Immigration Trends - Assignment Example

And of the article: Ellis Cose, “What’s White Anyway?” Main ideas of the article: The main ideas of the article are Immigration trends do not challenge existing ideas of America’s White Identity because whiteness is a debatable concept and 2) The White Identity is no longer relevant in modern times. Three important facts that support the main ideas: For the first main idea, Cose provides the example of his Argentine friend, who looks white, but by language, is considered Latino (112), and the examples of Takao Ozawa and Bhagat Thind who argued to the courts that they must be considered as whites during the early part of the twentieth century (112-113).

For the second idea, Cose gives the fact of the passing of the McCarran-Walter Act in 1952 which removed racial restrictions on U.S. citizenship and its connection to the blurred definition of whiteness (113). How the article supports its side of the issue: The article supports its side by using anecdotal experience and personal analysis of the present vagueness and purposes of America’s White Identity and by offering historical examples and laws that assert the difficulty of defining and defending whiteness.

Holes in arguments: Cose fails to acknowledge and respond to counterarguments, specifically that immigration trends do have biased racial and ethnic beliefs and practices that challenge America’s White Identity.Good counterarguments: A good counterargument is: 1) Immigration trends do challenge America’s White Identity because of intermarriage and 2) Immigration dilutes whiteness boundaries through diversity in public institutions. The point that could be added to the argument: America has never been white since by its history, it is a land of immigrants from different ethnicities.

Examples of bias, and propaganda: Cose fails to analyze the underlying racism and ethnocentricism that come with the formation and protection of America’s White Identity, which can either be seen as a bias for non-whiteness or simply propaganda to disregard racism in immigration.Response: Yes, Immigration Patterns Challenge America’s White Identity I agree that immigration patterns challenge America’s white identity because of intermarriage reduces white homogeneity, and because immigration improves diversity in American society, which reduces the relevance of defining and promoting a white American identity.

First, intermarriage across racial and ethnic groups makes it harder to define what is white. By category, a white second-generation American with a dark Hindu mother and a white Latino father, for instance, is white and not white, depending on how he explains his identity. Intermarriage blurs the concept of whiteness in American identity. Second, immigration improves diversity in American society which makes whiteness unnecessary and irrelevant to modern times. At present, schools, churches, and government agencies are getting more and more diverse.

Some communities remain somewhat racially homogenous because of racial communities (like black communities or Asian communities), but in public places, the society is more diverse than ever because of immigration. This means that immigration challenges the existence and importance of America’s white identity.