Resistance from African Americans to the Naturalization Act of 1790

In 1790, there was Naturalization Act in United States that questioned who was able to receive the term citizenship. The Naturalization Act states that only free white people are eligible for citizenship. After the Naturalization Act, there has been movement, daily action, and protest from people of color, and white women. Politically, socially, and economically, white men hold dominance in United States for many years. Thus for that many years, the people of color and women would fight for their political, social, and economical rights in United States. These actions were done differently with each racial group, as they are in different hierarchical status. As “Benedict Anderson viewed the Nation as “imagined communities”—in the sense that they are systems of cultural representation whereby people come to imagine a shared experience of identification with an extended community.” (McClintock, 353) The passage talked about culture imperialism. The idea of how the society is structured was taught to the people through their culture, such as in religion, missionaries, and education. Therefore, many of the people of color and women fought to achieve the notion of nationality in United States.

Each racial or gender group have different strategy of how they will achieve their rights. Some of these racial or gender group would racialized other groups in order to receive their own hierarchical rights. In 1820s, California, Mexican were not racialized the same way as Japanese, Chinese, or Indians by the European American. It is because the Mexican was colonized by Spain for many years, that they adjusted to the culture similar to that of European culture. Therefore, the difference between Mexican with European American are less extreme c...

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...Indians ended up in massacre. Their cultural process of doing things ended up enabled the social construction of Indians as the lowest in the social hierarchy.

I conclusion, there are different ways of racialized and gendered groups to create resistance, to achieve the equal rights. Politically, economically, and socially, white male had been at the highest rank of the hierarchy in this imagined community. Thus, the rest of the people were treated unequally. Some fought back by racializing others, such as Californian Mexican towards Californian Indians, and white women towards women of color. Others created resistance by actively arguing and negotiating for their rights, such as African American, women of color, and Indian Americans. Whatever ways they decide, they would create resistance in order to gain the sense of nationality and citizenship they deserved.