Basic Components of Racial Order - Essay Example

Lecturer: Introduction In the period between 1870 and 1910, there were demographic upheavals in the US connected to reorganization of racial order with social and political boundaries between groups shifting, new groups emerging, others disappearing marked by a change of notion of who belonged to which category. During this period all racial groups including whites, blacks, Indians, Mexicans and others were affected. Between the country’s Civil War and World War II, the US underwent profound racial reorganization with officially recognized group categories expanding and contracting, socially acknowledged boundaries between groups becoming blurred and shifting, and with both citizen and public actors passionately debating on who belonged to which group. The country’s basic components on racial order were revised, revisited and generally altered; however, whites never lost their position at the top of status hierarchy. Q.1 Between 1870 and 1910, USA witnessed the greatest influx of immigrants with more than 20 million immigrants entering the nation in this period partly as a result of the country’s gains in industrial revolution. Initially, new immigrants from northern and western Europe with industrial skills were welcomed; however, other immigrants coming from south and Eastern Europe were unwelcomed by resident Americans. These immigrants lacking skills came at a time when huge arrival of untrained labor caused the Native Americans feel that their lifestyle was under threat by arrival of fresh immigrants having various values and ideas. Some immigrants had an extra burden of the easily noticeable characteristics that made them prone to attacks by anyone seeking justification to carry out such attacks. The onset of hard financial times in 1870s saw immigrants and European-Americans struggle for jobs usually set aside for the Chinese. The hard economic times resulted in dislike and even racial suspicion and hatred, which resulted in anti-Chinese riots in California for exclusion of Chinese immigrants in the USA. Hatred and intolerance toward immigrants resulted in endorsement of immigration laws that greatly hampered immigration. In 1875, the USA passed the page law that prohibited entry of Chinese women and the Chinese exclusion act of 1882 refused entry of all Chinese laborers without making explicit mention of Chinese women; hence, page law continued to regulate their entry. The law prohibited the entry of all Chinese women since immigration officials assumed most of women were prostitutes. Nevertheless, Chinese merchant class was exempt since the law hindered male Chinese laborers from bringing their family to the US, hence limiting their permanent settlement in USA. Later, Japanese immigrants who came three decades later after passage of the page law experienced less harsh policies (Lee 249). Since the exclusion of Chinese from gold mines in California in 1850s, segments of California society consistently opposed the employment of Chinese and the pressure to exclude Chinese increased. The slowdown of 1870s meant the notion that Chinese men and white women were able to share became unpalatable and difficult to maintain. The depression indicated to white women that the Chinese had not only usurped jobs from them but also forced the reduction of wages of women who had jobs (Brown and Peter, 64). Convergence toward exclusion relied on the logical racial workings construction and attachment of mediocre status and meaning to immigrant groups via discourse, formal and informal categorization. The convergence relied on racial claims that Japanese were inassimilable and racially undesirable in the same way as the Chinese; hence, early racial claims offered an effective framework for meaningful construction and ultimate exclusion. Gender and race mattered in this period with their meaning constructively interconnected; hence, race was not an objective truth for exclusionists to discover but rather the claims that they had to make to express. Through discursive and symbolic administrative practices, the US managed to create an “Asiatic race” that needed to be excluded. Therefore, such gendered efforts and the failure to see the gendered processes of racism produces a perception that the immigration policy at the time was an instrument of racial exclusion (Lee, 250-251). Q.2 Despite tensions between native and immigrant cultures, the process of adaptation went on between them, although it was not a sudden cross of lines between cultures since it occurred in gradual steps characterized by minor compromises and disappearance of old habits that were no longer viable (Bergquist, 18). Assimilation was much easier in cities and towns compared to countryside since immigrants were isolated in ethnic settlements making it easier to preserve their tradition easily. One of the crucial instruments in assimilation was the American political system since immigrants found their defense to the challenge of their voting citizenship in the democratic system. In the mid-19th century, there were increases cases of confrontation between cultures especially in urban areas in the US. Conflicts emerged frequently with the increase of nativism or anti-foreign hostility with outgrowths of this visible in clashes within New York (Bergquist 17). In late 1800, nativism took a political form in the American party, which had political gains in various areas of the North. The party platform denied and delayed citizenship to immigrants, with another cultural tension being in the anti-liquor crusade. Even though alcoholism in American society at the time was a serious problem, the immigrants saw consumption of alcohol as a regular part of cultural life; hence, they interpreted reform movement as hostility toward foreigners. Urban centers at the time were increasingly ruled by the clock, while rural Americans and rural foreigners alike had to abandon the leisure ways of the old culture and adhere to the schedules of the new. Moreover, the concern of assimilation to the Native Americans included the influence the many new immigrants would have on the host culture. Nevertheless, according to Theodore, the absolute way of bringing the US to ruin and preventing the possibility of continuing to be a nation would be allowing the various nationalities and feeling sympathy for their nationalities instead of the American republic. However, assimilation in the country was proceeding on very different lines than those intended since assimilation allowed national clusters to be firmly established and more real. As these clusters became more objectively American, they became more of their various nationalities with enough strength to take share in the direction of their destiny, which shows the failure of Americanization. The crucial concern of immigration involves the influences of immigration as well as assimilation on health, education and social programs, especially in areas with high concentration of immigration. Assimilation has been considered as a linear process of progressive improvement and adjustment of the American society since to advance socially and economically, US immigrants have to become Americans and overcome the deficit of new language and culture. Even though European immigrants in the late 1800s and early 1900s had social costs before they began being productive, the costs decreased and the benefits for the society increased as their residence duration increased. Moreover, the benefits of assimilation to the society are high once the foreigners have fully embraced the American culture (Edmonston, 28). In conclusion, between 1870s and 1910 there were exclusions in the US based on race and gender as a result of increased immigrants forcing the enactment of a legislation that promoted exclusion of various races of immigrants. Some of the legislations enacted during this period include the Page Laws and the Chinese Exclusion Act that facilitated the exclusion during this era of European immigration. The migrants created a lot of tension between them and the natives resulting in conflicts especially during the economic slowdowns; nevertheless, with time, some of the migrants who were able to fully assimilate into the American culture contributed to the nation’s economic activities. Works Cited Bergquist, James M. Daily Life in Immigrant America, 1820-1870. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 2008. Print. Brown, Martin, and Peter Philips. "Competition, Racism, And Hiring Practices Among California Manufacturers, 1860-1882." Industrial & Labor Relations Review 40.1 (1986): 61-74. Edmonston, Barry. Statistics on U.s. Immigration: An Assessment of Data Needs for Future Research. Washington, D.C: National Academy Press, 1996. Print. Lee, Catherine. "“Where The Danger Lies”: Race, Gender, And Chinese And Japanese Exclusion In The United States, 1870–1924." Sociological Forum 25.2 (2010): 248-271. Read More