Along with gender, race, and sexuality, racial assimilation is another term we readily use in our vocabulary without really questioning its meaning, significance, or purpose. Racial assimilation is typically associated with the melting pot image of the United States in which distinct cultures and customs mix and embed themselves into the tapestry of American society. More often than not, assimilation is used synonymously with Americanization, another vague term open to interpretation. Neither Americanization nor assimilation seems to have much reason at their base since they both lack concrete definitions. Since interpretations of any of these terms are based on opinions affected by society, it is plausible to say that racial assimilation is yet another socially constructed term that affects the power struggle of minority groups in the U.S.
The term that derails the assimilating process is race. Race according to my definition, is a modern social construct of division based on the distinct physical characteristics of those who are new to a society. It originated as an exclusionary concept used to protect the limited resources for those who not only belong or are native to a society, but also those in power. The division and distinction of new groups who essentially have no power over in their new environment creates animosity among the old and new groups who now have to compete for the resources in that society. Race in this case serves as a classificatory tool to distinguish between those with power and those who remain on the margins of that power.
Since racial classifications are a direct allocation of power and social status, what does that make racial assimilation? While we think of assimilation as adapting to the way of life, set of laws and ideals, it is hard to say whose way of life is the American way of life. Yet if race is a symbol of power, is racial assimilation just another way of succumbing to the status quo? While adapting to a place in society might mean assimilation in the most accepted use of the term, that would also mean that Americanization or the American way of life is to force people into a caste like system where they belong. However, who or what factors decide where each group or race belongs? Historian Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham attempts to answer this question in her article, “African-American Women’s History and the Metalanguage of Race”. She states that the context in which different races come in contact with another affects the relationship between the two. This helps explain the early black and white relationship in which blacks played a subordinate role to the whites since they had forcibly been brought to the United States as property and for the service of whites. As new immigrant and non-immigrant groups such as the native Americans became a part of society, they had to compete amongst themselves no so much to be accepted but compete in order not to occupy the lowest part of the social strata which offered lesser opportunity for economic advancement, less education, poor demographic living areas among other things.
In the same manner that race is defined differently across space and time, assimilation also targets different people in different areas in different ways. In California during the 19th century, assimilation was focused towards various ethnic groups but more specifically Mexicans who were not always willing to abandon their customs. Progressivism as this era was called in Californian history sought to Americanize immigrants by changing the school system and emphasizing education on immigrant women especially those who were mothers. This program failed not only because many immigrants were not interested but also because many did not need to assimilate in order to socially advance. This is not to say that immigrants lacked ambition or a hard work etiquette, they rather formed enclaves were they thrived almost autonomously from the rest of white society. Even though many people wanted these immigrants assimilated into American society and acting like “Americans”, it was those same people that anchored minorities to certain city districts and restricted their rights to vote or own property.
The assimilation process carried out during the Progressive era in California was mostly a women’s movement that sought to provide for the social welfare of immigrants. However good their intentions might have been, this also stigmatized those immigrants into an inferior class by implicitly insinuating that they needed help in order to subsist. Women’s involvement on the issue insulted the minorities in whose cultures machismo was a predominant element. While the movement was meant to inspire and liberate ethnic women, the progressive are was more influential to middle-class white women who became more politically involved and broke with their domesticity.
Education was also a focus of Progressivism in order to assimilate a new generation of minority groups. The goal of education was to eradicate immigrant values and identities by replacing them with a more uniformed “American”. Segregation and the attack on native languages was a tool of assimilation that ironically instilled a deeper sense of “otherness” that assimilationist policies were trying to get rid of. Mothers of young immigrant children and women of child child bearing age were believed to hold the key to assimilation. The low numbers in their attendance to English classes was an obvious indication that assimilation was not as easy in practice as it was theoretically. Although some of the social aims of the Progressives were well intentioned, the fact that most immigrants were not legally given the same rights that white Americans had, hindered the movement altogether. Assimilationist gains in this case went to middle class white women who enjoyed more freedoms and relative equality next to their male counterparts.
In the case of Asian immigrants, California also provides a perfect setting to illustrate how negative perceptions of their group despite their contributions, created tensions among other minority groups but also among members of their own race. The pattern seems to be the same for most of the immigrant and minority groups integrated into American society. The large number of immigrants in the United States and especially in California created a rise in xenophobic sentiment, which also created animosity and selfish attitudes towards outsiders. The flow of both Japanese and Chinese immigrants to California during the gold rush although initially accepted, was later curtailed by taxes imposed specifically on them. Their exclusion in the gold mines forced them to form niches that were service oriented such as restaurants and dry cleaners.
Asian and some European immigrant labor helped build California’s infrastructure such as railroads and ports. Despite their contribution, they were always scrutinized and discriminated against. Japanese children were segregated in school and further culturally attacked when legislation outlawed their long hair. Institutionally immigrants were disproportionally discriminated against in the jail system where they were provided with less food and money for their supplies. The jail system was not only a representation of the racial discrimination in the overall society but also of the various laws that minorities were bound by in comparison to whites.
Immigration reform set quotas that limited the entry of Asian immigrants while at the same time preferring some and excluding others. The Chinese Exclusion Act closed the door on Chinese immigrants while at the same time opening it for the Japanese. Immigrants especially those of non European backgrounds were treated as disposable labor whose utility expired once they had done what they had been brought here to do. Those that stayed became a nuisance because they held on to their food, clothing, religious and cultural beliefs. Although their exotic customs undermined their work effort, one of the many contributions of minority groups was in the economy. They helped uplift the overall economy by improving commerce, providing services and enlarging the consumer sector to a degree that California did not feel the effects of the Great Depression. The overall racial discrimination against minorities created a divide amongst those who embraced and those who rejected assimilation.
The Book, Racism on Trial by Haney Lopez illustrates how assimilation or rejection thereof can divide a racial group and further undermine their political power in society. The Chicano movement of the 1960s’s was a result of a negated identity. While many Mexican claimed to be white, whites themselves did not share that idea. Therefore, Mexicans were not given the same rights, economic nor educational opportunities as whites. This is not only important in the case of Mexicans but also all minorities in general. The fact that one group or part of a group embraces the idea of assimilation, there are other outside and perhaps stronger forces that dictate who is and under what conditions they are assimilated. Assimilation in this case lacked uniformity in the same way that race does.
Assimilation and to a certain degree the aspiration to occupy a better place in society than the one given comes out of necessity rather than choice for many groups. This sometimes creates conflicts with members of not only the same race but also between different minority groups that compete for jobs, housing and better living conditions in a specific area. Scott Kurashige’s book, The Shifting Grounds of Race portrays how easily a specific racial group be it Japanese or African American can be placed on a pedestal as an ideal minority group. At different times and settings “Black” or “Japanese” labels carried either negative or positive connotations that ultimately created resentment from one group to the other.
The question of racial assimilation in the United States is as vague as any other socially constructed term. There are fundamental questions that remain unanswered and yet we treat assimilation with such a familiarity that implies it is part of our everyday life. If race is so pliable and at the mercy of human interpretation, what does racial assimilation mean? What is the purpose of assimilation? Who if anyone, benefits from assimilation? Is it a choice or is it forced upon people? Is it political, social, economic, or cultural? Where did it begin and why? Is it society that adjusts to a new group or is it the group that adjust to society? Is it real or is it just a myth created by people so serve a political purpose? Higginbotham alludes “to the power of the word to mean” not only to illustrate the importance of words and their meanings in society but also to show that people can change both the meaning of words and their impact over time.
While much attention is placed on understanding gender, race and sexuality, little has been done to help understand the concept of assimilation. Historians have written about ethnic history, immigration history, racial history, gender and sexual history without really touching on the idea of assimilation. Not only racial assimilation but also gender and sexual assimilation since they are all related. Racial assimilation in the United States has many unanswered questions that I think are important in understanding the reasons for many of these socially constructed terms. As I wrote my blog on race I realized that assimilation seemed so vague that it could really mean anything or nothing at all. Reading the Lopez book, I thought assimilation could mean resignation of the social order. The Shifting Grounds of Race, made me think of assimilation based on privilege in a sense that only those deemed worthy of assimilation get almost the same benefits like those on top of the hierarchy. The undeniable connection between race and racial assimilation underlies the basic principle that (in a capitalistic society such as our own in which competition is valued), race and therefore racial assimilation serves a purpose. I believe it sets the parameters for racial privileges which directly or directly instills a sense of what America is in each group. It is Historians job to further research this topic since it also helps understand how gender and sexuality are redefined over time.
Bibliography
Haney-López, Ian. Racism on Trial: The Chicano Fight for Justice. Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2003.
Higginbotham, Evelyn Brooks. “African-American Women’s History and the Metalanguage of Race.” Signs 17, no. 2 (Winter 1992): 251-274.
Jr., John T. Durkin. “Immigration, Assimilation and Growth.” Journal of Population Economics 11, no. 2 (May 1998): 273-291.
Kurashige, Scott. The Shifting Grounds of Race: Black and Japanese Americans in the Making of Multiethnic Los Angeles. Politics and society in twentieth-century America. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 2008.
Murguía, Edward. Assimilation, Colonialism and the Mexican American People Edward Murguía. Lanham: University Press of America, 1989.
Reitz, Jeffrey G., and Sherrilyn M. Sklar. “Culture, Race, and the Economic Assimilation of Immigrants.” Sociological Forum 12, no. 2 (June 1997): 233-277.
Racial Assimilation in the United States
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