19th Century Migration to the United States

In the 19th century and early 20th century, the United States experienced the largest migration wave in its history. Figures show that between the years of 1880-1890 5.6 million men and women arrived in the United States more than twice as many as in the previous decade. This figure grew to 14.5 million between the years 1901-1920. Most of these new immigrants came from Eastern and Southern Europe. Coming from Europe, Asia and Latin America, these immigrants would transformed the demographic make up of the nation. This transformation would cause concern and fear among the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) majority of what these new groups would do the social and cultural fabric of the United States. During this period in the country's history, the dominant view was that the United States was a nation composed primarily of WASP ancestry. As the descendants of the first English settlers, they viewed themselves as the white "native" founding population of the United States. Those who have come after the founding of this nation in 1776, were viewed by WASP as "foreigners." This "nativism" would inform the negative and racialized views of all of the immigrants who arrived since the middle of the 19th century.

As I already mentioned in the lecture on the U.S. racial hierarchy those who today we define was white people in the United States (i.e. Irish, Jews, Italians,) today, were racialized in the 19th century as belonging more to the non-white populations or at least to an inferior and not fully accepted white population. In other words, while these southern and eastern European immigrants may have been legally defined as white people, socially and culturally they were seen as racially different and inferior peoples. Mexican populations in the Southwest also faced a similar situation. While legally defined as white people, Mexicans have been treated socially as belonging to the non-white populations. For Asians, African Americans and Native Americans, their racial identity fell clearly on the other side of the rigid color line as part of the non-white populations.

Foreigners vs Natives

This racially different population that began to emerge in the United States in the late 19th Century, raised anxiety and fear among the white native Anglo-Saxon population of the United States that the nation was threatened by the growing presence of these "barbarian and savage" foreigners that, if not controlled or be properly integrated, could destroy their "civilized" society. The Chinese and Japanese arrived as migrant workers and were victim to the first restrictive immigration laws in the United States: The Chinese Exclusionary Act (1882) and the Gentleman’s Agreement (1906) The illustration below represents the anxiety, and xenophobia that existed in the 19th century against the newly arrived Irish and Chinese immigrants to the U.S.

In the case of Mexicans and Puerto Ricans, it is not only a story of migration but also of conquest. For Mexicans, It included those who stayed after the United States defeated Mexico in a war in 1848, and those who came in the first decade of the 20^th century as the result of the Mexican Revolution and the need for labor during the capitalist expansion of the United State into its newly conquered Southwestern states. Estimates show that between the years 1910-1920 almost half a million Mexicans crossed the border. While it is pertinent to speak of a “circular migration” of people between these two countries, many stayed. According to the United States Department of Industrial Relations, by 1920 almost half a million Mexicans lived in the United States, mainly in the Southwest.

Similarly, Puerto Ricans became United States colonial subjects in 1898 and their migration to the mainland resulted from this relation. While Puerto Ricans became legal United States citizens through the Jones Act in 1917 they were considered by the colonial authorities as a people unfit to become full Americans. By the 1930s there were between 50,000 and 70,000 Puerto Ricans living in the city of New York, its largest concentration. Yet, unlike the European immigrants, who would become fully integrated into American society through the expansion of whiteness, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans and other racial minorities would be integrated through the racial hierarchies in place since the founding of this nation.

Social Darwinism

This view of the civilized, barbarian and savage and was informed by a theory of race that emerged in the 19th century called social darwinism. Created by British philosopher Herbert Spencer, social darwinism used Darwin's theory of Natural Selection in which he theorizes that all life on earth is the result of millions of year of evolution. Social darwinism postulated that there are different levels of human evolution. These levels of human evolution can be identified by the levels of civilization that exist among the different racial groups. Spencer pointed out that those populations that are more evolved and therefore civilized and superior is represented by those societies that have reached the highest pinnacle of economic, political, cultural and social progress such as the Anglo-Saxon. While at the opposite end of this evolutionary line, were the savages, who could be identified by the way they dressed with just a loin cloth and lived like hunters and gatherers such as African groups. While in the middle were the barbarians, who had some levels of civilization, such as engaging in agricultural practices, but with limited progress. Barbarians and savages were considered inferior races to the superior White Anglo Saxon. In the 19th century, popular magazines in the United States would represent social darwinism through illustrations such as the one below.

Irish (Barbarian) Anglo Saxon (Civilized) African (Savage)

Construction of race.gif

Race Relations Cycle Theory

The problem of these different races now living in the United States had to be solved. In particular because this racial and cultural difference represented a threat to the White Anglo-Saxon U.S. nation. In the 1930s, many scholars began to investigate how these foreigners were assimilating into United States culture and society. Assimilation would be defined in this time period as the way in which immigrants become part of a host society by adopting and adapting to the ways of the dominant group. While at the same time, the immigrant begins to shed his foreign culture to eventually become fully assimilated. One of these scholars, was a sociologist out of the University of Chicago named Robert Park, who would develop a theory of assimilation that became known as the race relations cycle theory.

Park’s theory of immigrant assimilation is informed by what he called the Race Relations Cycle. Race as it was understood by Park at the turn of the 20^th century, was different that our understanding today. Italians, Poles, French, Spaniards, Russians were considered racially different peoples and not nationalities or white ethnicities as we understand them today. Implied in this understanding of race was that southern and eastern Europeans were inferior to western or northern ones. The American race, as Park and Burgess defined, were those of Anglo-Saxon stock, the dominant racial group and national identity of the United States.

Their Race Relations Cycle theory meant to explain how lesser European immigrants would culturally, socially, politically become Anglo-Americans. But also, how limited was the access to this national identity to “racially marked” groups.

Assimilation has historically meant two distinct things: “to compare or to make like” and “to take up and incorporate.”Park found the term “assimilation” useful as a way of explaining the process through which foreigners’ are incorporated and made part of the community or a nation-state. Assimilation is a silent and unconscious phenomenon that only becomes visible when there is some “interruption or disturbance in the process.” Park proposed the following categories to identify the different stages that led to assimilation

Stages of Assimilation: Contact, Conflict, Competition, Accommodation, Assimilation

in his Race Relations Cycle theory: “Contact, conflict, competition, accommodation and eventual assimilation.” This process, he says, is “progressive and irreversible,” a way that societies find “social equilibrium.” In this cycle, the immigrant “takes over the language, manners, the social ritual, and outward forms of his adopted country.” However, this is not a smooth process, the immigrant finds resistance from the native populations. As a result, the natives establish social and/or political barriers. For example, demanding from government legislation to restrict specific groups from becoming Americans. For example, the 1790 Naturalization Act, to the Chinese Exclusionary Act of 1882, the Immigration Act of 1924, were all policies meant to restrict the definition of citizenship and who can enter the United States. Though, Park adds, this move is only temporary because ultimately, assimilation cannot be reversed. For Park and others, assimilation was the highest stage in the immigrant’s evolution.

The first consequence of immigration at the moment of “contact” is conflict at cultural, social and economic levels. The immigrant, who for the most part is of peasant origin, is seen as uncouth and culturally backward; and, because of his lack of sophistication, the receiving community sees his presence as negatively affecting its quality of life. Economically, the receiving society perceives a deterioration of their standard of living in particular where there is “competition” for jobs.

This problem is resolved only through the “accommodation” of the immigrant to the values and traditions of the receiving community. In this step, the immigrant learns from the dominant social group the “cultural elements” necessary for their full assimilation. While there might still be some visible differences with the first immigrant generation, by the second generation (their children), the theory argues, most traits of immigrant identity (peasant origins) will be lost and its external signs that distinguish people of different races (i.e. a Pole from a German) will be erased. In sum, the immigrant gradually assimilates by becoming “Americanized,” embracing his individuality and becoming a cosmopolitan city dweller. The peasant origins represented for these theorists the old traditional societies that needed to be abandoned by the immigrant so that he could become a “modern” political subject. Yet, because the first generation European immigrant might still have some "visible differences" they will never be able to reach full assimilation.

As a nation-building project, assimilation’s goal was to inscribe the U.S. nation-state unto a disparate group of people. However, this inscription would be based on established racial and social hierarchies. For southern and Eastern European immigrants, their assimilation would mean becoming white “ethnics.” However, in order to enter this racial classification, they had to learn an important characteristic of “whiteness” in the United States: discriminating and marginalizing non-Europeans. Dual wage systems and occupational stratification were the ways working class Europeans were privileged over poor Mexicans, Blacks, and Chinese, among others. This system gave higher wages to whites for doing the same job as Mexicans. Similarly, it reserved the best positions for whites, leaving the most dangerous, menial and without any hope for upward mobility jobs to non-whites. Furthermore, non-Europeans served as buffers during times of economic crisis becoming the first to be fired and attacked by nativists. Newly identified white workers quickly learned this lesson: they had to learn to differentiate themselves from these racially marked groups if they wanted to be fully integrated into the nation-state.

Assimilation and Racial Minorities

Park and Burgess argued that peoples with distinctive “racial uniforms,” (skin color) could not become this “indistinguishable” city dweller. Blacks, Japanese and Mexicans will always be seen as “alien” and thus targets for racial prejudice and rejection. He found in his studies that assimilation becomes problematic for what he calls “secondary groups,” arguing that these groups only reach the stage of “accommodation” because the contacts are “external and too remote.” Their “external signs” leads to their segregation from society and to a restriction of movement within the city or urban environments. In sum, assimilation into an Anglo-American society for racially marked groups is unachievable and their political integration incomplete. For example, in Old World Traits Transplanted, Park and Miller found that in spite the presence of “modern schools, industries, political administrations,” all institutions established by “Americans,” the majority of Mexicans remain unassimilated. In other words, these peoples with a different racial uniform will never be able to fully assimilate.

In the film below: The House We Live In, tells this particular story of the way that primarily European immigrants were able to find a path toward assimilation and whiteness, while those with a "distinctive racial uniform" would never be able to enter into the melting pot.

Race the Power of An Illusion: The House We live IN