Immigration and American Identity

Transcription

1 America as Nation of Immigrants Immigration and American Identity 1 Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, the tempesttost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door Emma Lazarus A gift from France, the Statue of Liberty was erected in Welcoming the Uprooted Reevaluating Immigration Land of Freedom - politics Melting Pot - culture Upward Mobility - economics Immigration as modernization process - tradition-bound peasant to modern capitalist individuals Economic Opportunity vs. Stratification Political Freedom vs. Discrimination Cultural Assimilation vs. Diversity Individual vs. family/kinship/community networks 3 4 Who are the Immigrants? Why did they immigrate? Push Factors 24 mill. From Old Immigrants pre-1880, 85% from Western and Northern Europe New Immigrants post % from Eastern and Southern Europe More New Immigrants approx. 1 million immigrants from Asia approx. 1 million from Latin America, mostly after economic motivations global expansion of capitalism The capitalist form of production, under which goods are produced for sale in order to make the largest profit possible and workers receive wages for selling their labor. " Sucheng Chan disruption of agricultural economy After 1850 the spread of industrialization and commercialized agriculture let to further declines in the number of landholdings that could support families. John Bodnar, The Transplanted core-periphery movement 6 1

2 Political Upheaval and Persecution Pogroms in the Pale Jewish family migration - settlement only 3% return rate 1.4 million in NYC s Lower East Side by 1915 Mexican Revolution Mexican American population in Southwest grew from 375,000 to 1,160,000 Family Decision Male migratory wage-earners Return migration approx. 50% Chain migration Extended kinship network Adopted/fictive kin Family reunification Esp. women 7 8 Pull Factors: Looking for Gold Mountain America was in everybody s mouth. Businessmen talked of it over their accounts; the market women made up their quarrels that they might discuss it from stall to stall; people who had relatives in the famous land went around reading their letters for the enlightenment of less fortunate folks.all talked of it, but scarcely anybody knew one true fact about this magic land. Mary Antin, Russian Immigrant Heroes were sitting right there in the room and telling what creatures they met on the road, what customs the non-chinese follow.nuggets cobbled the streets in California, the loose stones to be had for the stopping over and picking them up.in their hunger the men forgot that the gold streets had not been there when they d gone to look for themselves. From Chinamen, by Maxine Hong Kingston Labor recruiters Incorporation of America and the demand for labor 9 10 Economic Opportunities? Labor Market Segmentation Primary vs. Secondary Labor Market Differences in jobs, working conditions, benefits, security, wages, etc. Dual Wage Economy cheap labor = same work, less pay transnational industrial reserve army to weigh down white workers during periods of economic expansion and to hold white labor in check during periods of overproduction Old immigrants and native-born vs. New Immigrants Men vs. Women 11 Whites vs. non-whites Implications of labor stratification Economic benefits for employers Protectionism on behalf of labor to protect wage scale and privileges anti-immigration KOL AFL Jobs for Americans But who are Americans and who deserves the better jobs? Family wage for men not necessarily higher wages for women Race = nationality 12 2

3 Race and Citizenship Chinese Immigrants as Case Study right of naturalization 322,000 and citizenship immigrated between played a key role in developing the economic and transportation infrastructure of the American West Naturalization law of 1790 specified that naturalized citizenship reserved for whites Revisions instituted for African Americans; Mexican Americans; and Native Americans political parties and labor unions Mining The Gold Rush 2/3 of Chinese American Railroad construction population were involved in mining in 1860s Foreign Miners Tax (1852) $3 monthly tax for every foreign miner who did not desire to become a citizen Collected $5 million from Chinese, 25%-50% of California state revenue by ,000 Chinese employed by Central Pacific Railroad (90% of work force in mid-1860s) Paid $31/month without board or lodgings (savings of 1/3) 5,000 Chinese workers strike in 1870 for higher wages and 8-hour day 15 Domestic Service and women s work Manufacturing 46% of labor force in 72% of all laundry workers in California in San Francisco in four key industries were Chinese boots and shoes woolens cigars and tobacco sewing Consumer boycott and union labels

4 class hostility channeled into racial antagonism The Anti-Chinese Movement: The Chinese Must Go Political Disfranchisement and Physical Violence People v. Hall (1854 Ca.) Chinese ineligible to testify in court against whites Racial Segregation and Social Harassment Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 Why support from upper and middle classes? 1st group to be designated for exclusion based on nationality and class Chinese laborers targeted for immigration exclusion all Chinese immigrants denied right to become naturalized citizens Social Darwinism Scientific basis for justifying racial hierarchy Eugenics Cultural/social vs. economic motivations easier to racially scapegoat than to reform economic system Implications for future immigrants: Who else is not white? Ambiguously Raced: Social Construction of Race Definitely not white African Americans and Jim Crow Most Asian immigrants aliens ineligible for citizenship Immigration Gentlemen s Agreement of Land ownership Alien Land Laws 23 Mexican Americans Spanish or Indigenous peoples? South Asian Indians Bhagat Singh Thind case (1923) Caucasian but not white Irish, Eastern and Southern Europeans ethnic and religious differences viewed as racial differences Anglo-Saxon race No intelligent patriot [can observe] the entrance of such vast masses of peasantry, degraded below our utmost concepts without the gravest apprehension and alarm. M.I.T. President Francis A. Walker I.Q. Testing and Progressive Education 24 4

5 Gradations of non-white identity 1924 Immigration Act Ellis Island (1900) vs. Nationality Quota System (in place until 1965) 2% of 1890 census 164,000 total/year Targeted towards reducing Southern and Eastern Angel Island (1910) 2% rejection vs. 25% rejection rate Ellis Island processing rate 5,000/day Angel Island detention up to months 29 vs ,000 questions European Immigration Cut of all immigration of aliens ineligible for citizenship i.e. Asian immigration Exception of Filipinos American nationals Immigration within Western Hemisphere exempted (e.g. Mexico, Canada) labor needs 25 Individual strategies for achieving acceptance Group Strategies Political and Labor Advocacy Assimilation education popular culture upward mobility What are the benefits, costs, and limitations of this strategy? Options available only for particular groups 1922 Ozawa case - assimilated but not white Biculturalism Transnationalism continuing political, cultural, and financial connections with the homeland Gender Is assimilation and wage force participation inherently liberating? Cross-Group Cooperation Industrial Workers of the World (1905) NAACP Political Machines Progressivism Reinforce Social Stratification AFL Political machines Progressivism 28 Reevaluating Immigration Transplanted versus uprooted cultures Family and kinship networks Unequal incorporation into U.S. labor market Unequal access to political rights Social construction of race Biculturalism and Transnationalism 29 5