Second-Generation Identities

A Look at the Past: Joining the White Category

A distinctive feature of U.S. immigration has been the incorporation of European immigrants and their descendants into the White racial category. Race is defined here as a socially constructed label developed within a system of power in the interests of the dominant group. The Europeans' incorporation is remarkable, given the distrust and hostility experienced by newcomers from Southern, Central, and Eastern Europe who were seen by native White Americans as speaking foreign (non-English) languages and following foreign (non-Protestant) religions. Legally speaking, the newcomers were always regarded as White. However, there were considerable doubts expressed by native-born White Americans about the worthiness of some groups for this status. The idea that the United States should admit only European immigrants, who were deemed more intelligent and more capable of being assimilated, fueled moves to restrict large-scale immigration from Southern, Eastern, and Central Europe, culminating in the Immigration Act of 1924. By then, there were 13.5 million European immigrants in the United States. For these newcomers and their descendants, the process of becoming American—and especially becoming accepted as White American—meant acceptance of the Black/White color line, and resistance to being identified—and stigmatized—as Black.

The smaller numbers of Asian immigrants had a different experience. Moves to exclude the entry of Asian immigrants, especially unskilled and low-skilled labor, came when their numbers were much smaller (123,000 for the Chinese and 75,000 for the Japanese between 1880 and 1924) and much earlier than for the Europeans. As another indicator of their exclusion, Asian Americans were denied the right to become citizens through naturalization from 1924 to 1943. After World War II, the opportunity structure in the United States was opened to Asian Americans, who started to move into more integrated neighborhoods and employment.

Richard Alba argues that the assimilation and upward mobility of the descendants of the European immigrants—becoming indistinguishable from native-born, non-Hispanic Whites in years of schooling and occupations—resulted from several social and economic transformations. First, the lengthy period without large-scale immigration, which did not resume until 1970 in the aftermath of the Immigration Act of 1965, allowed for the ebbing of nativist sentiments. Second, during the nation's unprecedented period of economic success, post–World War II until the early 1970s, the descendants of once denigrated European immigrants benefited from the willingness of native White Americans to include them in the expanding opportunity structure. However, Blacks were largely shut out of this process of assimilation and upward mobility until the gains of the civil rights movement started to take effect.

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