Ethnic and Racial Assimilation

I.      A Historical Perspective

1. Most immigrants landed at the five American po

rts: New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore a

nd New Orleans.

2. Three immigration waves:

1820-1860; 5 million

1861-1880; 5 million

1881-1920; 23 million

3. Restricting the unlimited numbers of immigrants

Racist groups such as the Ku Klux

Klan and the Immigration Restriction

League

The Reed-Johnson Immigration Act of

1924: with quotas on nations of origin

4. two large bodies of immigrants

1) refugees: in 1959 and 1980,

810,000 Cuban refugees; after the

Vietnam War, 750,000 refugees

from Indo-China area

2) Illegal immigrants: more than 4 m

illion illegal immigrants, most of

whom have Mexican origin

5. Brain drain —another symptom of the unequal distribution of world resources.

It resulted from immigration, and refers to the immigration to the US of skilled workers, professionals, and technicians who are desperately needed by their home countries.

6. Some legislative documents have remapped the order of American immigration policies:

1) The Immigration Act of 1965

2) The Refugee Act of 1980

3) The Immigration Act of 1990

4) the Illegal Immigration Act of

1996

5) The USA Patriot Act of 2001

7. The color composition of the US is chang

ing

The US population has amounted to 300

million in Oct. 2006; now minority group

s make up 26%; by 2050 the proportion

may rise to 40%.

8. What is race?

A race is a statistical aggregate of people who share a composite of genetically transmissible physical traits, such as: skin pigmentation, head form, facial feature, stature, and the color, distribution and texture of body hair…

Estimates of racial types range from

three --- Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and

Negroid --- to thirty or more. Many

social or economic problems in the US

are generally mentioned in racial

terms today.

9. What is ethnicity?

Ethnicity involves having a unique

social and cultural heritage that is

passed on from one generation to

another.

Ethnic groups are often identified by

distinctive patterns of language,

family life, religion, recreation, and

other customs that differentiate them

from other groups.

II. Ethnic and Racial Diversity

1. The establishment of the dominant culture

1) The successful transplanting the English language and laws, Protestant ethics, European social customs, and economic mechanism.

2) Native Americans were subjected to a continuing series of attacks: the takeover of ancestral lands, racially inspired killings, confinement on white-controlled reservations, bureaucratic manipulation by governmental agencies.

3) The dominant culture was English-speaking, Western European, Protestant, and middle class in character. Americans were called WASPs---White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. These characteristics became the standard for judging other groups.

4) Assimilation stressed the denial of ethnic difference and the forgetting of cultural practices in favor of Americanization which emphasized that one language should dominate as a guard against diverse groups falling outside the social concerns and ideological underpinnings of American society.

5) two ways of assimilating the new immigrants:

First, to offer English classes and teach them basic American beliefs.

Second, the system of “political bosses”. These bosses saw to many of the practical needs of the immigrants, and expected the immigrants to vote for them in elections.

2. The African American experience No other group entered the society so

completely as involuntary immigrants, and was subjected to such fully institutionalized degradation.

Between 1619 and 1860 some 400,000 blacks were transported from Africa to the USA.

1) Consequences of slavery

A. Little in the way of specific African

practices, institutions, customs or

beliefs survived.

B. Slavery weighs so heavily on the blac

k experience that its lingering effects c

ontinue to make blacks a special group

in the American ethnic hierarchy.

2) The Jim Crow measures were designed to separate whites and blacks in almost all areas of social life: housing, work, education, health care, transportation, leisure, and religion. Racial segregation was maintained by both force and ideology.

3) Some Black figures to be remembered

Mrs. Rosa Parks’ defiance (on Dec. 1, 1955) led to organization of the Montgomery Improvement Association, headed by 26-year-old Martin Luther King, Jr.

From the late 1950s to 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. led thousands of black Americans in nonviolent marches and demonstrations against segregation and racial discrimination. His goal was to bring about greater assimilation of black people into the larger American culture.

Malcolm X, urged a rejection of basic American values and complete separation of blacks from the white culture. He believed that blacks must build their own society based on values that they would create for themselves.

Louis Farrakhan, a new black Muslim leader, advocated in the 1990s that blacks separate themselves from the hostile white culture instead of trying to become a part of it. Many young blacks are searching for a separate African-American identity.

4) Changes for Black Americans

A. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Right Act of 1965 helped to bring about a significant degree of assimilation of blacks into the larger American culture. Most important, the laws eventually helped to reduce the amount of white prejudice toward black people in all parts of the country.

B. African-Americans hold offices in all levels of government----local, state and national. They are sports and entertainment heroes, university professors, medical doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs and reporters. There is a sizable black middle class.

C. Inequality remains in all sectors, and

there is still a gulf between the races.

Many blacks are trapped in cycles of

poverty, unemployment, violence and

despair in the inner city.

3. Hispanic Americans

Hispanic Americans constitute several distinct ethnic groups, linked by a shared language and a cultural heritage derived from Spanish colonialism. The most sizable groups are Mexican Americans the largest, followed by Puerto Ricans and Cubans.

1) The Development of the Hispanic Minority

A. Mexican Americans

Mexican American, Mexican, Chicano, Latino, Hispano, Spanish-American, and Latin American have all been used at one time or another and have been applied to the same group in different regions.

Mexico gained its independence from Spain in1810, and its territory at that time encompassed an area as far north as what is today Colorado.

The Mexican War in 1848 proved disastrous for Mexico, for it lost more than half its territory.

The overwhelming majority of

Mexican Americans entered the US as

voluntary immigrants during the 19th

and 20th centuries, pulled by the labor

needs of the American Southwest.

The vast majority of Mexicans tod

ay are racial hybrids. Most Mexica

n immigrants to the US have been

mestizos.

They live mainly in the 5

southwestern states of California,

Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and

Colorado. 80% of them live in

urban areas.

Mexicans are the country’s largest

immigrant group, and their numbe

rs are swelled by a continual flow

of illegal entrants.

B. Puerto Ricans in the US Puerto Rico became a territory of the

US in 1898 following the Spanish- American War, and in 1917 the inhabitants of the island were given the status of American citizenship.

Puerto Ricans are not technically immigrants, even though they come to the mainland from a distinctly alien culture.

The greatest influx occurred during the 1950s, when nearly 20% of the island’s population moved to the mainland.

Two factors: citizenship rights (with no restrictions, quotas, or other legal steps) and airline service (cheap and rapid).

Almost two-thirds of them in the mainland US live in New York City.

C. Cubans in the US

Cubans are the least racially

heterogeneous, most of them are “white”.

The movement of Cubans to the US has

been a voluntary immigration mainly by

political rather than economic motives.

Most immigrants from 1960s to 1970s were middle-, upper-middle, or upper-class people and white in color, who were permitted to enter the US as refugees without restriction.

Many of the Cuban immigrants in the 1980s were black or mulatto.

About two-thirds of the entire

Cuban-American population

(600,000) reside in the Miami area.

2) The Socioeconomic Status of Hispanics

Hispanics occupy an intermediate position, below European ethnic groups, but, in some ways, above blacks, with Cubans at the top, Mexicans in the middle, and Puerto Ricans at the bottom.

Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans have displayed minimal entrance into the mainstream economy at its higher levels, and both groups are over-represented among the American poor.

Three factors to explain their low position

First, lack of skills;

Second, employment discrimination against Hispanics ;

Third, language difficulties, education and age.

The Cuban immigrants differ from

other Hispanics in social origin.

First, their high occupational skills and

educational levels have translated into

rapid upward mobility in the US.

Second, most Cuban immigrants are whit

e, and have not been exposed to the ad

ded handicap of racial discrimination i

n the labor market.

3) Hispanics and Societal Power Hispanics are in a less developed

stage of political participation than are Blacks, and almost totally absent from top positions in any institutional area.

Tactics are used to prevent Hispanics, as well as other minority groups, from voting, such as the poll tax, gerrymandering of ethnic districts, literacy tests, intimidation, and even violence.

The level of prejudice and discrimination directed at Hispanics has not been as intense as that experienced by blacks but has been much more severe than that suffered by European ethnic groups.

Hispanics have displayed a lower

degree of cultural assimilation.

Retention of the Spanish language is

particularly strong among Hispanic

households.

4) The predicament of Hispanics By the year 2010, if not before,

Hispanics are expected to outnumber African American and replace them as the largest US minority group.

This shift has provoked calls for immediate curtailment of immigration from Latin countries, for it has become a menace to Anglo-Saxon civilization and racial homogeneity/purity.

The real distress is in the Puerto Rican

community, where a large number of

people display a profile closer to poor

American Blacks. They have been

mired in a destructive culture of

dependency.

Mexican-Americans were never legally prohibited from voting or attending school with whites, but widespread anti-Mexican sentiment meant that the door to better jobs and better neighborhoods was closed to them.

The real problem is that, like other Hispanic groups, Mexicans hesitatingly becoming part of the social, political and cultural fabric of the US. Fewer than 1 in 5 Mexican-Americans chooses to acquire American citizenship.

Another threat to assimilation is the bilingual instruction in American public schools. The question is whether the public schools can serve as the main instrument of assimilation for the millions of Hispanic youngsters.

4. Asian Americans

Asian Americans have typically been volunt

ary immigrants from abroad. Subject to explo

itation, violence, strict immigration quotas, an

d even mass imprisonment, Asian Americans

have struggled against values of white supre

macy.

Although they are just 3.3 % of

the US population, they are the

third largest racial/ethnic minority

after blacks and Hispanics.

Most Asian American groups can rejuvenate their ethnic culture because the traditions live on in the home countries. Yet they have been expected to assimilate rather than preserve elements of their cultural heritage.

Asian Americans are often viewed as a “model minority” that has successfully overcome discrimination. This image disguises lingering maltreatment and denies them the opportunities afforded other racial minorities.

A. The harmful Myth of Asian

Superiority

1) The origin and effect of the

“model minority” thesis

This thesis surfaced in the mid-1960s when journalists began publicizing the high educational attainment levels, high median family incomes, low crime rates, and absence of juvenile delinquency and mental health problems among Asian Americans.

It intended to tell Black and Chicano activists that they should follow the example set by Asian Americans who work hard to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps instead of using militant protests to obtain their rights.

Such comparisons pit minorities

against each other and generate

African American resentment

toward Asian Americans.

Asian Americans are more affluent than other racial/ethnic group including whites. Asian Americans also have an enviable educational achievement, with almost twice the national average of college graduates.

2) The misleading nature of this myth

The myth of Asian Superiority once

served an important political

purpose and has long obscured

reality.

First, most Asian Americas live in

California, Hawaii and New York----

states with higher incomes and higher

costs of living than the national

average.

Second, studies showed that Asian Americans were unevenly distributed in the economy.

Third, the low unemployment rate of Asian Americans merely camouflages high underemployment.

Fourth, the high labor force participation rate of Asian American women is in reality a reflection of the fact that more Asian American women are compelled to work because the male members of their families earn such low wages.

Fifth, with regard to the educational

attainment of Asian Americans, the

sizable influx of highly educated

professional after 1965 has inflated the

average years of schooling completed.

Finally, the “model minority” image

homogenizes Asian Americans, hides

their differences and obscures the

poverty found within their ranks.

B. Chinese Americans

1) Legacy of the “Yellow Peril”

According to a census in 2000, the

total number of Chinese-Americans

is well over 2,430,000.

In the 19th century, Chinese immigration was welcome because it brought to those shores needed, hard-working laborers. It was also unwelcome because it brought an alien culture the European settlers were unwilling to tolerate.

Prejudice and discrimination against Chinese:

Chinese men’s queues/pigtails represented castration, femininity and servility.

Chinese were all mind and no body.

Chinese women (with bound feet)

appeared to many whites erotic,

sensual and hypersexual, and many of

them were sold or deceived to

America to be prostitutes.

The Exclusion Act of 1882 ruled that no Chinese, esp. female, go to the US, because “they endangered the domestic tranquility”. Those extreme racists hoped that Chinese in the US would soon die out naturally.

In 1941, Chinese suddenly became

America’s faithful friends, because

hundreds of Chinese young men were

recruited into the US army.

After 1943, Chinese were permitted to enter the US with a yearly quota of 105.

Not until after the 1965 Immigration Act did Chinese arrive again in large numbers.

There has been the fear of the “yellow

peril” that the Chinese, by their very

numbers, threaten the American

society.

2) Chinatown

Americans associate Chinese Americans with Chinatown. People tend to see them as thriving areas of business and amusement, bright in color and lights, exotic in sounds and sight.

They have, however, large poor

populations and face the problems

associated with slums. All Chinatowns

are in older, deteriorating sections of

cities.

A unique characteristic of Chinatown i

s the variety of social organizations, su

ch as tsu, or the clans, hui guan, and th

e secret societies, tangs.

Problems: poor health, high suicide rate, run-down housing, rising crime rate, poor working conditions, inadequate care for the elderly, weak union representation of laborers, and low representation in political arena.

3) Family and religious life Traditional cultural patterns have

undergone changes even in the PRC. The questioning of parental

authority by children is a painful experience for tradition-oriented Chinese.

Religion is still a source of community attachment, but it is in the Protestant Chinese church, not in the temple. About 20% of Chinese Americans are Christian, almost two-thirds of them Protestant.

Two segments of the new generations

1) Jook-sing is the hollow part of a bamboo pole, the name implying that an individual is Chinese on the outside but hollow in cultural knowledge. They are also called banana-men.

2) The fobs, for fresh off the boat, are the newly arrived immigrant youths. They adapt differently, of course, depending on whether they come from westernized Hong Kong or mainland China.

4) Remnants of prejudice and

discrimination

Chinese Americans are

purposefully ignored or

misrepresented in history books.

Whites avoid obvious anti-Black slurs, but they continue to see anti-Chinese as less harmful.

Chinese Americans generally believe that prejudice and discrimination have decreased in the US, but subtle reminders remain.

Chinese Americans are still

excluded from several labor

unions on the grounds that they

are too short.

Conflicts over the meanings and

relations of race, gender, class and

citizenship heightened and appeared in

the form of beating and killing.

C. Filipinos

Technically, they were not foreigners,

for they came from the Philippines, a

territory acquired by the U.S. from

Spain at the conclusion of the Spanish-

American War.

While they had not been granted citize

nship, they were classified as “Americ

an nationals”, which allowed them ent

ry to the United States.

Filipinos encountered racial

discrimination of every kind. It was

not until the passage of the new

immigration law of 1965 that Filipinos

immigrated into the U.S. in large

numbers.

Most prominent among the

professional immigrants have been

nurses and doctors. It is estimated that

forty percent of all Filipino doctors in

the world now practice in the U.S.

D. Japanese

Emigration from Japan to the U.S. began in the late 19th century, when 148 contracted laborers sailed from Japan to Hawaii, which did not become an American possession until 1898.

Japanese immigrants made themselves rivals of white workers, because Japanese immigrants’ diligence, thrift, and ambitions meant that increasing number of them began to move up the social ladder from laborers to small businessmen.

After the surprise attack on the American fleet at Pearl Harbor, the U.S. and Japan became enemies, and more than 100,000 Japanese immigrants were sent to the huge interment camps in isolated, barren regions from California to Arkansas.

Indeed, the so-called second wave

of Asian immigration from 1965

to the present has included

proportionately fewer Japanese.

5. Native Americans

About 75,000 years before the birth of

Christ, the ancestors of the Native

Americans migrated from Eastern

Asia across a land bridge to Alaska.

When British colonists followed at

Spaniards’ heels to come to North

America, they had three goals in mind:

(1) to plant the Christian religion; (2)

to traffic in goods; and (3) to conquer.

Driven by their insatiable desires for gold, furs, and above all, land, English colonists and later Americans pushed Native Americans first from the East Coast to the areas east of the Mississippi River, and then west of the Mississippi River, and finally to the West Coast.

Eventually, the overpowered Indians were driven to some remote interior areas, known as “Indian Reservations”. By the end of the 19th century, the Indian population had been reduced from 30 million to less than 250,000.

Uprooted and discriminated, Indians have found it hard to live in modern American cities. At present, about 20 percent live below the poverty line, and their unemployment is higher than that of African Americans.

6. Some factors that contribute to discrimination against Asian Americans

First, viewing Asian Americans as a Model Minority;

Second, perceiving Asian Americans as foreigners;

Third, portraying Asian Americans as lacking in communication skills;

Fourth, limited English proficiency;

Fifth, cultural differences;

Sixth, religious diversity;

Seventh, pre-immigration trauma.

III. American Immigration Policies

1. The 1920s and 1930s: an ugly period of xenophobia in American history.

Before the 1920s, there was no numerical restriction on immigration in America, although the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act suspended Chinese immigration for years and made it impossible for Chinese immigrants to become naturalized citizens.

The 1921 Emerging Quota Act and the 1924 National Origins Act set numerical limits on immigration based on “national origin’, making it easy for those of North European background to enter the US, restricting those of South and East European background and excluding Asians.

2. Post-World War Two changes

Immigration Act of 1965 represented a marked shift of policy. It did away with the national origins system and based immigration permits on the need for occupational skills.

Moreover, it placed a high priority on

family reunification and established a

seven-category preference system for

family members, skill-based

individuals and refugees.

It removed the barriers to Asian

immigration, which resulted in an

unexpectedly greater proportion of

immigrants arriving from Asian than

from Europe.

3. 1980 and beyond

These significant pieces of

legislation since 1980 have

shaped the current immigration

system.

1) Refugee Act of 1980 established a

new refugee policy and removed

refugees from a world limit of

270,000 annually.

2) Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 introduced the concept of employer sanctions against companies that “knowingly” hired illegal aliens. It also provided amnesty for many undocumented immigrants.

3) Immigration Act of 1990 increased the number of employment-based immigrants while also promoting family immigration. The law increased the abilities of employers to bring in immigrants with skills such as science and engineering.

4) Illegal Immigration Act of 1996

increased border control.

IV.    Melting Pot, Salad Bowl or Mosaic?

Some people describe the US as a “melting pot”, which emphasizes total assimilation into mainstream American society.

Others are inclined to see the US as a “salad bowl”, which believes it is possible to be a good American while at the same time retaining the values, customs, language, and culture of the country of the immigrant’s origin.

Still others prefer to see the US as a “ mosaic” ( a picture made up of many tiny pieces of different colors), where the individuals of different racial and ethnic groups are still distinct and recognizable, but together they create a picture that is uniquely American.

What is prejudice?

Prejudice literally means “prejudging

“without knowledge. Thus, ethnic,

racial, religious, or other social

categories are stereotyped.

One major purpose of prejudice is to improve one’s own position in competition for such benefits as jobs, wealth, or housing, at the expense of another group. This is done through the practice of discrimination.

Prejudice is a set of attitudes, while dis

crimination is the practice of treating p

eople unequally. Both of them are indi

vidual reactions.

Prejudice often leads to discrimination,

while discrimination reinforces prejud

ice in a vicious circle that limits oppor

tunity and produces a self-fulfilling pr

ophecy.

A stereotype is an image in which a single set of characteristics, favorable or unfavorable, is attributed to an entire group. Stereotypes are over-generalized; i.e. behavior that may be true of some members is taken as typical of the whole group.

1. Racism in the United State

Racism is a principle of social domination by which a group seen as inferior or different in alleged biological characteristics is exploited, controlled and oppressed socially and physically by a superordinate group.

Two forms of racism

1) Personal racism: It refers to the fact that individuals or small groups express negative feelings, hold attitudes of prejudice, and engage in discriminatory behavior, by using racial stereotyping, derogatory names and references, and threats and acts of violence, toward people of color.

2) Institutional racism

It involves the treatment accorded specifically to minority groups at the hands of the institution, an organizational structure created to perform certain services or tasks within a society.

It refers to the fact that groups such as Native Indians, African Americans, by virtue of their historical exclusion from key institutional policymaking and decision-making roles, frequently find themselves victimized by the routine workings of such organizational structure.

  Three key areas of institutional racism

1) Economic deprivation and exploitation

Only a small percentage of each of these minority groups has been able to gain entry into occupations and professions that pay well.

2) Political powerlessness

Government employment

People of color in the US have historically been faced with extraordinary resistance to their participation in the political system at all levels.

Voter participation

Minorities have faced white-controlled election laws and rules designed to impede voter registration and the exercise of the franchise.

Minorities and the Law

It has taken years of struggle by minorities and their allies to get new laws guaranteeing protection of their rights passed.

3) Educational deprivation The battle against segregation Obstacles to equal education American public school systems rely

heavily on local property taxes for their money.

Whites predominate in the running of most schools.

Textbooks and other curricular materials don’t reflect the multiracial character of the US society.

2. Affirmative Action

A. Its origin

B. What Is Affirmative Action?

Affirmative action applies to employers in hiring and promoting minorities and women, governments in reserving a portion of their contracts for business owned by minorities and women, and colleges and universities in admitting minorities and women.

C. Its effects

D. Opposition to Affirmative Action

Half of Americans want to change them, another quarter do away with them, and the remaining quarter “leave them as they are”.