In 1790, there was Naturalization Act in United States that questioned who was able to receive the term citizenship. The Naturalization Act states that only free white people are eligible for citizenship. After the Naturalization Act, there has been movement, daily action, and protest from people of color, and white women. Politically, socially, and economically, white men hold dominance in United States for many years. Thus for that many years, the people of color and women would fight for their political, social, and economical rights in United States. These actions were done differently with each racial group, as they are in different hierarchical status. As “Benedict Anderson viewed the Nation as “imagined communities”—in the sense that they are systems of cultural representation whereby people come to imagine a shared experience of identification with an extended community.” (McClintock, 353) The passage talked about culture imperialism. The idea of how the society is structured was taught to the people through their culture, such as in religion, missionaries, and education. Therefore, many of the people of color and women fought to achieve the notion of nationality in United States. Each racial or gender group have different strategy of how they will achieve their rights. Some of these racial or gender group would racialized other groups in order to receive their own hierarchical rights. In 1820s, California, Mexican were not racialized the same way as Japanese, Chinese, or Indians by the European American. It is because the Mexican was colonized by Spain for many years, that they adjusted to the culture similar to that of European culture. Therefore, the difference between Mexican with European American are less extreme c... ... middle of paper ... ...Indians ended up in massacre. Their cultural process of doing things ended up enabled the social construction of Indians as the lowest in the social hierarchy. I conclusion, there are different ways of racialized and gendered groups to create resistance, to achieve the equal rights. Politically, economically, and socially, white male had been at the highest rank of the hierarchy in this imagined community. Thus, the rest of the people were treated unequally. Some fought back by racializing others, such as Californian Mexican towards Californian Indians, and white women towards women of color. Others created resistance by actively arguing and negotiating for their rights, such as African American, women of color, and Indian Americans. Whatever ways they decide, they would create resistance in order to gain the sense of nationality and citizenship they deserved.
With the naturalization law of 1790 "the eighteenth centuries free white persons became the nineteenth centuries Celts, Slavs, Hebrews, Iberics, Latins, and Anglo-Saxons, who in turn became the twentieth centuries Caucassians, as popular recognition of consanguinity of racial difference fluctuated in response to national, regional and local circumstances." According to the naturalization law;
Gary Gerstle argues America followed a path both civic and racial nationalism throughout the 20th century in his book American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century, and that America is a melting pot of different cultures due to the accumulation of immigrants in the twentieth century. He uses Theodore Roosevelt as a support base for his arguments. Civic nationalism is the idealized understanding of America as an ethnic and cultural melting pot based on civil rights, and on the values of equality and liberty no matter the race and ethnicity of one another. Civic nationalism claims a nation can still grow stronger and better based solely on civil rights and citizenship.
The prejudice facing the Chinese, Native Americans, and Hispanics defined western society with different forms of legislature or economic pressures on these groups. The group had been subjugated since the formation of the United States and during its latest expansion was the Native Americans, who in this most recent expansion were moved to reservations, engaged in several bloody wars with white Americans, and forced to give up their lifestyle or their new created one in the land that was promised to them, like Oklahoma. Hispanics, though they had once dominated western society, soon lost control of their land, either due to seizure by whites or through economic competition, and found themselves on the bottom pegs of society, serving as farmhands or industrial workers; they were also excluded from the early governments in New Mexico and other areas. The Chinese, arriving from across the Pacific, found their treatment change from being welcomed to being seen as economic competition and being forced into lower jobs. Throughout the country, the Chinese were considered unwelcome as seen in the Chinese Exclusion Act. Western society found itself to be a society in which many races congregated to work together but also found itself to be a society built on racial tensions.
This caused the Indians to starve because they depended on the British’s gifts to hunt and trade. The British didn’t respect the Indian and disregard their culture and what they follow.
The Declaration of Independence (1776) was written to proclaim the colonists’ independence from Great Britain and announce the rights of its citizens and the role of government, among other declarations. The most famous phrase “…all men are created equal”, authored by Thomas Jefferson, was a statement affirming that tyranny under the rule of King George III and the English Parliament would be met with opposition by the colonists who would protect their liberties in the new republic.
The United States was a recently forged nation state in the early 1800’s. Recently formed, this nation state was very fragile and relied on the loyalty of its citizens to all work collectively toward the establishment and advancement of the nation states. Many members of the nation state gave great sacrifices, often their lives, to see that the united states was a successful and democratic. However, the United States, was fundamentally a mixing pot of all foreign people (excluding marginalized Native Americans). This early 1800 's flow of new “Americans” continued as people sought new opportunities and escaped religious or political persecution and famine. One notable
This is amazing passage that really sets the tone for the rest of the paper. It’s ironic and inspirational in every way. Coates makes a connection about this when he referenced Nathaniel Bacon’s rebellion in which white and black indentured servants banded together to fight for their rights. The sad thing is that many whites forget today they too faced discrimination and struggled for their rights. Rather it was the holocaust, women’s right movement or even union strikes, we all had to fight for something as Americans since the beginning.
This paper’s purpose is to elaborate on how racism and the “American Dream” have helped shape United States history from 1492 and 1877. First, this paper intends to define racism and the “American Dream”; second explain the historical origins of these ideas and, third, describe how they helped shape the United States history from 1492 to 1877. In conclusion this paper will discuss how studying history helps us understand the present “state of beings.”
In American history, civil rights movements have played a major role for many ethnics in the United States and have shape American society to what it is today. The impact of civil rights movements is tremendous and to an extent, they accomplish the objectives that the groups of people set out to achieve. The Mexican-American Civil Rights Movement, more commonly known as the Chicano Movement or El Movimiento, was one of the many movements in the United States that set out to obtain equality for Mexican-Americans (Herrera). At first, the movement had a weak start but eventually the movement gained momentum around the 1960’s (Herrera). Mexican-Americans, also known as Chicanos, began to organize in order to eliminate the social barriers that prevented them from progressing in American society (Bloom 47). Throughout the years of the Chicano Movement, Mexican-Americans had a “desire to integrate into the mainstream culture while preserving their own identity” (Bloom 47). The Chicano Civil Rights Movement was a progressive era when Mexican-Americans had goals that they wanted to accomplish and sought reform in order to be accepted as a part of the United States.
...ribal Indians had to face yet once time passed, all was forgotten and now American Indians continue to be oppressed yet they are not speaking or activating on their struggles as they once did.
In Ann Marie Nicolosi’s article, “We Do Not Want Our Girls to Marry Foreigners”, she examines the Expatriation Act of 1907. She explains that the Expatriation Law of 1907 “codified derivative citizenship” for American women, meaning that a woman’s citizenship was defined by her husband’s citizenship. For example, if a woman with an American citizenship were to marry a Japanese or French man, her American citizenship would be revoked (Nicolosi 1). She states that the Expatriation Law of 107 used women’s citizenship “as a strategy of immigration restriction”, which prevented tampering with the genetic white population in America and prevent the increase of foreigners to become American citizens (17). In the article, “Is This a White Country, or What?” Lillian Rubin discusses how race and the economy are factors on the identity of an American. Rubin states that American citizens worry about immigrants, “fearing that they would corrupt our society, dilute our culture, and debase our values (Rubin 119).” The fear of cultural diversity and the growing industrial diversity would put Americans “at a disadvantage” and create a fine line between the immigrants and the American
Race has been one of the most outstanding situations in the United States all the way from the 1500s up until now. The concept of race has been socially constructed in a way that is broad and difficult to understand. Social construction can be defined as the set of rules are determined by society’s urges and trends. The rules created by society play a huge role in racialization, as the U.S. creates laws to separate the English or whites from the nonwhites. Europeans, Indigenous People, and Africans were all racialized and victimized due to various reasons. Both the Europeans and Indigenous People were treated differently than African American slaves since they had slightly more freedom and rights, but in many ways they are also treated the same. The social construction of race between the Europeans, Indigenous People, and Africans led to the establishment of how one group is different from the other.
As long as civilizations have been around, there has always been a group of oppressed people; today the crucial problem facing America happens to be the discrimination and oppression of Mexican immigrants. “Mexican Americans constitute the oldest Hispanic-origin population in the United States.”(57 Falcon) Today the population of Mexican’s in the United States is said to be about 10.9%, that’s about 34 million people according to the US Census Bureau in 2012. With this many people in the United States being of Mexican descent or origin, one would think that discrimination wouldn’t be a problem, however though the issue of Mexican immigrant oppression and discrimination has never been a more prevalent problem in the United States before now. As the need for resolve grows stronger with each movement and march, the examination of why these people are being discriminated against and oppressed becomes more crucial and important. Oppression and Anti-discrimination organizations such as the Freedom Socialist Organization believe that the problem of discrimination began when America conquered Mexican l...
... same thing for blacks, first-class citizenship, but their methods for obtaining it differed. Because of the interest in immediate goals contained in Washington’s economic approach, whites did not realize that he anticipated the complete acceptance and integration of Negroes into American life. He believed blacks, starting with so little, would have to begin at the bottom and work up gradually to achieve positions of power and responsibility before they could demand equal citizenship—even if it meant temporarily assuming a position of inferiority. DuBois understood Washington’s program, but believed that it was not the solution to the “race problem.” Blacks should study the liberal arts, and have the same rights as white citizens. Blacks, DuBois believed, should not have to sacrifice their constitutional rights in order to achieve a status that was already guaranteed.
Diversity, we define this term today as one of our nation’s most dynamic characteristics in American history. The United States thrives through the means of diversity. However, diversity has not always been a positive component in America; in fact, it took many years for our nation to become accustomed to this broad variety of mixed cultures and social groups. One of the leading groups that were most commonly affected by this, were African American citizens, who were victimized because of their color and race. It wasn’t easy being an African American, back then they had to fight in order to achieve where they are today, from slavery and discrimination, there was a very slim chance of hope for freedom or even citizenship. This longing for hope began to shift around the 1950’s during the Civil Rights Movement, where discrimination still took place yet, it is the time when African Americans started to defend their rights and honor to become freemen like every other citizen of the United States. African Americans were beginning to gain recognition after the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868, which declared all people born natural in the United States and included the slaves that were previously declared free. However, this didn’t prevent the people from disputing against the constitutional law, especially the people in the South who continued to retaliate against African Americans and the idea of integration in white schools. Integration in white schools played a major role in the battle for Civil Rights in the South, upon the coming of independence for all African American people in the United States after a series of tribulations and loss of hope.