Causes Of Xenophobia In America

The U.S has a prolonged history of discrimination. In the late 17th century, when America declared as a free country, only the white gentility had the privileged of “freedom” and African American continue their life as slaves for many decades. As the country grows, it became a dream land, a refuge for immigrations fled from their country to seek freedom and pursuit happiness. However, the gene of discriminations stuck deeply in the mind of the early founding fathers; hence their descendents also obtained the hatred toward immigrations who look differently. In the late 1800s and the early 1900s, many immigrants such as the Jews, Chinese and Japanese immigrations came to America with the hope for

Everywhere you look at the United States you can find economic stratification. From the kind of vehicle you drive, to the kind of house you live in, to the kind of restaurants you eat at the most you will find economic stratification. Some might ask, does any of that truly matter today? Yes, unfortunately, it does. An important goal for most people is what’s referred to as The American Dream. Whether it is to attend a good college, get a respectable job, purchase the perfect house, and have a small family or maybe just to start your own business; that dream starts with wealth. People with more money will have an easier time with achieving the dream than a lower income person would. With wealth comes power and prestige as well. People with more money have better life chances because they can afford better healthcare, education, healthier food, and safer neighborhoods just to name a few things.

In Thomas Shapiro’s “The Hidden Cost of Being African American”, Shapiro goes in depth on how wealth in America is disproportionately dispersed between different nationalities. Mainly between Caucasians and African Americans. Shapiro has helped paint the image of wealth inequality and has shown how this is even more staggering than the wage gap between African Americans and Caucasians. Some of the theories he indirectly uses in his book and that I will be exemplifying are generational wealth and support systems, education, and the idea of how poverty only begets more poverty.

“The immigrants who arrived in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries were very different from the predominantly Protestant, northern European immigrants who came to America in the early to mid-1800s” (Laura Leddy Turner “Were Immigrants Discrimination in the late 1800s and Early 1900s?”). A cause for the immigrants to move to the U.S is “...either because of a crisis or forced removal by an outside force” (What are causes and effects of immigration, Reference). Some countries that people immigrated from are farther away than just Mexico that isn’t too far. “Between 1880 and 1924, about 25 million new immigrants came to the United States. Many came from countries in southern or eastern Europe such as Italy, Russia, Hungary, Greece, and Poland.” (Immigrants in America). Those individuals that immigrated from those countries are mainly who are being disrespected to. What also doesn’t help is the diseases people are being judged by, not just where they lived or what they have

America has a lengthy history on how it became the powerful country it is today, and although its history can be interrupted in many ways (depending who you ask) one thing that is for certain is that wealth has yet to be distributed equally amongst minorities. According to the article “Income inequality matter; Extreme gap in wealth makes society unstable.” Philip Meyer claims that the wealth gap between whites and minorities has existed since Ronald Reagans’ term of presidency (A9). Although Ronald Reagans’ term ended many years ago the mistakes that caused this imbalance of wealth (and its aftermath) while he was in office remains almost if not exactly the same as when the problem initially began (Meyer A9). The wealth gap continues to target minorities and is affecting our communities at an alarming rate, however, many attempts have been made to reduce its existence but the factors of income inequality, unemployment rates and discrimination before and after our recent 2007 recession prevents our country from eliminating such a toxic problem.

Economically speaking, not all men and women are created equal within America. After reading Doubly Divided, it is clear that white people have always maintained a wealthier status above non-white groups throughout this country’s history. Even in today’s society, many Native Americans, African Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans have high poverty rates and low valued assets when compared to whites, clearly exhibiting a racial wealth gap. However, the Federal Government has greatly contributed to this wealth gap over the last 200 years through a process I call the “take and prevent method”. For example, large amounts of land were taken from Native Americans and given to white farmers under the Homestead Act of 1862. With a major asset gone, the government prevented any further wealth accumulation by forcing Native Americans onto reservations, using corrupted trust fund accounts, and assimilating them into white culture (through the 1887 Dawes Act). As an additional example, the discontinuation of the Freedman’s Bureau and an overturned civil rights act meant that African Americans had their land and rights to ownership taken away as well. And as a measure of prevention, governmental programs such as unemployment, Social Security, and

Racism has always been a big factor in the United States, less so in the 21st century but ever so present. This issue resulted in the longest and biggest human massacre in history, followed by decades of discrimination and horrific acts of abuse that are a reality until this day.

“The United States is a nation where people are supposed to be able to rise above their origins. Those who want to succeed, it is believed, can do so through hard work and solid effort.” (Andersen, pg 1) If this was only true we would live in a world in which we would all prosper based on how hard we work. The truth of the matter is that income inequality and institutional classism were simply built into the sheer fabric of this nation. Income inequality has affected many in the United States. For many the American Dream is simply that a dream.

Racism has been in the American history since the European colonization of North America started in the seventeenth century. Different groups of people have endured the worst part of it, shown in unfair laws, social practices, and criminal conduct coordinated toward an objective gathering. Prejudice against the black people was seen when a large number of the Africans were shipped to America. The

In the 21st century, the American media has portrayed the wealth inequality in the United States in a very black and white way. Poverty has become an ongoing problem and has accelerated the appalling wealth divide. In 2010, the poverty rate in the U.S. reached fifteen percent which was the highest it had reached in almost two decades. Obligations to providing equality and adequate living conditions have been removed; there is no more “moral code or ethical principle” that can be used to contradict this growing American atrocity. On one side of the spectrum there is the upper class, the esteemed one percent of the social hierarchy in our country; however, on the other side there is the desolate and extreme poor that are constantly being used

Economically, there is a deep seeded gap between African Americans and Caucasians in modern era. Michael Genovese argues that “in the United States, corruption and reform more often exact their costs in the form of reduced competition in both politics and the economy” (14). It is about reducing competition, or ,in other words, reducing the amount of economic opportunity to grow one’s wealth. Through slavery and segregation, the African American community had no ability to grow as they were not only physically but economically as well. This idea of corruption reducing competition can be seen in the economic gap that is shown between African Americans and Caucasians.Taking a look at this statistic that was found in “The Racial Wealth Gap” a Forbes article by Laura Shin, “the median white household had $111,146 in wealth holdings in 2011, compared to $7,113 for the median black household and $8,348 for the median Latino household”. Oppression of African Americans can not be the sole reason for this disparaging difference, but perceptions of African Americans can definitely be a factor to not allow the same opportunities as others, reducing the likelihood gaining individual wealth. Through these statistics, the oppression of the past is highly likely to be a key factor in the maltreatment and disproportionate distribution of wealth in regards to African Americans. The attitudes that have been pasted

In America after World War two, citizens were split between classes based on their economic stability. Americans today still look at these classes and defines these people as better off or worse off than the next person. Why do people judge others for having less money than them? Why do employers send lower class citizen away when they need the money the most? These are some question that citizens in the lower or lower middle class have when they are looking at their position in America’s economic system. Research shows that lower class citizens face more hardships to better their lives than those who are more stable.

In the last few decades, the American have become proud of the American Dream, which they believe in coming true, as one working hard now will have a glossy life in the future. However, there is a wonder whether the American is living in the American Dream while the inequality still exists in American society. To get the answer, there are two helpful articles: “What Ever Happened to Upward Mobility?” by Rana Foroohar and “The Trouble with Diversity” by Walter Benn Michaels. These articles talk about and give the ideas to solve that wonder in different ways. In his article, Michaels shows economic inequality has the common factors as the racism in somehow, and now it becomes more popular. He says the difference between the rich and the

Racism is a particular form of oppression and did not always exist among mankind. It has obstructed the idea in America

We are a country built by immigrants. The original settlers of this nation came from countries all across Europe, and America later became a beacon of hope for millions of immigrants throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. That being said, the discrimination against immigrants today might be could be seen as ironic because of how many immigrants were welcomed with open arms in the past. However, it has become clear recently that the discrimination is a little bit more complicated, as mainstream examples of prejudice all involve people of color, like Trump’s muslim ban for example. White immigrants from places in Europe as usually seen as exotic in a positive light, and their accented non-perfect english is endearing and even attractive to some. On the other hand,