I first came across this term here. I have to say, that is some fascinating information they got there.
Wikipedia has an article on the term here. Frankly, I'm not sure the article does a good job explaining it.
Fortunately, I found this article, which does a great job at explaining it, and it goes like this:
“The ancestral race that an individual belongs to, as opposed to their current nationality. People derived from of a variety of ethnic origin types currently inhabit the United States, and which include white, black, American Indian, Asian, Pacific Islander and Eskimo.”
I have looked at Weblio, and it presents some options for translating:
- For “ethnic”, I could choose 民族, 民族の, 民族的な, 人種, 人種の, 人種的な, エスニック, and maybe some other terms I missed. I guess the tricky part here is deciding if “ethnic” is a noun or adjective in this context.
- For “origin”, I could choose 生まれ, 系の, 素姓, オリジン, and maybe some other terms I missed. I'm not entirely sure which term would be a good choice in this context.
I would really appreciate your help.