Ethnocentrism

William Sumner said it best when he described ethnocentrism as “the technical name for this view of things in which one’s own group is the center of everything, and all others are scaled and rated with reference to it” (Sumner, 1906).Now, ethnocentric thinking is born, in the most basic form, from the belief in a useful quality in every person’s culture. This useful quality, or virtue as this paper will refer to it, can be one or many and about any area of society. When one identifies with this virtue because they have been taught to do so, they naturally reason at the most basic level of intercultural comprehension, if their way to think about a virtue is good, then any other way is bad. This is only a very simplistic example; however, it does demonstrate how ethnocentric opinions form in everyone, the difference being a person’s low or high-ethnocentric thought. This belief not only affects intercultural communications but also affects intra-cultural communications as well when it concerns micro-cultures within a larger society. The frame of reference that we use to view other societies outside of and within our own is colored by our degree of ethnocentrism. According to James Neuliep, “ethnocentrism fosters in group survival, solidarity, conformity, cooperation, loyalty, and effectiveness” (Neuliep, 2009).

The United States Congress passed its first piece of legislation concerning naturalization of foreign peoples in the new country. To this point, Congress only stated “…any alien, being a free white person, may be admitted to become a citizen of the United States” (TSL-EIF, 2008).However this could be done only after a period of two years residency. Until 1802, Congress passed laws every few years making it increasingly more difficult and complicated for aliens to become naturalized. In 1802, however, a new naturalization act made it significantly easier to become a citizen, decreasing the residency period from 14 years to only five (USCIS, 2006).It is