Problem:
Race is a socially constructed system that attaches meaning to perceived bodily differences and ranks groups in hierarchies that organize power and resources. Ethnicity refers to shared ancestry, language, traditions, and collective memory that can exist within or across racial lines. Culture is the learned web of values, beliefs, and practices through which groups make sense of the world and act within it. In early America, encounters between dominant Anglo-American institutions and subordinated Indigenous, African, Mexican, and Chinese communities were shaped by four interlocking processes: colonization that remade land and governance; displacement and diaspora that moved peoples and reallocated space; cultural hegemony that taught the public to see hierarchy as normal; and conditional assimilation that permitted limited inclusion while preserving inequities. Together these processes converted Indigenous territory and nonwhite labor into the engine of U.S. expansion, even when marginalized groups strategically adopted elements of the dominant culture. From the Revolution through the 1830s, U.S. officials advanced a "civilization" policy urging Indigenous nations to adopt private landholding, Christianity, English literacy, and agrarian patriarchy. Cherokee illustrates selective assimilation as a survival strategy: Sequoyah's syllabary supported a Cherokee-language press; a national constitution formalized governance; and schools taught bilingual literacy. Need Assignment Help?