COLOR INITIATIVE REPORT 6: Whiteness and New Immigration to America

COLOR REPORT SIX: Color and the New Wave of Immigrants--Part 2 of How European Immigrants Became White.
http://www.theworld.org/?q=taxonomy_by_date/1/20080414

April 14, 2008
Immigration and skin color (6:00)
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I report on how recent immigrants to the United States feel about American notions of race and skin color.

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Between 1881 and 1920 about twenty-four million immigrants from southern and eastern Europe put down roots in the US. In COLOR terms they were regarded as neither black nor white, but as a sort of "IN-BETWEEN” people –who would gradually become white –often after petitioning to the courts. To be white was to be more privileged--in the context of America’s strict racial pecking order. Beginning in the 1970’s a NEW WAVE of olive, tan and beige skinned immigrants arrived to these shores seeking the same opportunities. But color had become far more complex says David Roediger, author of “Working Toward Whiteness”.

Acceptance as fully white for this group of immigrants is VERY open to question: To Islamic immigrants or people who look like they might be of Islamic faith, particularly after 9/11. It’s open to question on the part of Asian immigrants because of the tremendous weight of the history of exclusion in the United States. Similarly but more complicated is the case with Latino immigrants.

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The Color Initiative is funded by the Ford Foundation, with additional resources provided by the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities and the Funding Exchange (Paul Robeson Fund).