Ethnicity

 edited by Celeste Ray

 

“For newcomers, natives, and anyone else, this volume on ethnicity in the U.S. South is at once eye-opening, thorough, and engrossing. Varieties and changes as well as enduring patterns are plumbed, enriching and informing our often simplistic views of a complex region. This is a landmark work."

— James Peacock, author of Grounded Globalism: How the U.S. South Embraces the World and coeditor of The American South in a Global World

Transcending familiar categories of “black” and “white,” this volume of The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture complicates and enriches our understanding of “southernness” by identifying the array of cultures that combined to shape the region. This exploration of southern ethnicities examines the ways people perform and maintain cultural identities through folklore, religious faith, dress, music, speech, cooking, and transgenerational tradition.

Accessibly written and informed by the most recent research that recovers the ethnic diversity of the early South and documents the more recent arrival of new cultural groups, this volume greatly expands upon the modest Ethnic Life section of the original Encyclopedia. Contributors describe eighty-eight ethnic groups that have lived in the South from the Mississippian Period (1000 – 1600) to the present. They include thirty-four American Indian groups, as well as the many communities with European, African, and Asian cultural ties that came to the region after 1600. Southerners from all backgrounds are likely to find themselves represented here.

Celeste Ray is associate professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. She has published four previous books, including Highland Heritage: Scottish Americans in the American South.

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

  • Ethnicity and Creolization
    ____________________________
  • American Indians
  • Europeans
  • Historic African Ethnicities
  • Latinos
  • South and East Asian Ethnicities
  • Southern Appalachia and Mountain People
  • Southerners
    _____________________________

  • Afro-Cubans

  • Alabama-Coushattas

  • Appalachian African Americans

  • Barbadians

  • Black Seminoles

  • Brass Ankles/Redbones

  • Caddos

  • Cajuns

  • Cambodians

  • Canary Islanders (Isleños)

  • Catawbas

  • Cherokees, Eastern Band

  • Cherokees, Prior to Removal

  • Chickasaws

  • Chickasaws in the 20th century

  • Chinese

  • Chitimachas

  • Choctaws

  • Coharies

  • Conchs

  • Coonasses

  • Coushattas

  • Creoles

  • Cubans

  • Czechs

  • English

  • French

  • Germans

  • Greeks

  • Guatemalan Mayans

  • Gullahs

  • Haitians

  • Haliwa-Saponis

  • Hmong

  • Houmas

  • Huguenots

  • Hungarians of Livingston Parish, Louisiana

  • Igbos

  • Indians (East)

  • Irish, Contemporary

  • Irish, Historic

  • Italians

  • Jena Band Choctaws

  • Jews

  • Jews, Sephardic

  • Kickapoos

  • Koreans

  • Lumbees

  • Meherrins

  • Melungeons

  • Mestizos

  • Mexicans

  • Minorcans

  • Monacans

  • Moravians

  • MOWA Choctaws

  • Muskogees (Creeks)

  • Natchez

  • Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Indians

  • Ozarkers

  • Poarch Creeks

  • Powhatans

  • Puerto Ricans

  • Quapaws

  • Romanies

  • Russians

  • Salzburgers

  • Sapponys

  • Scots, Highland

  • Scots-Irish

  • Seminoles and Miccosukees

  • Shawnees

  • Spanish

  • Swiss

  • Syrians and Lebanese

  • Texans

  • Tigua Indians of Ysleta del Sur Pueblo

  • Travellers

  • Tunica-Biloxi

  • Turks

  • Tuscaroras

  • Vietnamese

  • Waccamaw-Siouans

  • Waldensians

  • West Indians

  • Wichitas

  • Yorubas

  • Yuchis