How America's Immigrants Became White

A majority of people here in the United States have felt a touch of the issues, that come with classification of race. Due to this, many men and women of the minority racial groups are put in to sub-groups as a way to “help” give them an identity that can relate to. This idea to separate people by giving them identities is called the Racial Formation Theory. First introduced by Michael Omi and Howard Winant, the theory is a tool that helps build the idea that race is a social contracted tool where your racial status is weighed upon by many factors such as by those social, economic and political origin. By using race a way to build lines and boundaries, this has resulted in causing a rift to grow between the majority and minority

To begin with, racism in America towards immigrants is a strong factor that perpetuates the non-acceptance of immigrants in society. “‘In The Psychology of Skin Color’(Gaborro, 2008) Rondilla and Spickard contend that it was at the time of the American colonial occupation that ‘racial marking of a biological sort’ was intensified ‘in support of United States colonial domination.’”

This book also attempts to explore how social and cultural forces encourage white people to expend time and energy on the creation and re-creation of whiteness. Whiteness is invested in, like property, but it is also a means of accumulating property and keeping it from others. This book in response to the crisis that confronts us in regard to race.

Racial Formation in the United States by Michael Omi and Howard Winant made me readjust my understanding of race by definition and consider it as a new phenomenon. Through, Omi and Winant fulfilled their purpose of providing an account of how concepts of race are created and transformed, how they become the focus of political conflict, and how they shape and permeate both identities and institutions. I always considered race to be physical characteristic by the complexion of ones’ skin tone and the physical attributes, such as bone structure, hair texture, and facial form. I knew race to be a segregating factor, however I never considered the meaning of race as concept or signification of identity that refers to different types of human bodies, to the perceived corporal and phenotypic makers of difference and the meanings and social practices that are ascribed to these differences, in which in turn create the oppressing dominations of racialization, racial profiling, and racism. (p.111). Again connecting themes from the previous readings, my westernized influences are in a direct correlation to how to the idea of how I see race and the template it has set for the rather automatic patterns of inequalities, marginalization, and difference. I never realized how ubiquitous and evolving race is within the United States.

During the late 1800s, inhabitants from all parts of the world made the decision to leave their jobs and homes to immigrate to the United States. They fled rising taxes, famine, crop failure, land and job shortages, to come to the United States. Perceived to be one of the greater countries for economic opportunity, many sought freedom from religious and political persecution. Around twelve million immigrants arrived in the United States between 1870 and 1900. Before the Civil War, the majority of immigrants were from Germany, Ireland, and England. There would be a drastic change in the next three decades. After the Civil War, immigrants

Joseph Healey’s “From Immigrants to White Ethnics” is a generalized comparison between the varying groups of individuals that accompanied the colossal waves of immigration to the United States from Europe in the nineteenth century. Immigration to this country resulted from a number of reason such as religious persecution, individuals seeking to find employment after industrialization in their home countries limited their livelihood, and political oppositions to name a few. On arrival the immigrants knew immediately they were of the subordinate group and faced “discrimination and prejudice” (Healey, 2012, p. 54), although some more so than others. Among the first immigrants to arrive in the United States were Northern and Western European citizens. Unlike the immigrants from Ireland and Southern and Eastern Europe that chose the United States for their new homeland these individuals were probably the most accepted by the majority, even if considered just nominally superior to the others. Included in this group were the “English, Germans, Norwegians, Swedes, Welsh, French, Dutch and Danes” (Healey, 2012, p. 56). This acceptance was due in part to the similarities that the dominate group held as ideals such as their religion, along with cultural values and characteristics. If the Northern and Western Europeans found acceptance difficult, individuals from Ireland and the Europeans from the south and east had an even more traumatic experience. Whereas the more accepted group had

In Jan Arminio’s article, “Waking Up White,” (2010) she discusses her journey of self-discovery. She claims discovery of identity didn’t happen until after the birth of her children. In high school, college, and adulthood she acknowledges being naively racist although not directly demonstrated. She asserts that her behavior was due to her need to reassert her dominate role and each race has a role to play. After going back to school for her doctoral degree and the birth of Jan’s children she went through an identity shift. She analyzed the history of whites plus blacks and discovered white people created the term to serve their own personal agendas. Supporting this idea through the findings of race being a social construction that holds back society. In must order to better understand her own race Jan

How race determined who was in and who was out. As Dickerson states “if race is real and not just a method for the haves to decide who will be have-nots, then all Europeans immigrants, from Ireland a to Greece, would have been “white” the moment they arrived here. Instead, as documented in David Roediger’s excellent Working Towards Whiteness, they were long considered inferior, nearly subhuman, and certainly not white” (69). This shows how race wasn’t about common culture or history but a concept to decide what race is good enough to be consider “white” or better than others. Even though the Europeans where the same race or color of the other people who considered themselves Americans or “white” they were still discriminated for being different and immigrants like everybody else. But soon they realized that identifying them self as being white gave them some sort of hierarchy. It gave them more class compared to the other races. As Debra Dickerson said, “If you were neither black nor Asian nor Hispanic, eventually you could become white, invested with enforceable civil rights and the right to exploit-and hate-nonwhites” (69). Being identify as white gave the power to have privileges that non-whites will never have since they are not the same color. Non- whites are treated unfairly compared to the white people in many ways. Discrimination not only took place between people of different races but

Working Towards Whiteness is about immigrants who are coming to the United States during the twentieth century and struggling to become white. This is because America has this identity of being white and the new immigrants are facing the problem of fitting in based on their race and class. The states have applied restriction so that they can preserve the population to be more white. In Roediger historical studies he brings these practices to light and his goals to draw attention to the biased white supremacist policy of the government in the regulations of immigration. Roediger most evident strength would be that he has the adaptation of the “in-between” status of the new immigrants coming in, which they are neither accepted as white neither can they be able to identify themselves as their pre-existing background.

Traditional historiographies of whiteness in the United States emphasize the critical examination and reorganization of the persistent racial discrimination constructed from the problem of white identity. Lipsitz investigates the racialized structure of contemporary America and unveils

He states that online social marketing networks have provided the media for exposure to a global audience and has bred an unprecedented cultural confidence in its black originators. No longer do people of color have to strive to be identified as white to afford the opportunities that were associated with being white (e.g., better paying jobs, education, homeownership, etc.) to change their socio-economic status in life. White is no longer a threat or an ideal. The rise to mega wealth by people of color or ethnicity through sports and music has enabled them to move into social circles previously occupied by only the privileged upper white class. Minorities and immigrants no longer care about assimilating white American culture and behavior but are remaking culture in the image of white America’s multiethnic, multicolored heirs. Again, Hsu identifies this as a shift of white power and incorporates alarmist statements into his article such as warning that “colored migration is a universal peril, menacing every part of the white world.” He uses the election of Barack Obama as an example of the gradual erosion of “whiteness” in America and refers to whiteness as the touchstone of what it means to be an American.

Since the beginning of time, individuals have been discriminated against based on their religion, culture, race, and sexual orientation. The article “How Did Jews Become White Folks?” by Karen B. Brodkin highlighted the struggles that European immigrants, Jews, and African Americans faced in the United States pre and post World War II. In her article Brodkin focused on the idea of “whiteness” in America, and how the word has evolved over time to include a variety of ethnicities.

Since the start of time, there has been individuals in society that have been discriminated against based on their religion, culture, race, and sexual orientation. The article “How Did Jews Become White Folks?” by Karen B. Brodkin highlighted the struggles that European immigrants, Jews, and African American faced in the United States pre and post World War two. Brodkin focused in on the idea of “whiteness” in America, and how the word has evolved overtime to include a variety of ethnicities.

In the book Proud Shoes, Pauli Murray writes about her family’s mixed race history and how the history of the United States with racism, specifically the south, affected her family’s history. She writes about the struggle with identity a lot of her family members faced. The book highlights how the time period and the history of the country that someone lives in has a great deal of impact on their lives. My family moved to the United States in 2002; a great time for immigrants because of the recent passing of the Immigration Act of 1990. The passage of this law created the Diversity Visa program, which is a lottery that allows immigrants into the United States from underrepresented countries.

I have to disagree. I feel that from the very beginning, white people came to America and took over and margionalized everyone around them making whites the stronger race. The reason why there is such segration between our races is because white people made the segregation. White people are the majority in charge and have not done much to level the playing field in a way where eveyone has access to better education, health care, and more. To say that whites don't bear any responsibility I personally feel is a very ignorant way of viewing it.