
PalmerR.1984“The Rise of the Britalian Culture Entrepreneur.” In Ethnic Communities in Business. By WardR.JenkinsR., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
82.
ParkinF.1979“Marxism and Class Theory: A Bourgeois Critique.” Reprinted in Social Stratification in Sociological Perspective. Edited by GruskyD., Boulder: Westview Press.
83.
PerryT.1990–1991“Race and Child Placement: The Best Interests Test and the Cost of Discretion,”Journal of Family Law, 29:51.
84.
PortesA., ed. 1995The Economic Sociology of Immigration: Essays on Networks, Ethnicity and Entrepreneurship. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
85.
PortesA.ZhouM.1993“The New Second Generation: Segmented Assimilation and Its Variants Among Post-1965 Immigrant Youth,”Annals, American Academy of Political Science, 530:74–98.
86.
PragerJ.1982“American Racial Ideology as Collective Representation,”Ethnic and Racial Studies, 5:100–119.
87.
RahdertP.1995“Transracial Adoption: A Constitutional Perspective,”Temple Law Review, 68:1687–1714.
88.
RhodesP.1992“The Emergence of a New Policy: Racial Matching in Fostering and Adoption,”New Community, 18(2):191–208.
89.
RichardsB.1987“Family, Race and Identity,”Adoption and Fostering;14(2):10–13.
90.
RoosensE.1989Creating Ethnicity, The Process of Ethnogenesis. London: Sage.
91.
RootM.P., ed. 1992Racially Mixed People in America. London: Sage.
92.
RootM.P.1996“A Bill of Rights for Racially Mixed People.” In The Multiracial Experience. London: Sage.
93.
SelmanP.1992“The Role and Responsibility of Receiving Countries in Safeguarding the Child.” Background Paper, BAAF, AGM Intercountry Adoption Seminar, London.
94.
SilvermanA.R.FeigelmanW.1990“Adjustment in Interracial Adoptees: An Overview.” In The Psychology of Adoption. By BrodzinskyD.SchechterM. D., Oxford: Oxford University Press.
95.
SimonR.1993aFamily Bonds: Adoption and the Politics of Parenting. New York: Praeger.
96.
SimonR.1993b“Transracial Adoption: Highlights of a Twenty-Year Study,”Reconstruction, 2:130–131.
97.
SimonR.AlsteinH.1996“The Case For Transracial Adoption,”Children and Youth Services Review, 18 (1–2):5–21.
98.
SimonR.AlsteinH.1992Adoption, Race and Identity: From Parenting through Adolescence. New York: Prager.
99.
SimonR.AlsteinH.1987Transracial Adoptees and Their Families. New York: Praeger.
100.
SimonR.AlsteinH.1981Transracial Adoption: A Follow-up. Lexington, MA.: Lexington Books.
101.
SimonR.AlsteinH.1977Transracial Adoption. New York: Wiley.
102.
SmallJ.1986“Transracial Placements: Conflicts and Contradictions.” In Social Work with Black Children and Their Families. Edited by CheethamA.SmallJ., London: Batsford.
103.
SmallJ.1982“New Black Families,”Adoption and Fostering, 6(3):3539.
104.
SpearA.1967Black Chicago: The Making of a Negro Ghetto, 1890–1920. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
105.
SpickardP.R.1989Mixed Blood: Intermarriage and Ethnic Identity in Twentieth Century America. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
StockingG.W.1968“Franz Boas and the Culture Concept in Historical Perspective.” In Race, Evolution and Culture. New York: Free Press.
108.
TakagiD.Y.1992The Retreat From Race, Asian-American Admissions and Racial Politics. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
109.
TakakiR.1994“Reflections on Racial Patterns in America.” In From Different Shores, Perspectives on Race and Ethnicity in America. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
110.
TakakiR.1993A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
111.
TilleyV.1997“The Terms of the Debate: Untangling Language About Ethnicity and Ethnic Movements,”Ethnic and Racial Studies, 20(3):497–522.
112.
TizardB.1990“Intercountry Adoption: A Review of the Evidence,”Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 32:743–56.
113.
TizardB.PhoenixA.1993Black, White Or Mixed Race?. New York: Routledge.
114.
TizardB.PhoenixA.1989“Black Identity and Transracial Adoption,”New Community, 15(3):427–437.
115.
UnzR.K.1997“Bilingual Education is a Damaging Myth,”Commentary, Los Angeles Times. Oct. 19. M5.
116.
VroeghK.1997“Transracial Adoptees: Developmental Status after 17 Years,”American Orthopsychiatric Association, 67(4):568–575.
117.
WaldingerR.1996Still the Promised City?: African-Americans in New York City. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
118.
WaldingerR.Bozorgmehr, eds. 1996Ethnic Los Angeles. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
119.
WallmanS.1984Eight London Households. London: Tavistock.
120.
WatersM.C.1990Ethnic Options. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
121.
WeberM.1946“Bureaucracy and Revolution.” In From Max Weber. By GerthH.MillsC.W., Oxford: Oxford University Press.
122.
WeilR. H.1984“International Adoption: The Quiet Migration”International Migration Review, 18(2):280–282.
123.
WilkinsR.1997“Arguing over 'Means we Forget ‘Ends’,”Opinion, Los Angeles Tunes, Dec. 7. 1M, 6M.
124.
WilsonJ.W.1996When Work Disappears. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
125.
WilsonJ.W.1987The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, The Underclass and Public Policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
126.
WilsonJ.W.1978The Declining Significance of Race: Blacks and Changing American Institutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
127.
ZhouM.1997“Growing Up American: The Challenge Confronting Immigrant Children and Children of Immigrants,”Annual Review of Sociology, 23:63–95.
