Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Introduction of a white privilege essay
The myth of white privilege
Introduction of a white privilege essay
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Introduction of a white privilege essay
Assimilation as U.S. Immigration Policy
America is a country that has an unspoken immigration policy, and that is based entirely upon race. This policy has been in effect since we began racial classifications. In J.L. Hochschild’s paper titled “Racial Reorganization and the United States Census 1850-1930 Mulattoes, Half Breeds, Mixed Parentage, Hindoos, and the Mexican Race. Studies in American Political Development.” The reorganization of races was rooted in who is and who isn’t white. What we honestly know is that being white carries a cache and that has never changed. It’s like having a backstage pass to the greatest rock concert ever performed. Everybody you tell wishes they were there too. Within that frame work a determination of whom would be included and who would be excluded would have to be made. Did Native Americans have the ability to assimilate, would Mexicans be included in the Jim Crow laws, and whether all Asians should be excluded from entering the country were questions white people would determine. (J. L. Hochschild 1) And, these questions would form the basis of each groups place on America’s racial totem pole. The focus of Professor Hochschild’s paper is that the Census Bureau is deeply implicated in the social construct of race, and precious little has changed in all that time.
This view of the Power of the Census is supported in any number of ways, and it is the painstaking work of Professor Hochschild, Professor Stephen Steinberg, and the Pew Research center that will tie it all together. This paper will attempt to make plain what nearly every media and government source has done to divert the public’s attention from a system based nearly entirely on which groups will blend into the white mainstream....
... middle of paper ...
...8. Document. 5 March 2014.
J.L Hochschild, Brenna Powell. Racial Reorganization and the United States Census 1850-1930: Mulattoes, Half Breeds, Mixed Parentage, Hindoos, and the Mexican Race. Studies in American Political Development. scholarly. Boston: harvard.edu, 2008.
Palmer Stacy, John Vinson. The Great Betrayal: U.S. Immigration Policy 1965-2012. Supplement to previous report. Monterey: American Immigration Control Foundation, unknown. Doc.
Steinberg, Stephen. "Neoliberal Immigration Policy and its Impact on African Americans." Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy (2009): 209, 211. scholarly journal.
Taylor, Paul, et al. When Labels Don’t Fit: Hispanics and Their Views of Identity. Report. Washington, DC: Pew Hispanic Center, 2012. Pdf.
Word Press & Atahualpa. "That's My Congress." 28 March 2014. Irregular Times. Doc. 28 March 2014.
Yeng, Sokthan. The Biopolitics of Race: State Racism and U.S. Immigration. USA: Lexington Books, 2013. Print.
The English immigrants are given a brief introduction as the first ethnic group to settle in America. The group has defined the culture and society throughout centuries of American history. The African Americans are viewed as a minority group that were introduced into the country as slaves. The author depicts the struggle endured by African Americans with special emphasis on the Civil War and the Civil Rights movement. The entry of Asian Americans evoked suspicion from other ethnic groups that started with the settlement of the Chinese. The Asian community faced several challenges such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, and the mistreatment of Americans of Japanese origin during World War II. The Chicanos were the largest group of Hispanic peoples to settle in the United States. They were perceived as a minority group. Initially they were inhabitants of Mexico, but after the Westward expansion found themselves being foreigners in their native land (...
Throughout history, Americans have always been intimidated by immigrants. The idea of an immigrant coming to America and easily being able to get a job scared Americans. Americans feared that good jobs would be taken from hard working Americans and given to immigrants for less pay because they required less money to live on or were used to no wages or lower wages in their Country of origin. People would immigrate to America in search of a better life, and often times they could find homes and jobs that made them want to stay. A melting pot is described as being a mixing of different cultures into one universal culture. In Erika Lee’s, The Chinese Exclusion Example, immigrant exclusion helped re-define the melting-pot
There are different context in which labeling has specifically been used in the readings; however, there is an overarching theme in that the labels serve to undermine and to subjugate Latinos, Asian Americans and African Americans. The readings primarily focused on the criminalization and the perceived deviance of Latinos and Latino youth.
Ngai, Mae M., and Jon Gjerde. "Congressman Jerry Patterson Details Needs of Refugees in California, 1981." Major Problems in American Immigration History: Documents and Essays. Boston, MA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2013. 526-528. Print.
Many people in America want to assimilate to the U.S. because they think that being American is a better option. People such as the Italians in the 1870s tried to assimilate in order to become an American to not become an enemy in the U.S. Also, the Mexicans today are constantly coming to the U.S. to have a better life because they know being American is the best solution for their problems at home. What assimilation mean is when a person leaves one’s own culture to join a different culture the person wants to be. For the purpose of this essay, an American is a person who has commitment to succeed in what one wants, able to speak english, to love the pop culture in the U.S. at the time one is living such as the hit songs, games, T.V. shows, etc. but not to other cultures, and be a citizen in America. People throughout history must assimilate to become a true American
Crean, Tom, and Will Soto. "Immigration and the Class Struggle in the US." Socialist Alternative. Committee for a Workers' International, 1 Apr. 2007. Web. 20 Nov. 2013.
America is a nation consisting of many immigrants: it has its gates opened to the world. These immigrants transition smoothly and slowly from settlement, to assimilation then citizenship. These immigrants are first admitted lawfully as permanent residents before they naturalize to become full citizens. In her book “Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America”, the historian Mae Ngai draws our attention to the history of immigration and citizenship in America. Her book examines an understudied period of immigration regulation between 1924 and 1965.
The United States has often been referred to as a global “melting pot” due to its assimilation of diverse cultures, nationalities, and ethnicities. In today’s society, this metaphor may be an understatement. Between 1990 and 2010, the number of foreign born United States residents nearly doubled from 20 million to 40 million, increasing the U.S. population from almost 250 million to 350 million people. With U.S. born children and grandchildren of immigrants, immigration contributed to half of this population growth. These immigrants, consisting of mostly Asian and Hispanic backgrounds, have drastically changed the composition of the U.S. population. In 2010, Asians and Hispanics made up 20 percent of the U.S. population, in contrast to a 6 percent share of Asians and Hispanics in 1970. It is predicted that by 2050, the share of immigrants in the United States will increase to one half of the entire population. With this rapid increase in diversity, many citizens have opposing views on its impact on the United States. In my opinion, an increase in immigration does contain both positive and negatives effects, but in general it provides an overriding positive influence on America’s society (“Population”).
Race survived throughout the twentieth century in part due to the continuing discrimination against those of non-western European descent. From a cultural aspect we began to separate groups and degrade them by using offensive terms such a “Huns”, “Greasers”, and “Hunkys” to describe the immigrant groups (Roediger, 2008). There was also a problem with laws being bended to only include only a select few. In the case of Takao Ozawa seeking naturalization he was denied not because he was not white culturally (in the form of religion). The Naturalization Acts grew viscious as races began to throw each other under the bus hoping that they could personally find a way to become a white citizen. It became a dream to achieve the status of a working white american.
In 1942 Mexico signed a binational treaty the Bracero Program with the United States that allowed for large numbers of Mexican nationals to work in the United States on a temporary basis. The Bracero Program was considered a win-win proposition for both governments, as it fulfilled the labor needs of powerful agricultural growers in the United States and relieved the pressure of Mexico’s large wage-seeking population. As millions of Mexican workers became accustomed to employment practices, lifestyles, and consumption patterns in the United States, they established networks between jobs in the U.S. and friends and family members back home that allowed migratory flows to become self-sustaining in the decades to follow (Munoz, 2011). “Mexican workers have been invited in and forced out depending upon American economic desires and sociopolitical fears” (Salcido, 2004). “The Bracero Program, for example, reconfigured the Southwest borderlands when, in 1942, border controls were eased for Mexican men to offset wartime shortages” (Salcido, 2004). In 1954 the United States launched a high profile campaign, called “Operation Wetback,” that subjected ethnic Mexicans citizens and immigrants alike to heightened anti-Mexican sentiment and deportation. The U.S. government was condoning the use of Mexican labor “while simultaneously whipping up anti-immigration hysteria against wetbacks” (Munoz, 2011). Operation Wetback was one of the tactics used by the U.S. government to create pressure on the Mexican government to extend the Bracero Program while also giving appearance to the American public that the border was “under control” (Munoz, 2011).
Millions of immigrants over the previous centuries have shaped the United States of America into what it is today. America is known as a “melting pot”, a multicultural country that welcomes and is home to an array of every ethnic and cultural background imaginable. We are a place of opportunity, offering homes and jobs and new economic gains to anyone who should want it. However, America was not always such a “come one, come all” kind of country. The large numbers of immigrants that came during the nineteenth century angered many of the American natives and lead to them to blame the lack of jobs and low wages on the immigrants, especially the Asian communities. This resentment lead to the discrimination and legal exclusion of immigrants, with the first and most important law passed being the Chinese Exclusion Act. However, the discrimination the Chinese immigrants so harshly received was not rightly justified or deserved. With all of their contributions and accomplishments in opening up the West, they were not so much harming our country but rather helping it.
The United States is a racialized society, with racism deeply embedded into its history. The most renowned display of racism in the United States is the enslavement of Africans by white people. This is one of the many instances that highlights the government’s implementation of institutional racism, which has been experienced by people of many different races. In this documentary, American citizenship, the Federal Housing Administration, and real estate appear to be the focal portrayals of institutional racism. For hundreds of years, being white was essential to gaining American citizenship. In 1922, Ozawa, a Japanese businessman attempted to gain citizenship. However, the Supreme Court denied his request, stating that he was scientifically classified as Mongolian, not white. Three months later, a South Asian man, Thind, proved to the Court that he was white because he was scientifically classified as Caucasian, and therefore
Multiculturalism vs Assimilation America is a place where many cultures and races co-exist, so there are many different opinions and beliefs. Of course there is bound to be tension and misunderstandings, which unfortunately escalates (in some cases) into violence that we hear about in the media. So what is the solution? Should we all assimilate to one standard or should we recognize our individual cultures and consider ourselves multicultural? The answer is not an easy one to define.
As will be shown in this paper, analysis of the Unites States racial composition and relevant studies indicate that America has not become the “melting pot” of cultures and races that was once predicted. Through residential racial segregation, the continual influx of immigrants, and the emergence of a multiracial population, America has remained a “mosaic” of cultures – separate entities combining to create a great diversity. While indeed, some races have mixed through interracial marriages, cultural differences have be sustained and diversity in this country has actually increased.