The New Immigration And The Upheaval Of The Civil Rights Movement

The book has as its principal thesis the consideration of race as “a folk classification, a product of popular beliefs about human differences that evolved from 16th to 19th centuries” (Smedley, 2007, pag.24). The book also specifies three characteristics that distinguish the racial ideology in America: the absence of a category for biracial people, the homogenization of the black or African American Americans, and the impossibility to change a person’s race. (Smedley, 2007, pag.7)

Culture is the Backbone of a society, when something/someone tries to alter it or go against it everyone will notice. In this issue pointed out by Ruth Macklin, we look at the problems that can arise when an individual’s culture and autonomy clash. Every year there at least 30 million immigrants from all over the world that move to the United states of America, making America one of the most culturally diverse country in the world. Keeping this in mind, we will focus on Ruth Macklin’s issue of Multiculturalism. Multiculturalism is the co-existence of diverse cultures, where culture includes racial, religious, or cultural groups and is manifested in customary behaviors, cultural assumptions and values, patterns of thinking, and communicative styles. Critics argue that we associate culture with a society, community and or family, but rarely with a single individual, thus placing it above the individual person. In this paper we are going to look at four different scenarios on from Ruth Macklin’s article.

In 1960, there were tremendous of social ferment that was responsible for agitation and protest. Through direct protest, many African Americans, women, and homosexuals were able to gain recognition and break down the walls of discrimination and segregations. Out of the numerous elements that arose in the 1960s, there are three movements that truly affected the American society. Firstly, the rise of the civil rights movement was greatly influenced by racial discrimination of colored people in the South. Secondly, the women’s movement aimed to convince the society that women are capable of achieving and maintaining higher waged job like males. Lastly, the gay rights movement aimed to gain acceptance and stop discrimination of homosexuality. The most significant effect on the development of American society was the women’s movement and how they expanded their economic and political opportunities. The common goal among African Americans, women’s, and homosexuals was to obtain their equal rights as citizens of America and to desegregate all the boundaries between white and black population.

Defining what really is to be an American does not sound as easy as it seem. It will always be complex process. As immigration continues to fuel the growth of the population of our nation, racial and ethnic gap increase and evolve along with it. Racial and ethnic identities become more and more convoluted and difficult to understand. Race and ethnicity continue to intermingle and push a cultural shift in the US– a shift that plays a significant role in redefining America in a day-to-day basis.

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

Social movements are one of the primary means through which the public is able to collectively express their concerns about the rights and wellbeing of themselves and others. Under the proper conditions, social movements not only shed light on issues and open large scale public discourse, but they can also serve as a means of eliciting expedited societal change and progress. Due to their potential impact, studying the characteristics of both failed and successful social movements is important in order to ensure that issues between the public and the government are resolved to limit injustices and maintain societal progress.

Our individual characteristics and traits are what initiates change and drives society, yet in our society in which individuality doesn’t seem to exist these days. where is an individualist is something what we call an outcast or not normal. In two articles by Kenji Yoshino "Preface" and "The New Civil Rights Movement", Yoshino discusses how he believes that people “cover” or hide their real identity so they will fit into the so called “norms” of our society. Yoshino supports his argument by ethos, he also uses his own personal experiences, he also uses pathos, and he uses examples, facts and data to get his point across. It is this individuality that fuel society and is present in every aspect of it. Culture, a significant part of society,

Matthew Frye Jacobson’s Whiteness of a Different Color offers innovative insight into the concept of “race” and the evolution of “whiteness” throughout American history. Jacobson focuses his analysis on the instability of racial identification over time and how race has been created and perceived throughout different stages of history. He states in his introduction that “one of the tasks before the historian is to discover which racial categories are useful to whom at a given moment, and why” (p.9) and while he is successful in some respects, his analysis is somewhat incomplete in providing a full scope of the power relations that created, altered and maintained racial identities in the United States. While Jacobson offers a detailed

“But on other levels, James’s gaze at “new immigrants” a racially inflected term that categorized the numerous newcomers from southern and eastern Europe as different both from the whiter and longer established northern and western Europe migrants to the United States and from the nonwhite Chinese and other “Asiatics” opened for him new possibilities and alien drama”, stated by Roediger (2005, 5 & 6). With white’s being on top of everything and the new immigrants are not being accepted very easy as to pass under the government’s regulations, it makes them confused of what they are really supposed to be and what identity they belong

The Mexican American battle for civil rights has been long and difficult but alas necessary. Can you imagine living in a prejudice environment and as consequence not being able to exercise your rights as a citizen? The past notion of minorities not having the same rights as the anglo majorities is simply absurd. The injustice that Mexican Americans have experienced in the past is undeniably discriminatory. Justice and reasoning played an important part over the years in dismantling such bigotry. A few notable figures, movements, and court cases in Mexican American history that helped pave the way for obtaining civil rights include: George I. Sanchez,

Lawrence W. Levine approaches the issue of ethnic relations in a slightly different light in his book, “The Opening of the American Mind”. He focuses on the two central components of the entire matter: One-way Assimilation (the melting pot ideology) and Cultural Pluralism, given that the two other models (Ethnic

As a Mexican-American, Du Bois’ quote, “What after all, am I? Am I an American or am I Negro? Can I be both?” (1897) is something I have personally struggled with all my life. This question can be answered in two different time periods. To Du Bois the ideal, what Negroes should strive for, would be to be both. But in his time this was impossible due to institutionalized and taught racism. Today I feel like it is possible to be both; however it is not exactly what I feel Du Bois had in mind. Du Bois argues in his book The Souls of Black Folk, that the gap between being black and American is far too wide. This is not an unjustified view especially in his time period, where laws were set in place purposely to prevent equality of the freedman. But even today, where those laws are no longer in place, a non-white American is too ethnic to be American and is simultaneously too American to be ethnic. Du Bois entertains the idea of a Negro being both black and American but unfortunately his blackness cannot be unseen. However from personal experience, I am convinced that today ethnic Americans have created their own identity where they are not exclusively either, and they are not both, they are their own individual category. Not black or white, or black and white, but grey. In this essay I will explore what race is, whiteness, and blackness. Within the discussion of race, I will

interviews of people who have or know people who have experienced historical events of the past. For this essay, I chose to take an oral history of the civil rights movement and the great migration. Preserving the memories of the individuals that lived during these historical events allows for many things in addressing the silence of African American experiences within U.S. History. First, memories and recollections taken from oral histories may differ from the perspectives of those who have appear on historical records or may be completely absent from any other documentations. Also, because cameras and video cameras were not as easily accessible as they are today, the majority of history is documented from peoples’ memories through letters, diaries, and oral history interviews. In addition, taking an oral history allows me to ask specific questions towards what I am are interested in documenting about the civil rights movement and the great migration. Lastly, oral histories are somewhat viewed as a “revisionist” to the study of both the civil rights movement and the great migration because it takes firsthand accounts of those participating on campaigns and protests and also of those were watching from afar and allows readers to understand each individual part of what made the movement as a whole.

By the end of the war, the new immigrant groups had been fully accepted as loyal ethnic Americans, rather than members of distinct and inferior “races.” And the contradiction between the principle of equal freedom and the actual status of blacks had come to the forefront of national life.

The increasing accommodations directed toward immigrant culture worries many Americans. Americans fear the special treatment granted to immigrants will affect the unifying force of the country. Today, the trend is toward multiculturalism, diversity and adapting the newcomer, rather than on the newcomer adapting himself or herself to a diverse society (61).