Week 6 - Chapter 11 Race, Ethnicity, and Racism PDF

Race, Ethnicity, 11 and Racism Projections by the U.S. Census Bureau suggest that: a Latinos will be in the majority in the United States by 2044. b whites will no longer be a majority in the United States by 2044. c whites will remain in the majority after 2044. Turn the page for the correct answer. 325 D uring the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump was swept to victory in part by working-class white voters who were largely victims of an economy that had outsourced millions of jobs and lost others to computerization. Many of these voters did not blame their troubles on economic transformations, however, but instead on the idea that nonwhites were increasingly taking their jobs and controlling the country. You have no doubt heard the same message that many of these anxious white vot- ers heard in the years leading up to the presidential election—that America is moving in the direction of what is called a “majority-minority” nation. By this, sociologists mean a country in which non-Hispanic whites will no longer be in the majority; a nation in which nonwhites will be in the majority. The conventional wisdom, including projections by the U.S. Census Bureau, suggests that this is what is happening. Thus, the answer is b: According to the U.S. Census, whites will no longer be a majority in the United States by 2044. The Census Bureau is the official U.S. government agency for counting Americans. Ever since 1790, the Census Bureau has classiﬁed the population by race, and the way it has done so powerfully illustrates that race is not a biological reality, but rather a social and political construction. For the ﬁrst century and a half of the census, these classiﬁca- tions were done by census workers who determined the race of a person by sight. Such clas- siﬁcations, no doubt, were quite arbitrary and often inaccurate. In 1960, the census moved to a system in which the people being counted self-reported their own race by choosing among predetermined categories. Over the history of the census, the speciﬁc racial categories used have undergone major changes, illustrating that categories we take to be natural in one era are actually socially constructed. This concept is illustrated by the way in which categories vary over LEA R NING OBJECTIV ES 1 BASIC CONCEPTS Understand the differing meanings of the terms race and ethnicity. Understand why race is a highly contested concept. 2 THINKING ABOUT RACISM Learn several key concepts that are important for understanding racism in the contemporary United States: color-blind racism, white privilege, institutional racism, overt racism, and microaggressions. 3 RACE AND RACISM IN HISTORICAL AND COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE Familiarize yourself with the history and social dimensions of ethnic relations in the United States. Recognize the importance of the historical roots of ethnic conflict, particularly in the expansion of Western colonialism. Understand the different models for a multiethnic society. 4 UNANSWERED QUESTIONS Understand the current state of immigration to the United States. Learn the forms of inequality experienced by different racial and ethnic groups in the United States. 326 CHAPTER 11Race, Ethnicity, and Racism (left) The Census Bureau classifies individuals with one parent who is Asian, black, or Hispanic as a member of that minority group. (right) According to the U.S. Census, Heidi Nelson Cruz is the only white person in the Cruz household. Some sociologists question whether this reflects the lived experiences of mixed-race families. time. People from South Asia were long classiﬁed as white in the census, for example, but by the 1980s, were reclassiﬁed as Asian. Mexicans were classiﬁed as white in the ninetee tury, as nonwhite in the 1930s, again as white in the 1940s, and then as Hispanic in the 1970s, all depending on demands for labor and the amount of prejudice in the country at a given moment. Today, there are ongoing debates about whether people from parts of the Middle East should continue to be classiﬁed as white since many are not seen by them- selves or others in that way. Racial categories themselves also go in and out of fashion. In the 1890 census, “qua- droon” was the racial category for people who were a quarter black, and “octoroon” was the racial category for people who were one-eighth black. Ten years later, those categories were eliminated, and a new all-encompassing “Negro” category was added to the census. In 1970, “Negro or Black” was added to the census, and by 2000, the category was “Black, African American, or Negro.” In 2013, the Census Bureau stopped using the category “Negro” because many respondents found it offensive; an older generation that identiﬁed with that term has largely passed on. In 2016, sociologist Richard Alba published an article that challenged conventional wisdom on census classiﬁcations of white and nonwhite. He pointed out that the Census Bureau’s way of classifying individuals by ethnicity and race yields the lowest possible estimate of the non-Hispanic white population. This is because children with one parent who is Asian, Hispanic, or black are always counted as a minority. This, according to Alba, is basically an extension of the “one drop” rule that has always classiﬁed people as black if they have some black ancestry (Alba, 2016). Consider the example of Senator Ted Cruz, who ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. Senator Cruz’s ancestors come from Cuba, and he is therefore clas- sified as Hispanic. His wife, Heidi Nelson Cruz, is white and blond, and their two chil- dren also appear white and blond. Nevertheless, the only person in the Cruz household Race, Ethnicity, and Racism327 who would be classified as white by the Cen- minority group Ċ A group of people in a given sus Bureau is Heidi. But what if the United society who, because of their distinct physical or cultural characteristics, find themselves States were to move to the other extreme: to in situations of inequality compared with the count anyone with one white parent as white? dominant group within that society. Under that assumption, whites would remain race Ċ A socially constructed category three- quarters of the U.S. population by mid- rooted in the belief that there are fundamental century. The interesting sociological ques- differences among humans, associated with phenotype and ancestry. tion is, which assumption fits better with the lived experience of mixed-race people? According to Alba, the household incomes of mixed-race people tend to be closer to the white median income than to that of minori- ties. Likewise, many mixed-race people—such as those who are both Asian and white—tend to self-identify as white. While this tends not to be the case for those with black ancestry, it is indeed the direction of identiﬁcation to be found in many other partially white people. Alba also argues that for people who are partly minority and partly white, there is a greater tendency to choose a white marriage partner, which means that their children will tend to live in white neighborhoods and identify as white. For all these reasons, Alba argues, many mixed-race people will self-identify with the majority. It is, therefore, a mistake to take it for granted that America is becoming a “majority-minority” country. Alba’s ideas are consistent with the sociological understanding of the term minority as not simply a numerical category. There are many minorities in a numerical or statis- tical sense, such as people with red hair or people who weigh more than 250 pounds, but these are not minorities according to the sociological concept. In sociology, members of a minority group are disadvantaged as compared to the dominant group (a group pos- sessing more wealth, power, and prestige) and thus have some sense of group solidarity. Subjection to prejudice and discrimination usually heightens feelings of common loyalty and interests. Members of minority groups, such as Spanish speakers in the United States, often see themselves as distinct from the majority. Although members of minority groups tend to live in certain neighborhoods, cities, or regions of a country, their children often inter- marry with members of the dominant group. Thus, future generations that the Census Bureau assumes will identify as minority may not experience the cultural distinctiveness or disadvantages that are today associated with the very idea of a minority group. THE ANSWER IS B. 1 BASIC CONCEPTS Race In your daily life, you have no doubt used the terms race and ethnicity many times, but do you know what they mean? In fact, deﬁning these terms is very difficult, not least because of the contradiction between their everyday usage and their scientiﬁc basis (or absence thereof). When the Census Bureau asks people to classify themselves, many respondents mistak- enly think that humans can be readily separated into biologically different races. Yet, in bio- logical terms, there are no clear-cut races. We therefore deﬁne race as a socially constructed 328 CHAPTER 11Race, Ethnicity, and Racism category rooted in the belief that there are fundamental differences among humans, associated with phenotype and ancestry (Monk, 2016). Differences in physical type between groups of human beings arise from population inbreeding, which var- ies according to the degree of contact between different cultural or social groups. Human population groups are a continuum. The genetic diversity within populations that share visible physical traits is as great as the diver- sity between them. Thus, the racial differences the Cen- sus Bureau recognizes (black, white, Hispanic) should be understood as physical variations singled out by the members of a community or society as socially signiﬁcant and meaningful. Differences in skin color are treated as signiﬁcant, for example, whereas differences in eye color and height are not. Racial categories are always nationally and historically speciﬁc (Fredrickson, 2002), and they can vary signiﬁcantly from place to place. Some social scientists argue that race is nothing more than an ideological construct whose use in academic circles perpetuates the commonly held belief that it has a basis in reality (Miles, 1993). For this reason, they argue, it should be abandoned. Others disagree, claiming that “race” still has meaning for many people and cannot be ignored. In histori- cal terms, “race” has been an extremely important concept used by powerful social groups as part of strategies of domi- nation (Spencer, 2014). For example, the contemporary situ- ation of African Americans in the United States cannot be understood without reference to the slave trade, racial seg- regation, and persistent racial ideologies (Wacquant, 2010). Racial distinctions are more than ways of describing differ- ences; they are also important factors in the reproduction of patterns of power and inequality. Hence, “race” remains a vital, if highly contested, Four schoolboys represent the “racial scale” concept, which sociologists have to explore wherever it is in South Africa: black, Indian, half- caste, and white. in use. For this reason, you sometimes will come across sociological papers and books that put the word “race” in quotation marks to reﬂect its unscientiﬁc, prob- lematic, but still commonplace usage in society. ethnicity Ċ Cultural values and norms that distinguish the members of a given group from Ethnicity others. An ethnic group is one whose members share a distinct awareness of a common cultural While the idea of race implies something ﬁxed identity, separating them from other groups. and biological, ethnicity is a source of identity In virtually all societies, ethnic differences are based on society and culture. Ethnicity refers to associated with variations in power and material wealth. Where ethnic differences are also a type of social identity related to ancestry (per- racial, such divisions are sometimes especially ceived or real) and cultural differences, which pronounced. become effective or active in certain contexts. Basic Concepts329 Members of ethnic groups see themselves as culturally distinct from other groups in a society, and are seen by those other groups to be so in return. Different characteristics may serve to distinguish ethnic groups from one another, but the most common are language, history or ancestry (real or imagined), religion, and styles of dress or adornment. In the United States, some of the ﬁrst sociological research took place on ethnic groups such as Italian Americans, Irish Americans, Polish Americans, and German Americans, though the Irish and the Italians were also sometimes thought of as a race as well. As the United States has become more diverse, many other races see themselves as comprised of distinct ethnicities. East Asians encompass Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese, among many other ethnic groups, while blacks include West Indians and West Africans, among many others. Ethnic differences are wholly learned, a point that seems self- evident until we remember how often some groups have been regarded as “born to rule” or “shiftless,” “unintelligent,” and so forth. Indeed, when people use the term “ethnicity,” very often they do so (as with “race”) when referring to inherent characteristics such as skin color or blood ties. Yet there is nothing innate about ethnicity; it is a purely social phenomenon that is produced and reproduced over time. For many people, ethnicity is central to their individual and group identity, but CONCEPT CHECKS 1. How do the changing racial categories used 3 for others, it is irrelevant, and for still oth- ers, it seems signiﬁcant only during times of conﬂict or social unrest. Ethnicity can on the Census help demonstrate that race is provide an important thread of continu- socially constructed? ity with the past and is often kept alive 2. Explain the difference between ethnicity and through the practice of cultural traditions. race. For instance, third-generation Americans 3. Why are Hispanics and African Americans considered to be minority groups in American of Irish descent may proudly identify them- society? selves as Irish American despite having lived their entire lives in the United States. 2 THINKING ABOUT RACISM Defining Racism Racism can be deﬁned in many ways. Just as there are different understandings of what constitutes racism in different national and subnational contexts and historical periods, so there are similar variations in the understanding of racism. Racism can refer to explicit beliefs in racial supremacy, such as the systems established in Nazi Germany, before the civil rights movement in the United States, and under apartheid in South Africa. It can also refer to practices such as stereotyping that keep racial minorities in inferior posi- tions, despite apparent good will and beliefs in equality. Two main components of racism are racism Ċ The attribution of characteristics of superiority or inferiority to a population sharing prejudice and discrimination. certain physically inherited characteristics. Racism is one specific form of prejudice, focusing on physical variations among people. PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION Racist attitudes became entrenched during the Prejudice refers to opinions or attitudes held period of Western colonial expansion, but seem also to rest on mechanisms of prejudice and by members of one group toward another. These discrimination found in human societies today. preconceived views are often based on hear- say and are resistant to change even in the face 330 CHAPTER 11Race, Ethnicity, and Racism of direct evidence or new information. People may harbor favorable prejudices toward groups prejudice Ċ The holding of preconceived ideas about an individual or group, ideas that with which they identify and negative preju- are resistant to change even in the face of new dices against others. Prejudice operates mainly information. Prejudice may be either positive through stereotyping, which means thinking or negative. in terms of ﬁxed and inﬂexible categories. Ste- stereotyping Ċ Thinking in terms of fixed and inflexible categories. reotyping is often closely linked to the psycho- logical mechanism of displacement, in which scapegoats Ċ Individuals or groups blamed for wrongs that were not of their doing. feelings of hostility or anger are directed against discrimination Ċ Behavior that denies to objects that are not at the root of those feelings. the members of a particular group resources Stereotyping leads people to blame scapegoats or rewards that can be obtained by others. for problems that are not their fault. Scapegoat- Discrimination must be distinguished from prejudice: Individuals who are prejudiced ing is common when two deprived ethnic groups against others may not engage in discriminatory compete with one another for economic rewards. practices against them; conversely, people may People who direct racial attacks against poor act in a discriminatory fashion toward a group even though they are not prejudiced against Mexicans or African Americans, for example, that group. are often in a similar economic position to them. They blame blacks or Mexicans for grievances whose real causes lie elsewhere. Scapegoating is normally directed against groups that are relatively powerless because they make for easy targets. Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Italians, racial minorities, and others have played the unwilling role of scapegoat at various times throughout Western history. Scapegoating frequently involves projection, the unconscious attribution to oth- ers of one’s own desires or characteristics. For example, research has consistently demon- strated that when members of a dominant group practice violence against a minority and exploit it sexually, they are likely to believe that the minority group itself displays traits of sexual violence. In the United States, before the civil rights movement, for instance, some white men’s ideas about the lustful nature of African American men probably originated in their own frustrations, since sexual access to white women was limited by the formal nature of courtship. Similarly, in apartheid South Africa, black males were thought to be sexually dangerous to white women—but, in fact, virtually all criminal sexual contact was initiated by white men against black women (Simpson and Yinger, 1986). In contrast to prejudice, discrimination refers to actual behavior that denies to members of a particular group resources or rewards that others can obtain. College admis- sions officers have been known to discriminate against members of ethnic or racial groups when those members do not conform with stereotypes of those groups. One investigation of the Princeton University admissions office, for example, uncovered a rejected Hispanic applicant with this comment written on her ﬁle: “Tough to see putting her ahead of others. No cultural ﬂavor in app.” Such attitudes are racist when they function to keep Hispanics out of college or ensure that only certain “kinds” of Hispanics will gain access to institu- tions of higher learning. Racism in the United States Today Some people see racism as a system of domination operating in official social institutions like admissions offices or police departments, while others see it as operating through the actions of racist individuals. In this section, we detail several concepts that are important for understanding racism in the United States today: color-blind racism, white privilege, institutional racism, overt racism, and microaggressions. Thinking about Racism331 COLOR- BLIND RACISM: RACISM WITHOUT RACISTS Over the past several decades, some sociologists have argued that racial inequality is maintained less by overt acts of racial hatred than by color blindness itself. Sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva (2006) deﬁnes color blindness as a means of maintaining racial inequality without appearing racist. First, many whites believe they are above racism and incapable of perpetuating dis- crimination. They are thus unaware of the ways in which their insensitivity is psycho- logically damaging to racial minorities. Second, by attempting to act as if race does not exist, they perpetuate inequalities that can only be addressed by explicit attention to racial differences. Third, many whites who do make subtle or even explicitly racial distinctions have become adept at maintaining an appearance of neutrality. In all of these ways, much of racial inequality is maintained through the appearance of color-blind processes. White Privilege One signiﬁcant aspect of color blindness is how much whites can take for granted. Many of those who profess to be “color-blind,” for example, don’t rec- ognize the many ways that they beneﬁt from their whiteness. Just as many blacks must take it for granted that racism pervades all actions in a systemic way, so it is that many whites can take for granted that they will beneﬁt from white privilege. White privilege refers to the unacknowledged and unearned assets that beneﬁt whites in their everyday lives. It manifests itself in the most taken-for-granted conditions of everyday life. In a powerful metaphor, women’s studies scholar Peggy McIntosh likens white privi- lege to “an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, assurances, tools, maps, guides, codebooks, passports, visas, clothes, compass, emergency gear, and blank checks” (1988). McIntosh then goes on to unpack this invisible knapsack by detailing more than 40 “special circumstances and provisions” she experiences as a white person that her African American counterparts cannot similarly expect in their day-to-day lives: 1. Make arrangements to hang out with people of one’s own race most of the time. 2. Rent or purchase housing in an area one can afford and where one wants to live. 3. Assume that the people living next door will treat one with respect. 4. Go shopping alone without being followed around the store or harassed. 5. Turn on the TV and expect to see other people of one’s race most of the time (1988). INSTITUTIONAL RACISM The idea of institutional racism was developed in the United States in the late 1960s by Black Power activists Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton, and it was taken up by civil rights campaigners. It is deﬁned as the idea that racism occurs through the respected and established institutions of society rather than through the hateful actions of some bad people, that racism pervades all of society’s structures in a systematic way. Those who focus on institutional racism study white privilege Ċ The unacknowledged and how social institutions such as schools, hospi- unearned assets that benefit whites in their tals, police departments, and businesses have everyday lives. practices supporting white supremacy built institutional racism Ċ The idea that into the very fabric of their operations. These racism occurs through the respected and established institutions of society institutions structure social relations in ways rather than through hateful actions of that are less obvious than overt discrimination. some bad people. The concept of institutional racism is well illustrated by a document the U.S. Department 332 CHAPTER 11Race, Ethnicity, and Racism of Justice (DOJ) produced in 2015 in response to a grand jury’s exoneration of a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, after he fatally shot an unarmed black teenager named Michael Brown. At the same time that the DOJ decided not to recommend civil rights charges against the white officer, Darren Wilson, it conducted a study of the charges of discrimination against the Ferguson Police Department. Using its full investiga- tive powers, the DOJ gained access to all the department’s administrative records and conducted interviews with department staff, government officials, and citizens within the black and white populations of Ferguson. Ferguson is one of numerous small municipalities in the St. Louis area. It is a city with a population of 21,000 that was once known for being a racist white suburb in which blacks were not welcome. Today, 67 percent of the Ferguson population is black. Some blocks are integrated, while many poor blacks are segregated in the Oakmont, North- winds, and the Canﬁeld Green complex in which Michael Brown lived. The report sets the scene of institutional discrimination quite well with statistics like these: Black drivers are more than twice as likely as white drivers to be searched during a vehicle stop (even after controlling for variables such as the reason the car was stopped), but they are found in possession of contraband 26 percent less often than white drivers. Blacks are more likely to receive multiple citations during a single inci- dent. Notably, when speeding charges are made, blacks fare much worse when citations are issued on the basis of the officer’s visual assessment, rather than radar or laser. The data demonstrate quite clearly that the disproportionate burden on African Americans Residents of Ferguson, Missouri, a majority-black suburb of St. Louis, fill the streets to protest after the fatal shooting of black teenager Michael Brown by a white police officer. A Department of Justice investigation of the Ferguson Police Department found “substantial evidence of racial bias among police and court staff.” Thinking about Racism333 cannot be explained by any difference in the rate at which people of different races vio- late the law. Yet without the data collected by the Department of Justice, it is very hard to see an overt racial issue in any individual act of arrest. It is the institution of courts and police as a whole that perpetuates a system that places such a burden on blacks. To exert control, the police department uses the municipal code to address nearly every aspect of civic life in the black community. The code includes housing viola- tions, such as “high grass and weeds,” animal control ordinances such as “barking dog” and “dog running at large,” and ordinances governing public space such as “manner of walking in roadway.” Over a four-year period for which data was available, the city of Ferguson issued 90,000 citations and summonses for municipal violations, mostly in the black community. Only one of these resulted in jail time. Yet, when someone fails to make a court appearance or pay a ﬁne, the court issues arrest warrants. This practice means that vast numbers of citizens who have missed a court date or failed to pay a ﬁne must circulate through town in fear of the police. Any stop of someone with a warrant can lead to jail time for a violation that would have never led to jail time under the original offense. What we can see in Ferguson is that discrimination occurs through the routine practices of respected institutions such as the police. Mass misdemeanors, citations, and summonses structure social relations in ways that are far less obvious than overt acts of discrimination. One of the best ways to understand how race and ethnicity oper- ate in the United States through institutional racism is to recall that, until the 1970s, most blacks lived in either urban ghettos or Southern states that were still marked by the remnants of Jim Crow segregation. In the urban areas marked by ghettos, it was very difficult for blacks to ﬁnd housing outside these neighborhoods, either due to racial discrimination or violence against those blacks who tried to move into white neighbor- hoods. In the South, long after the Civil War, there was still a sharp “color line” that sepa- rated the races in schools, housing, and public facilities. In both the North and the South, blacks of all socioeconomic classes led lives that were separate from whites. Middle- and upper- class blacks were relegated to the same neighborhoods as lower- class blacks. If you were black, you did not expect to have access to better neighborhoods, even if you were middle class or wealthy. In other words, if you were black, then you were black, and that largely deﬁned your life chances. When we refer to the ghetto of the United States, or to Southern Jim Crow, we are recognizing that racism is embedded in the structures of our political and economic and social institutions. Even though there are many individual acts of discrimination, the racial system is not ﬁrst and foremost kept alive by these individual acts of dis- crimination. It is kept alive and perpetuated by a larger system of segregation that was established long before those affected were even born and that exists independently of individual acts of hatred or prejudice. In fact, once people live in a highly segregated soci- ety, it is possible for them to suffer great disadvantage based on their race without ever personally experiencing discrimination on a one-to- one basis. In highly segregated life situations, poor blacks today might rarely see whites at all but will still be subject to infe- rior conditions in various realms of life. OVERT RACISM: RACISM WITH RACISTS Though color-blind racism and white privilege are useful concepts for explaining racial inequality in an age when people are good at keeping their racist thoughts to themselves, it would be a mistake to conclude that overt racist acts have disappeared or that large num- bers of people are not victimized by them. In everyday life, racism can be expressed in the ideas held by bigoted individuals. It is expressed overtly through individual attitudes, 334 CHAPTER 11Race, Ethnicity, and Racism perceptions, and beliefs, and it is also sustained by the ideological racist statements of political leaders. The 2016 U.S. presidential election gave voice to the kind of overt racism that has been highly unusual in American politics during the lifetimes of most students reading this book. Below we list just a few examples of overt racism emanating from the campaign of President Donald Trump. 1. Trump began his presidential campaign on June 16, 2015, by attacking Mexican migrants to the United States as “rapists and criminals,” saying, “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” Trump’s rhetoric was aimed at painting Mexicans with one broad brush and suggesting that most of the migrants were dangerous. These claims were the basis of his arguments for building a giant border wall between the United States and Mexico. 2. Trump’s attacks were focused not only on poor Mexican immigrants but also members of the Mexican-American elite. In May 2016, Trump attacked Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who had ruled against his company on some legal issues. “He is a Mexican,” Trump said. “We’re building a wall between here and Mexico. The answer is, he is giving us very unfair rulings—rulings that people can’t even believe.” 3. After the Democratic National Convention, Donald Trump attacked Khizr and Ghazala Khan, the Pakistani American parents of a Muslim U.S. Army officer who died in the Iraq War. The parents spoke at the Democratic Convention, accusing Trump of not understanding the U.S. Constitution: “Have you ever been to Arling- ton Cemetery? Go look at the graves of brave patriots who died defending the United States of America,” said the soldier’s father. “You will see all faiths, genders, and ethnicities. You have sacriﬁced nothing—and no one.” Later Trump lashed out at the couple, suggesting that Mrs. Khan had been silent during the speech because Paki- stani women are held in an inferior position. Trump’s adviser Roger Stone claimed that Khizr Khan wants to enact sharia law in the United States. In August 2017, members of white nationalist groups participated 4. Trump refused to disavow white in a “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The rally, supremacists when they made which was met by counterprotesters, erupted in violence and ended with one woman dead and nineteen others injured. complimentary comments about him and his campaign. David Duke, the former leader of the KKK, stated on his radio show that not voting for Trump is “really treason to your heritage.” After a “Unite the Right” rally in Charlot- tesville, Virginia, in August 2017 left one woman dead and nine- teen others injured, Trump again failed to condemn white suprem- acists, instead asserting that the counterprotesters were as much to blame for the violence as the alt-right crowd. Thinking about Racism335 Although President Trump claimed to be racial microaggressions Ċ Small slights, “the least racist person that you have ever met,” indignities, or acts of disrespect that are hurtful to people of color even though they are often he continually made one bigoted statement perpetuated by well-meaning whites. after another, both during the campaign and then during his presidency. Usually these state- ments tended to paint one or another racial group with a broad brush. RACIAL MICROAGGRESSIONS In everyday life, racial minorities often experience brief interactions that send demeaning messages and appear to the victim to be based on their race. Unlike acts of overt racism, these interactions are perpetuated by whites who are well meaning and well intentioned. Whereas the racial minority member experiences the interac- tion as an insult, the white perpetrator can be shocked to discover there has been any incident at all. At times, the perpetuator will claim that the minority has misunder- stood an “innocent” comment or is making a “mountain out of a molehill.” Often these interactions are experienced silently, with the victim never expressing the outrage he or she silently feels. The idea of microaggression was originally proposed in the 1970s by Ches- ter M. Pierce, an African American psychiatrist at Harvard (Pierce and Dimsdale, 1986). In recent years, it has caught on due to the further work of Derald Wing Sue, an Asian American psychologist at Columbia. Racial microaggressions are small slights, indignities, or acts of disrespect that are hurtful to people of color, even though they are often perpetuated by well-meaning whites. Among the kinds of incidents cited by Sue as examples of microaggressions are people asking Asian Americans where they were born or telling them that they “speak good English.” Such comments suggest that these Americans are immigrants, even when they and their families have been in this country for generations (Sue, 2010). CONCEPT CHECKS 3 While the idea of microaggression has become very popular, it has also been widely criticized. Some believe the idea 1. In what ways does the recent DOJ report on the Ferguson police force provide evidence of of microaggression is itself damaging institutional racism? because it encourages a victim mental- 2. How does color blindness maintain racial ity, spurs anger, and encourages people to inequality? jump to negative conclusions in ambigu- 3. Provide one example of white privilege. What ous situations. As such, the debate over does McIntosh mean by “an invisible weight- less knapsack”? microaggression has become part of the 4. What is a microaggression? Why is this idea phenomenon itself, an essential compo- problematic to some? nent to thinking about the phenomenon of racism in contemporary society. 3 RACE AND RACISM IN HISTORICAL AND COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE It is impossible to understand ethnic and racial divisions today without considering the effect of Western colonialism on the rest of the world (Global Map 11.1); global migra- tory movements resulting from colonialism helped create ethnic divisions by placing peoples in close proximity. 336 CHAPTER 11Race, Ethnicity, and Racism From the ﬁfteenth century onward, Europeans ventured into seas previ- Global Map 11.1 ously uncharted and unexplored by Colonization and Ethnicity them, pursuing exploration and trade but also conquering native peoples and This map shows the massive movement of peoples from settling in new areas. Europeans also Europe who colonized the Americas, South Africa, Aus- occasioned a large-scale movement tralia, and New Zealand, resulting in the ethnic com- of people from Africa to the Ameri- position of populations there today. People from Africa cas via the slave trade. The following were brought to the Americas to be slaves. extraordinary shifts in population have occurred in the past 350 years or so: 1. Europe to North America. Since the seventeenth century, some 45 million people have emigrated from Europe to what are now the United States and 4 5 M i ll i o n Canada. About 200 million on illi M people in North America today 20 15 trace their ancestry to this Million migration. 2. Europe to Central and South America. About 20 million people, mostly from Spain, Por- 17 tugal, and Italy, have migrated to ill M io Central and South America. Some n 50 million people in these areas To Australia and New Zealand today are of European ancestry. 3. Europe to Africa and Austral- asia. Approximately 17 million people in Africa and Australasia are of European ancestry. In Africa, the majority of emigrants went to the state of South Africa, which was colonized mainly by the British and the Dutch. 4. Africa to the Americas. Starting in the sixteenth century, about 10 million blacks were unwillingly transported to the North and South American conti- nents. Fewer than 1 million arrived in the sixteenth century; some 1.3 million in the seventeenth century; 6 million in the eighteenth century; and 2 million in the nineteenth century. These population ﬂows underlie the current ethnic composition of the United States, Canada, the countries of Central and South America, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. In all these societies, the indigenous populations were decimated by disease, war, and genocide and subjected to European rule. They are now impoverished ethnic minori- ties. Because the Europeans themselves had diverse national and ethnic origins, they transplanted ethnic hierarchies and divisions to their new homelands. At the height of the colonial era, Europeans also ruled over native populations in South Asia, East Asia, the South Paciﬁc, and the Middle East. Throughout European expansion, ethnocentric attitudes caused many colonists to believe that, as Christians, they were on a civilizing mission to the rest of the world. Race and Racism in Historical and Comparative Perspective337 Europeans of all political persuasions believed themselves superior to the peoples they colonized and conquered. The fact that many of those peoples possessed technologies, agricultural skills, and knowledge that the Europeans embraced and incorporated (for example, the civil service system in India) seemed irrelevant, because the Europeans possessed the power to institutionalize their interpretation of the relationship between themselves and the rest of the world. The early period of colonization coincided with the rise of scientiﬁc racism, or the misuse of science to support racist assumptions, and ever since then, the legacy of colonization has generated ethnic divisions that have affected regional and global conﬂicts. In particular, racist views distinguishing the descendants of Europeans from those of Africans became central to European racist attitudes. The Rise of Racism Why has racism flourished? There are several reasons. The first reason lies in the exploitative relations that Europeans established with the peoples they conquered. The slave trade could not have been persisted had Europeans not constructed a belief sys- tem that allowed them to justify their actions by claiming that Africans belonged to an inferior race. Racism helped justify colonial rule over nonwhites and denied them the rights of political participation being won by whites in the colonists’ European homelands. The relations between whites and nonwhites varied according to differ- ent patterns of colonial settlement and were influenced by cultural differences among Europeans themselves. Second, an opposition between the colors white and black as cultural symbols was deeply rooted in European culture. White had long been associated with purity and black with evil. (There is nothing natural about this symbolism; in some other cultures, it is reversed.) The symbol of blackness held negative meanings before the West came into extensive contact with black peoples. These symbolic meanings inﬂuenced the Europe- ans’ reactions to blacks when they ﬁrst encountered them on African shores. The sense that there was a radical difference between black and white peoples, combined with the “heathenism” of the Africans, led many Europeans to regard blacks with disdain and fear. A third factor was the invention and diffusion of the concept of race itself. Racist attitudes have existed for thousands of years. In China in 300 B.C.E., for example, we ﬁnd descriptions of barbarian peoples “who greatly resemble monkeys from whom they are descended.” But the notion of race as a cluster of inherited characteristics comes from Euro- pean thought. Count Joseph Arthur de Gobineau (1816–1882), sometimes called the father of modern racism, proposed that three races exist: white, black, and yellow. The white race possessed superior intelligence, morality, and willpower, and these inherited qualities underlay the spread of Western inﬂuence across the world. Blacks were the least capable, marked by an animal nature, a lack of morality, and emotional instability. scientiﬁc racism Ċ The use of scientific The ideas of Gobineau and other similar research or data to justify or reify beliefs about views were presented as supposedly scientiﬁc the superiority or inferiority of particular racial theories. Although completely without factual groups. Much of the “data” used to justify such claims are flawed or biased. value, the notion of the superiority of the white apartheid Ċ The system of racial segregation race remains a key element of white racism—in established in South Africa. the ideology of the Ku Klux Klan, for example— and was the basis of apartheid in South Africa. 338 CHAPTER 11Race, Ethnicity, and Racism Table 11.1 Racial and Ethnic Populations in the United States, 2016 RACE OR ETHNICITY POPULATION SHARE OF TOTAL POPULATION* Total U.S. Population 323,127,513 White (non-Hispanic) 197,969,608 61.3% Hispanic or Latino 57,470,287 17.8% Black or African American 43,000,691 13.3% Asian 18,318,522 5.7% American Indian and Alaska Native 4,054,649 1.3% Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific 771,475 0.2% Islander Two or more races 8,479,644 2.6% *Percentages do not total 100 percent because Hispanics or Latinos can be of any race. Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2017i. Blacks in the United States By 1780, there were nearly 4 million slaves in the American South. Slaves had no rights in law whatsoever. But they did not passively accept the conditions their masters imposed on them. The struggles of slaves sometimes took the form of direct opposition or dis- obedience to orders, and occasionally rebellion, though collective slave revolts were more common in the Caribbean than in the United States. On a more subtle level, their response involved a cultural creativity—a mixing of aspects of African cultures, Chris- tian ideals, and cultural threads from their new environments. Some of the art forms they developed—for example, jazz—were genuinely new. Hostility toward blacks on the part of whites was in some respects stronger in states where slavery had never existed than in the South itself. As the French politi- cal observer Alexis de Tocqueville noted in 1835, “The prejudice of race appears to be stronger in the states that have abolished slavery than in those where it still exists; and nowhere is it so intolerant as in those states where servitude has never been known.” Moral rejection of slavery was confined to a few more educated groups. The main fac- tors underlying the Civil War were political and economic; most Northern leaders were more interested in sustaining the Union than in abolishing slavery, although the aboli- tion of slavery was an eventual outcome of the conflict. The formal abolition of slav- ery barely changed the real conditions of life for African Americans in the South. The “black codes”—laws limiting the rights of blacks—restricted the behavior of the former slaves and punished their transgressions in much the same way they had suffered under slavery. Acts legalizing segregation of blacks from whites in public places were passed. One kind of slavery was thus replaced by another: that of social, political, and economic discrimination. Race and Racism in Historical and Comparative Perspective339 INTERNAL MIGRATION FROM SOUTH TO NORTH Industrial development in the North combined with the mechanization of agriculture in the South produced a progressive movement of African Americans northward. In 1900, more than 90 percent of African Americans lived in the South, mostly in rural areas. Today, three-quarters of the black population live in Northern urban areas. African Americans used to be farm laborers and domestic servants, but in the course of little more than two generations, they have become mainly urban, industrial, and service-economy workers. But African Americans have not assimilated into the wider society in the way white immigrants did. They still face conditions of neighborhood segregation and pov- erty that other immigrants faced only upon arrival. Together with those of Anglo-Saxon origin, African Americans have lived in the United States far longer than most other immi- grant groups. What was a transitional experience for most of the later white immigrants has become a seemingly permanent experience for blacks. THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT In contrast to other racial and ethnic minorities, blacks and Native Americans have largely been denied opportunities for self-advancement. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the National Urban League were founded in 1909 and 1910, respectively, to promote black civil rights. However, they did not have a signiﬁcant effect until after World War II, when the NAACP instituted a campaign against segregated public education. This struggle came to a head when the organization sued ﬁve school boards, challenging the concept of separate but equal schooling. In 1954, in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” This decision underpinned struggles for civil rights from the 1950s to the 1970s. The strength of the resistance from many whites persuaded black leaders that mass militancy was necessary. In 1955, a black woman, Rosa Parks, was arrested in Montgomery, Ala- bama, for declining to give up her seat on a bus to a white man. As a result, nearly the entire African American Martin Luther King Jr. addresses a large crowd at a civil rights march on Washington in 1963. population of the city, led by a Bap- tist minister, Martin Luther King Jr., boycotted the transportation system for 381 days. Eventually, the city was forced to abolish segregation on pub- lic transportation. Further boycotts and sit-ins fol- lowed, with the objective of deseg- regating other public facilities. The marches and demonstrations began to achieve a mass following from blacks and white sympathizers. In 1963, a quarter of a million civil rights sup- porters staged a march on Washing- ton and cheered as King announced, “We will not be satisﬁed until jus- tice rolls down like the waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.” 340 CHAPTER 11Race, Ethnicity, and Racism In 1964, the Civil Rights Act was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, banning discrimination in public facilities, education, employment, and any agency receiving government funds. Subsequent bills outlawed discrimination in housing and ensured that African Americans became fully registered voters. Although civil rights marchers were beaten up and some lost their lives, and in spite of some barriers to full realization of the Civil Rights Act’s provisions, the law was funda- mentally important. Its principles applied not just to African Americans but also to anyone subject to discrimination, including other ethnic groups and women. It spurred a range of movements asserting the rights of oppressed groups. How successful has the civil rights movement been? On one hand, a substantial black middle class has emerged. Many African Americans—such as the writer Toni Morrison, the literary scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, media moguls Oprah Winfrey and Jay-Z, and President Barack Obama—have achieved positions of power and inﬂuence. On the other hand, a signiﬁcant African American underclass remains trapped in the ghettos. Scholars have debated whether this underclass has resulted primarily from economic disadvantage or from dependency on the welfare system. Later in this chapter, we will examine the forms of inequality still experienced by African Americans and other minority groups. Hispanics and Latinos in the United States The wars of conquest that created the boundaries of the contemporary United States were directed not only against the Native American population but also against Mexico. The territory that later became California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah—along with its quarter of a million Mexicans—was taken by the United States in 1848 as a result of the American war with Mexico. The terms Mexican American and Chicano refer to the descendants of these people, together with subsequent immigrants from Mexico. The term Latino refers to people descended from Latin America, while Hispanic tends to refer to anyone living in the United States descended from Spanish-speaking regions. The four main groups of Hispanics in the United States come from Mexico (around 35 million), Puerto Rico (5.3 million), El Salvador (3.8 million), and Cuba (3.7 million). A further 10.4 million Spanish-speaking residents are from countries in Central and South America and other Hispanic or Latino regions (Stepler and Brown, 2016). California, Texas, Florida, New York, and Illinois have the largest Hispanic populations, accounting for nearly two-thirds of all Hispanics (Stepler and Lopez, 2016). In 2016, the more than 57 million Hispanics in the United States represented nearly 18 percent of the population— up from 4.7 percent in 1970 and 12.5 percent in 2000. However, the growth of the Hispanic population has slowed in recent years due to a decrease in immigration as well as declin- ing birth rates among Hispanic women in the United States (Krogstad, 2016). MEXICAN AMERICANS Mexican Americans reside mainly in California, Texas, and other southwestern states, although there are substantial groups in the Midwest and Northern cities as well. The majority work at low-paying jobs. In the post–World War II period up to the early 1960s, Mexican workers were admitted without much restriction. This period was succeeded by a phase of quotas on legal immigrants and deportations of illegal immigrants. Today, ille- gal immigrants continue to cross the border. In 2016, there were an estimated 5.6 million unauthorized Mexican immigrants living in the United States, accounting for about half Race and Racism in Historical and Comparative Perspective341 of all unauthorized immigrants (Krogstad, Passel, and Cohn, 2017). Large numbers are intercepted and sent back each year, but most simply try again. Because Mexico is a relatively poor neighbor of the wealthy United States, this ﬂow of people northward is unlikely to cease. Illegal immigrants can be employed more cheaply than indigenous workers, and they perform jobs that most of the rest of the population would not accept. Legislation passed by Congress in 1986 has enabled illegal immi- grants living in the United States for at least ﬁve years to claim legal residence. In the past decade, however, immigration from Mexico has decreased. More Mexicans have left the United States than entered the country since the Great Recession ended (Gonzalez- Barrera, 2015). Mexicans in the United States typically have levels of economic well-being and edu- cational attainment far below that of native-born Americans. In 2014, 26 percent of Mexicans lived in poverty. More than two-thirds (68 percent) of Mexicans in the United States are proﬁcient in English; however, only 10 percent hold bachelor’s degrees (Lopez, 2015b). Many Mexican Americans resist assimilation into the dominant English- speaking culture and increasingly display pride in their own cultural identity within the United States. Social scientists estimate that Mexican immigrants and their children may become increasingly assimilated into life in the United States in coming decades, due in part to policies that help them obtain an affordable college education. Given that about half of undocumented immigrants in the United States hail from Mexico, these policies will have a major impact on the lives of young Mexican immigrants. PUERTO RICANS AND CUBANS Puerto Rico was acquired by the United States through war, and Puerto Ricans have been American citizens since 1917. The island is poor, and many of its inhabitants have migrated to the mainland United States to seek a better life. Puerto Ricans who emi- grated originally settled primarily in New York City, but since the 1960s, they have also settled elsewhere. A reverse migration of Puerto Ricans back to the island began in the 1970s. In recent years, however, record numbers of Puerto Ricans have been migrating to the United States to escape the island’s decade-long recession (Krogstad, Starr, and Sand- strom, 2017). One of the most important issues facing Puerto Rican activists is the political des- tiny of their homeland. Puerto Rico is a commonwealth, not a full state. For years, Puerto Ricans have been divided about whether the island should retain its present status, opt for independence, or attempt to become the 51st state of the Union. In June 2017, 97 per- cent of Puerto Ricans voted in favor of statehood in a nonbinding referendum; however, less than a quarter of registered voters actually cast ballots due to boycotts. The vote came just a few weeks after the country declared a form of bankruptcy (Robles, 2017). This is the ﬁfth time Puerto Ricans have voted on the issue of statehood. In a 2012 vote in which nearly 78 percent of Puerto Ricans cast ballots, a majority of 54 percent voted in favor of statehood. A third Hispanic group, the Cubans, differs from the others in key respects. Cubans in the United States tend to be more successful compared to other U.S. Hispanic groups: 25 percent of Cubans ages 25 and older have at least a bachelor’s degree (compared to 13 percent of all U.S. Hispanics), median annual earnings for Cubans is $25,000 (ver- sus $20,000), and 20 percent live in poverty (versus 25 percent) (Lopez, 2015a). Half a million Cubans ﬂed communism after the rise of Fidel Castro in 1959, and the majority of these settled in Florida. Unlike other Latino immigrants, most were educated people 342 CHAPTER 11Race, Ethnicity, and Racism from white- collar and professional backgrounds. They have thrived within the United States, many ﬁnding positions comparable to those they abandoned in Cuba. As a group, Cubans have the highest family income of all Latinos. A further wave of Cuban immigrants of less-affluent origin arrived in 1980 and live in circumstances closer to the rest of the Latino communities in the United States. Both sets of Cuban immigrants are mainly political refugees rather than economic migrants. The later immigrants have become the “working class” for the earlier immigrants. They are paid low wages, but Cuban employers hire them in preference to other ethnic groups. Asian Americans About 6 percent of the population of the United States is of Asian origin. Chinese Ameri- cans, Filipino Americans, and Indian Americans form the largest groups, but now there are also signiﬁcant numbers of Vietnamese, Koreans, Japanese, and Pakistanis. As a result of the war in Vietnam, some 350,000 refugees from that country alone entered the United States in the 1970s. Most of the early Chinese immigrants settled in California and worked in heavy indus- tries, such as mining and railroad construction. The retreat of the Chinese into distinct Chi- natowns was a response to the hostility they faced. Since Chinese immigration was legally banned in 1882, the Chinese remained isolated from the Young Japanese Americans wait for baggage wider society, at least until recently. inspection upon arrival at a World War II Assembly Center in Turlock, California, 1942. From here they were The early Japanese immigrants also settled transported to one of several internment camps for in California and the other Paciﬁc states. During Japanese Americans. World War II, after the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan, Japanese Americans in the United States were taken to remote “relocation centers” sur- rounded by barbed wire and gun turrets. Even though most were American citizens, they were compelled to live in the hastily established camps for the duration of the war. Paradoxically, this sit- uation promoted their greater integration within the wider society because, after the war, Japa- nese Americans did not return to their previously separate neighborhoods. Since then, they have attained high levels of education and income, marginally outstripping whites. Japanese Amer- icans have the highest rate of intermarriage of U.S. Asian groups; more than half of Japanese newlyweds married a non-Asian partner (Pew Research Center, 2013g). Following the passage of a new immigra- tion act in 1965, large-scale immigration of Asians again took place. Foreign-born Chinese Americans today outnumber those brought up in the United States. The newly arrived Chinese have avoided the Chinatowns in which the long- established Chinese remain. Race and Racism in Historical and Comparative Perspective343 Models of Ethnic Integration In today’s age of globalization and rapid social change, the rich beneﬁts and complex challenges of ethnic diversity are confronting a growing number of states. As interna- tional migration accelerates along with the global economy, the mixing of populations will intensify. Meanwhile, ethnic tensions and conﬂicts continue, threatening the existence of some multiethnic states and hinting at protracted violence in others. How can ethnic diversity be accommodated and ethnic conﬂict be averted? Within multi- ethnic societies, what should be the relationship between ethnic minority groups and the majority population? Four primary models of ethnic integration address these chal- lenges: assimilation, the “melting pot,” pluralism, and multiculturalism. These will be discussed shortly. For many years, the two most common positive models of political ethnic harmony in the United States were those of assimilation and the melting pot. Assimilation meant that new immigrant groups would assume the attitudes and language of the dominant white community. The idea of the melting pot was different and involved merging different cultures and outlooks by stirring them all together. A newer model of ethnic relations is pluralism, in which ethnic cultures exist separately yet par- ticipate in the larger society’s economic and political life. A recent outgrowth of plu- ralism is multiculturalism, in which ethnic groups exist separately and equally. It seems possible to create a society in which ethnic groups are separate and equal, as in Switzerland, where French, German, and Italian groups coexist in the same society. But this situation is unusual, and it is unlikely that the United States will mirror this achievement in the near future. Global Migration Today, ﬂoods of refugees and emigrants move restlessly across different regions of the globe, either escaping conﬂicts or ﬂeeing poverty in search of a better life. Often they reach a new country only to face resentment from people whose forebears were immigrants themselves. Sometimes there are reversals, as in some areas of the United States along the Mexican border. Much of what is now California was once part of Mexico. Today, some Mexican Americans might say the new waves of Mexican immigrants are reclaiming what used to be their heritage—except that most of the existing groups in California don’t quite see things this way. MIGRATORY MOVEMENTS assimilation Ċ The acceptance of a minority group by a majority population, in which the Migration is accelerating as part of the process new group takes on the values and norms of the of global integration. Worldwide migration pat- dominant culture. terns reﬂect the rapidly changing economic, melting pot Ċ The idea that ethnic differences political, and cultural ties among countries can be combined to create new patterns of (Global Map 11.2). It has been estimated that the behavior drawing on diverse cultural sources. world’s migrant population in 1990 was more pluralism Ċ A model for ethnic relations in which all ethnic groups in the United States than 150 million people. In 2015, the number of retain their independent and separate identities migrants was estimated at nearly 244 million. yet share equally in the rights and powers of Europe and Asia are home to nearly two-thirds citizenship. of all international migrants (UN Population multiculturalism Ċ A condition in which ethnic groups exist separately and share equally Division, 2015). The number will likely con- in economic and political life. tinue to increase in the twenty-ﬁrst century, prompting some scholars to label this the “age of 344 CHAPTER 11Race, Ethnicity, and Racism Global Map 11.2 Global Migratory Movements since 1973 Arctic CANADA EUROPE CHINA NORTH To North From America Asia AMERICA USA JAPAN ASIA Fr Arab o Oil Amm S Countries eri outh INDIA ca Atlantic AFRICA To North Ocean America SOUTH To Japan AMERICA Pacific Indian Ocean Ocean INDONESIA To Australia AUSTRALIA From South America Pacific Ocean NEW Antarctic ZEALAND Note: Arrow dimensions do not indicate the size of movements. Source: Castles and Miller, 1993, p. 6. migration” (Castles and Miller, 1993). In fact, the Census Bureau projects that nearly one in ﬁve Americans will be foreign-born by 2060 (Trevelyan et al., 2016). Immigration, the movement of people into a country to settle, and emigration, the process by which people leave a country to settle in another, combine to produce global migration patterns linking countries of origin and countries of destination. Migratory movements add to ethnic and cultural diversity and affect demographic, economic, and social dynamics. Rising immigration rates in many Western societies have challenged commonly held notions of national identity and have forced a reexamination of concepts of citizenship. Scholars offer four models of migration to describe the main global population move- ments since 1945. The classic model applies to countries such as Canada, the United States, and Australia, which developed as nations of immigrants. These countries have encouraged immigration and promised citizen- immigration Ċ The movement of people into one country from another for the purpose of ship to newcomers, although restrictions and settlement. quotas limit the annual intake. The colonial emigration Ċ The movement of people out of model of immigration, pursued by countries one country to settle in another. such as France and the United Kingdom, grants Race and Racism in Historical and Comparative Perspective345 preferences to immigrants from former colonies. Countries such as Germany, Swit- zerland, and Belgium have followed the guest workers model: Immigrants are admitted on a temporary basis, often to fulﬁll demands within the labor market, but they do not receive citizenship rights, even after long periods of settlement. Finally, illegal models of immigration are increasingly common because of tightening immigration laws in many industrialized countries. Immigrants who gain entry into a country either secretly or under a nonimmigration pretense often live illegally, outside the realm of official society. Examples include undocumented Mexican immigrants in many Southern U.S. states and the refugees smuggled across national borders (part of a growing international business). What are the forces behind global migration, and how are they changing as a result of globalization? Many early theories focused on push-and-pull factors. Push factors are dynamics within a country of origin that force people to emigrate, such as war, famine, political oppression, and population pressures. Pull factors are features of destination coun- tries that attract immigrants, such as prosperous labor markets, better living conditions, and lower population density. Recently, push-and-pull theories have been criticized for offering overly simplistic explanations of a multifaceted process. Instead, scholars of migration are regarding global migration patterns as systems produced through interactions between macro-level and micro-level processes. Macro-level factors refer to overarching issues such as the politi- cal situation in an area, laws and regulations controlling immigration and emigration, and changes in the international economy. Micro-level factors are concerned with the resources, knowledge, and understandings that the migrant populations possess. The intersection of macro and micro processes is evident in Germany’s large Turk- ish immigrant community. On the macro level are factors such as Germany’s economic need for labor, its policy of accepting foreign “guest workers,” and the state of the Turk- ish economy, which prevents many Turks from earning at a satisfactory level. On the micro level are the informal networks and channels of mutual support within the Turk- ish community in Germany and the strong links to family and friends in Turkey. Among potential Turkish migrants, knowledge about Germany and its “social capital”—its human or community resources—makes Germany one of the most popular destination countries. Supporters of the migration systems approach emphasize that no single fac- tor can explain the process of migration. Rather, each migratory movement, like that between Turkey and Germany, is the product of an interaction between macro- and micro-level processes. Stephen Castles and Mark Miller (1993) identiﬁed four tendencies that they claim will characterize migration patterns in the coming years: 1. Acceleration: Migration across borders is occurring in greater numbers than ever before. 2. Diversiﬁcation: Most countries now receive immigrants of many different types— in contrast with earlier times, when particular forms of immigration, such as labor immigration or refugees, were predominant. 3. Globalization: Migration has become more global, involving a greater number of countries as both senders and recipients. 4. Feminization: A growing number of migrants are women, making contemporary migration much less male-dominated than previously. The increase reﬂects changes in the global labor market, including the growing demand for domestic workers, the expansion of sex tourism, “trafficking” in women, and the “mail-order brides” phe- nomenon. 346 CHAPTER 11Race, Ethnicity, and Racism GLOBAL DIASPORAS The term diaspora refers to the dispersal of an diaspora Ċ The dispersal of an ethnic population from an original homeland into ethnic population from a homeland into foreign foreign areas, often in a forced manner or under areas, often in a forced manner or under trau- traumatic circumstances. matic circumstances. Although members of a diaspora are scattered geographically, they are held together by factors such as a shared history, a collective memory of the homeland, or a common ethnic identity that is nurtured and preserved. Robin Cohen has argued that diasporas occur in various forms, although the most commonly cited examples are those that result from persecution and violence. In Global Diasporas (1997), Cohen adopts a historical approach and identiﬁes ﬁve categories of diasporas: victim (e.g., African, Jewish, and Armenian), imperial (British), labor (Indian), trade (Chinese), and cultural (Caribbean). In certain cases, such as that of the Chinese, large-scale population movements have occurred on a voluntary basis. Despite the diversity of forms, all diasporas share certain key features (Cohen, 1997): a forced or voluntary movement from a homeland to a new region or regions; a shared memory about the homeland, a commitment to its preservation, and a belief in the possibility of eventual return; a strong ethnic identity sustained over time and distance; a sense of solidarity with members of the same ethnic group also living in areas of the diaspora; a degree of tension in relation to the host societies; and the potential for valuable and creative contributions to pluralistic host societies. Some scholars have accused Cohen of simplifying complex and distinctive CONCEPT CHECKS 3 migration experiences into a narrow 1. What are three reasons racism has flourished in the United States? typology by associating categories of dia- 2. How did the civil rights movement help sporas with particular ethnic groups. minority groups achieve equal rights and Others argue that his conceptualization opportunities? of diaspora is not sufficiently precise. Yet 3. According to Castles and Miller, which four Cohen’s study is valuable for demonstrat- trends are likely to characterize migration in the near future? ing that diasporas are nonstatic, ongoing 4. What is a diaspora? Explain the role diasporas processes of maintaining collective iden- play in preserving ethnic culture in contempo- tity and preserving ethnic culture in a rap- rary societies. idly globalizing world. 4 UNANSWERED QUESTIONS Do New Immigrants Help or Hinder the Nation’s Economy? The cultural and social landscape of the United States is viewed as an amalgam of diverse cultures, largely because of our nation’s history as a refuge for immigrants. Today, how- ever, policy makers and social scientists disagree over the social and economic costs of immigration. Unanswered Questions347 Before discussing this debate, it is important to understand the current state of immigration to the United States. There are more than 43 million foreign-born indi- viduals in the United States, comprising 13.5 percent of the total population. This rep- resents a fourfold increase since 1960, when there were 9.7 million immigrants in the United States (Brown and Stepler, 2016). Each year about a million immigrants enter the United States (Lopez and Bialik, 2017). In contrast to the major wave of immigration in the 1880s and 1890s, just 12 percent of immigrants admitted into the United States since 1965 were of European origin. In fact, 51 percent have come from Latin America, including 28 percent from Mexico, and another 25 percent have come from South/East Asia (Migration Policy Institute, 2017). This change is attributed to two government acts: the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments, which abolished preference for northern and western European immigrants and gave preference to “family reuniﬁca- tion”—rather than occupational skills—as a reason for accepting immigrants; and the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, which provided amnesty for many illegal immigrants. Since 2010, more Asian immigrants have come to the United States than Hispanic immigrants (Brown and Stepler, 2016). Immigration from Mexico has dropped precipitously in recent years, from 369,000 immigrants in 2005 to just 139,400 in 2015 (Migration Policy Institute, 2017). Much of the debate focuses on new immigrants’ ability to secure employment and achieve economic self-sufficiency. In his 1994 essay “The Economics of Immigration,” economist George Borjas argued that since the 1980s, the United States has attracted “lower-quality” immigrants with less education and few marketable job skills. Moreover, they are less skilled than both natives (i.e., people born in the United States) and earlier migrants; thus, they are more reliant on government assistance. Borjas estimates that recent immigrants will likely earn 20 percent less than native-born Americans for most of their working lives. In terms of the effect of immigrants on natives’ economic prospects, Borjas argues that large-scale migration of less-skilled workers harms the economic opportunities of less-skilled natives— particularly African Americans. This occurs because immigrants increase the number of workers in the economy; as they create additional competition in the labor market, wages of the least-skilled workers fall. Other economists and policy analysts claim that recent immigration has had either a positive effect or no inﬂuence on the U.S. economy. Economist Julian Simon (1981, 1989) has argued that immigrants beneﬁt the U.S. economy by joining the labor force and paying into the federal revenue system for their whole lives. By the time they retire and collect government beneﬁts such as Social Security and Medicare, their children will be covering these costs by working and paying into the tax system. Simon’s argu- ments, however, assume that immigrants earn the same wages and are as employable as natives—an assumption refuted by Borjas’s research. Simon also holds that immigrants are a cultural asset to the United States. In fact, he claims that “the notion of wanting to keep out immigrants to keep our institutions and our values pure is prejudice” (quoted in Brimelow, 1995). He argues, moreover, that because human beings have the intelligence to adapt to their surroundings, the more immigrants that come to the United States, the larger the pool of potential innovators and problem solvers our nation will have. Studies conducted by Simon and the Urban Institute, a nonproﬁt research organi- zation, acknowledge that although some recent immigrants may beneﬁt from federally funded programs such as welfare, these costs to the government are often quite short- term. Immigrant children who beneﬁt from the U.S. educational system go on to become productive, taxpaying workers. 348 CHAPTER 11Race, Ethnicity, and Racism The National Immigration Forum has estimated that immigrant workers contribute signiﬁcantly to the national economy. In 2014, immigrants repre- sented 17 percent of the U.S. workforce; about 5 percent of the workforce are illegal immigrants (Desilver, 2017). Even though most immigrants work in low-wage and hard-labor jobs, with- out them, the gross domestic product of the United States would be far less. Assessing the ﬁscal costs of immigra- tion proves difficult, however. Although much of the public debate focuses on the costs of providing services to unau- thorized immigrants, actual statistics documenting the number of unauthor- ized immigrants are difficult to obtain People participate in a “We’re Here to Stay” event in Washington, and verify. The Pew Research Center D.C., to protest President Trump’s immigration policies. Trump has pledged to build a wall along the Mexican border and cut federal (2016d) puts the population of unau- grants for sanctuary cities. thorized immigrants in the United States at 11.1 million in 2014. Further- more, few policy analysts can predict whether U.S. immigration policy—or the characteris- tics of immigrants themselves—will change drastically in the future. Has Real Progress Been Made Since the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960S? On the one hand, an increasing number of blacks joined the middle class by acquiring col- lege degrees, professional jobs, and new homes. On the other hand, blacks are far more likely than whites to live in poverty and be socially isolated from good schools and eco- nomic opportunity. Also, many immigrants came to the United States throughout the 1980s and 1990s to ﬁnd new economic opportunity. Yet some of these groups, particularly Mexicans, have among the lowest levels of educational achievement and live in dire pov- erty. Most sociologists agree on the facts about racial and ethnic inequality but disagree on how to interpret them. Is racial and ethnic inequality primarily the result of a person’s racial or ethnic background, or does it reﬂect a person’s class position? In this section, we examine how racial and ethnic inequality is reﬂected in educational and occupational attainment, income, health, residential segregation, and political power. EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT Differences between blacks and whites in levels of educational attainment have decreased, but these seem more the result of long- established trends than the direct outcome of the struggles of the 1960s. The U.S. high school graduation rate reached an all-time high of 83 percent in 2014–2015. Asian/Paciﬁc Islander students had the high- est graduation rate at 90 percent, compared to 88 percent for white students, 78 percent for Hispanic students, and 75 percent for black students (National Center for Educa- tion Statistics [NCES], 2017). The proportion of blacks over the age of 25 with high school diplomas increased from about 20 percent in 1960 to 87 percent in 2016. By Unanswered Questions349 contrast, 94 percent of non-Hispanic whites have completed high school (Figure 11.1A) (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2017e). While more blacks are attending college now than in the 1960s, a much higher pro- portion of whites than blacks have bachelor’s degrees (Figure 11.1B). In today’s global economy and job market, which value college degrees, the result is a wide disparity in incomes between whites and blacks (see the next section, “Employment and Income”). Still, the number of bachelor’s degrees awarded to blacks each year nearly tripled between 1990 and 2015 (NCES, 2016c). Another trend is the large gap in educational attainment between Hispanics and both whites and blacks. While the dropout rate for Hispanic students has decreased considerably in recent years, Hispanics still have the highest high school dropout rate of any group in the United States (9.2 percent, compared to 6.5 percent for blacks and 4.6 percent for whites) (NCES, 2017). While rates of college attendance and graduation have improved for other groups, the rate for Hispanics has held relatively steady since the mid- 1980s. Only about 16 percent hold a bachelor’s degree, compared with 37 percent of non- Hispanic whites (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2017e). It is possible that these poor results reﬂect the large number of poorly educated immi- grants from Latin America who have come to the United States since the 1980s, many of whom have limited English-language skills and whose children encounter difficulties in school. One study found, however, that even among Mexican Americans whose families have lived in the United States for three generations or more, there has been a decline in educational attainment (Bean et al., 1994). For Hispanics with low levels of education and poor language skills, living in the United States has been “the American nightmare, not the American dream” (Holmes, 1997). EMPLOYMENT AND INCOME As a result of increased educational attainment, blacks now hold slightly more managerial and professional jobs than they did in 1960, though still not in proportion to their overall Figure 11.1A Figure 11.1B Percentage of Population with a Percentage of Population with a High School Diploma, 2016* Bachelor’s Degree, 2016* 100 94

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