The Columbia Documentary History of Race and Ethnicity in America

ALL HISTORIANS WOULD AGREE that America is a nation of nations. But what does that mean in terms of the issues that have moved and shaped us as a people? Contemporary concerns such as bilingualism, incorporation/assimilation, dual identity, ethnic politics, quotas and affirmative action, residential segregation, and the level of immigration itself resonate with a past that dealt with variations of these modern factors. American history is particularly complex because it is not the history of just one people but of many—some who strived to become one people and some who resisted. And as this book indicates, there was little in this history (from Indian Wars to Civil War and from expansionism to progressivism to Civil Rights) that American pluralism did not affect or by which it was not affected.

This book was conceived as a beginning, a place to start for those seeking knowledge of American history with a particular perspective. The chapter essays are designed to provide a concise overview of the various eras in this history, whereas the documents offer primary sources from the pertinent topics, organizations, individuals, and events that allow readers to look at the actual historical building blocks. Annotated bibliographies and bibliographic essays offer important works for further reading and research. Each author picks up common themes that are carried through the book, only increasing in complexity as new immigrants arrive and the nation becomes more diverse. Carol Berkin’s essay immediately reveals conflicts with the Native Americans and between Europeans, which encompassed struggles over land and trade as well as culture. Cultural and power struggles are evident throughout American history. Yet there was a good deal of cooperation as well, which reveals another trend in American life. Survival for the colonist, as it would be for a later more diverse United States, also depended on working with and understanding the “others.” The themes of cooperation and conflict, acceptance, exclusion, and subjugation (especially with the beginning of slavery) permeate U.S. history—whether it is English and Indians, Anglos and Mexicans, Irish and Yankees, blacks and Jews. Other than the institution of slavery and institutionalized racial segregation, the alliances formed or conflicts fought were temporary—shifting as circumstances changed.

The dominance of English culture, later termed Anglo-conformity, is raised early in the chapters. Graham Hodges contends that Anglicization did not immediately prevail, and certainly not in areas where the English were the smaller population. Other cultures and identities remained and flourished. Subsequent authors, particularly Andrew Heinze and Timothy Meagher, respectively, deal with the Americanization/Anglo-conformity of the early twentieth century and the multiculturalism of the late twentieth century, both of which were directly related to the colonial cultural struggles. Although English became and remains the dominant language, other languages vied for equality at various times and places (e.g., German and Spanish). Recent “English Only” organizations, which worked to make English the official language, reflect concerns over the effects of bilingualism and multicultural influence. Religion as well was a culturally identifying factor, and the colonies saw varied religious observances within their populations. In the mid to late twentieth century, Anglo-American cultural preeminence drew opposition from those who placed a new emphasis on multiculturalism and from the identity and interest-group politics of blacks, Asians, Latinos, and Native Americans. Whether there are benefits or liabilities for national unity in multiculturalism is still a hotly debated topic. Whatever the eventual outcome, it is clear that group recognition and assertion of rights and interests are significant factors in contemporary American life as they have been in the past.

Naturalization is also an issue that weaves through American history. Who was entitled to become a citizen? This concern was raised early and immediately became part of a nativist reaction to the foreign-born. Restrictionism, which was to reach an apogee in the 1920s, first appeared, as Marion Casey writes, in the 1790s. Discussions ensued about who would make a good American citizen and whether the country needed more immigrants. Arguments against immigration were similar to those raised many decades later. The Alien and Sedition Acts (1798) were directed at foreigners in regard to residency requirements for citizenship and at those, especially foreign-born, who disagreed with government policies. Suspicion of foreigners and efforts to limit dissent are evident also with the Espionage and Sedition Acts of 1917–1918 and with the immigration quota laws of the 1920s. But whether it is Harrison Gray Otis or Madison Grant or Pat Buchanan writing, the premise is the same: certain immigrants cannot become good Americans and will eventually undermine the nation. Catholics, the Irish, Germans, Jews, Italians, Asians, Mexicans and other Latinos, and most recently Arabs have all, at one time or another, been the target of nativist fears. One only need to remember the anti-German-American campaign during World War I or the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II to realize this. In the modern era, these fears have been accentuated by the 1965 Immigration Act, which had the effect of shifting the primary sources of immigration to other countries, and the September 11 tragedy. Euro-centric nativists now lashed out at those who were coming, once again, from the “wrong” countries. As China, Mexico, and Korea replaced Italy, Poland, and Germany, and migration from Muslim countries increased as well, a frenzy of criticism and discussion broke out over the new laws and over legal and illegal immigration, resulting in increased fears about America’s racial/ ethnic future.

As a sense of nation and peoplehood developed, nativism grew stronger and its reasoning more varied. Immigrants were radicals, who would bring foreign ideologies and political violence to our shores; they were disease carriers, who planted virulent strains in our midst; they would outbreed the “real” Americans and replace them with inferior races; they would lower wages for American workers. A number of the authors in the volume (Casey, Topp, Ngai, Heinze, and Meagher) pick up these themes and show their persistence in American life.

It is clear from these essays as well that race has had a significant place in U.S. history, especially as it related to African Americans. It is not just the subjugation of blacks through slavery and Jim Crow laws that reflects the obsession with race, but also the need for certain European immigrants to situate themselves quickly in the racial hierarchy by proclaiming their whiteness. Thomas Guglielmo and Earl Lewis speak particularly to this issue and note the “malleability of race; the ways in which power and politics—rather than biology or genetics—define race.” A white classification opened the door to opportunity. It also led eventually, as Meagher and others relate, to a coalescence of European nationalities into a generalized white group, with various ethnic identities subsumed under the white label. At first considered not fully white, or at least less white than Anglo-Saxons, these “in-between peoples” eventually, as Ngai writes, “embraced whiteness as a strategy for economic and social advancement.”

While white immigrants worked to clarify their racial classification, blacks, Asians, Indians, and Latinos developed various strategies for coping with America’s Manifest-Destiny expansion into Native American and Mexican territory, the treatment of degraded minority workers such as blacks, Chinese, and Mexicans, and the wars and other strategies to eliminate “unacceptable” minorities through violence, draconian legislation, pervasive discrimination, segregation, social ostracism, and assimilation. The questioning of a group’s “racial capacity for civilization,” as Ngai states in relation to Indians in the 1890s, reflects the country’s attitude toward disfavored minorities. Policies that were developed to subjugate blacks and Indians were used on other groups as well. A constant battle with America’s exclusionary laws and discriminatory behavior affected land ownership, job opportunity, political recognition, and cultural preservation. This long struggle is noted in all the chapters, with the culmination in the civil rights movement and some attitude change chronicled in the Guglielmo-Lewis and Meagher chapters. But the modern period did not end the controversy over race; contention over busing, affirmative action, open housing, race riots; and income gaps continued.

Although the volume authors delineate some of the problems and conflicts immigration generated, they also provide a chronicle of immigration’s importance to the growth and strength of the United States. Each group, whether vilified or immediately accepted, voluntary or involuntary, contributed to the nation. Whether it was blacks working as tenant farmers in the South, the Irish and Chinese building the transcontinental rail lines, or Mexicans in western agriculture, the nation prospered from their labor. Culturally, the contributions of such figures as Irving Berlin, Louis Armstrong, and Will Rogers illustrate the benefits of a diverse population, as do political leaders like Fiorello LaGuardia and intellectual notables such as W. E. B. Du Bois. A group’s contribution, however, was oftentimes not related to acceptance. An ambivalence existed, which is still evident in contemporary America. Some politicians, for example, rail against illegal immigrants, bemoan porous borders, and claim that the nation does not need more immigrants; yet they acknowledge not only the role of migrant Mexican farm workers and Chinese garment laborers in maintaining cheap prices for these American products but the unwillingness of many citizens to do this work.

This book’s purpose has been to focus on the racial and ethnic aspects of U.S. history and thereby show how intertwined those factors were with the growth and shaping of the country. Although not intended as a fully comprehensive history revealing every detail of this connection, the volume shows clearly the salience of immigration, race, and ethnicity. It also shows that these issues still resonate, still stir controversy and debate.

The questions raised by this history are perennial ones and key issues are worth pointing out as suggestions for further research and discussion topics. Most important is the question, “Who is the American?” How has this person been defined in the country’s history, and has that definition changed with time? We want to know how to define assimilation and if retention of old-world culture, including language, precludes becoming an American. Can immigrants have a dual identity? How have strong ethnic ties to the ancestral home affected U.S. foreign policy? What was the rationalization for excluding or subjugating others due to race, religion, ethnicity, and immigrant status, and has that changed over the last four centuries? The role of stereotypes is important in this regard, and their malleability over time requires investigation. We can see, for example, how transformations in Irish images from the nineteenth century to the twentieth illustrate changing portrayals.