The Division Between Race and Ethnicity in Malaysia

Photo by CEphoto, Uwe Aranas / CC-BY-SA-3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

To be honest, I too sometimes get mixed up and confused between the term race and ethnicity. As a local Malaysian myself who gets confused with this, I decided to write a short post for you readers to allow you all to try to get a clearer picture between the two terms.

So what is race? What is ethnicity? How are they viewed in Malaysia?

Race is a major ethnic component and within each of these major component, there are also different ethnic groups. For example, the Chinese race comprise of different ethnic components. For example, Hakka, Cantonese, Hokkien and Teochew. Another example would be the Indian race which includes ethnic components such as Tamil, Malayi, Telugu and Bengali.

The multiple ethnic groups present in Malaysia however, are placed in a division that is slightly different. The multiple ethnic groups instead are grouped under one major component known as Bumiputeras which is equivalent to Chinese, Malay and Indian. The term Bumiputeras can literally be translated as "son of the soil" or also as "son of the land". Each of the ethnic group have a common national or cultural tradition. Examples of the ethnic groups in Malaysia includes the Kadazans, Muruts, Bajaus, Ibans and Bidayuhs (over 40 ethnic groups). They are found mainly in East Malaysia in the states of Sabah and Sarawak.

I hope you enjoyed my short piece!

#race #ethnicity #malaysianculture #malaysia #bumiputera