The thing that confuses me is that Irish Americans have similar stereotype plus "drunkards", but they are not "ethnic"

It's because they're whiter.

See also German Americans and Polish Americans.

At the math conference last month, I went to a talk about the Algebra Project [link] . One of the teachers brought in a few students to talk and answer questions about how they learned and what they liked about the program. Someone in the audience raised his hand and asked why, if this program was supposed to be for underprivileged kids, why was there only one black student in that group? The teacher had to explain that two Asian students, two Latino students, and one black student was a reasonable cross-section of a San Francisco public school classroom in a low-income neighborhood.

Yeah, I don't necessarily think Answers.com is the Last Word.

The teacher had to explain that two Asian students, two Latino students, and one black student was a reasonable cross-section of a San Francisco public school classroom in a low-income neighborhood.

@@

Man, I heart the Algebra Project. And not just because Bob Moses's sons were some of the best-looking guys I went to high school with.

This reminds me of PCU.

"Mayflower material, I presume?" "What?" "It's a boat. Your ancestors obviously weren't on it. Oh well, we'll take what we can get."

I originally read this as "drunkTards," and thought, dang, that's harsh.

For some reason the idea of me calling someone a "drunktard" is making me laugh ysterically. Possibly because I am drinking wine and posting about ethnicity.

Here's another one I don't get. I have heard many "ethnic" or polish/irish/german people of my aquaintance wonder why African-Americans and Indians don't just assimilate like they did and make the best of everything. And I start to think that it isn't really rocket science to figure out that either being forcibly taken over or forced into slavery is not the same think as coming to America thinking the streets are paved with gold and then being treated like crap. I mean, the treated like crap sucked but the other stuff was a whole different ballgame... the indians and enslaved blacks weren't immigrants!

I am absolutely going to start calling people drunktards, FYI.

It's also a little difficult when you are constantly reminded that you aren't the same, because you don't look the same. Humans are very lookist.

I've felt surprisingly ethnic in the midwest, just for the brown hair!

Humans are very lookist.

One of the first indications that my boss was less egalatarian than she seemed occured when she asked me if I had met a professor in our building. I though I had not. She said

"Well, M. is not a pretty woman, but she is very smart. I like her."

And I though, you know, I am not a pretty woman either... is that how she describes me to people?