Racialization and Racism - Essay Example

Task Racialization and Racism Introduction Patterns of race formation existed before the first Asians arrived in America as basic race relations could be traced to Indian wars and the slavery of Negros. These were the early tenets of race development in the modern day American and they formed a system that would perceive any immigrants to the nation as different form the natives. The entry of the Asians only added to the growing number of races in America. When the first Asians arrived in America, they found a society that had already been split into racial categories and where racism was prevalent. The fundamental dynamics of racism were entrenched in a system of white supremacy but not limited to oppression and slavery (Ngin and Torres 372). Racial categories began to be socially constructed according to the conditions existing within different societies. The progression of these practices throughout a long duration resulted in different actions being taken in seeking to alleviate the occurrence of racism and bring equality to the county (Omi and Winant 6). The Racialization Process The concept of social construction of races best explains the role of the American society in the racialization process within the country. This is mainly because for racism to become present within any social system, there must be categorisation of the people residing within the society (Omi and Winant 5). This form of social discrimination is normally perpetuated based on certain conditions existing within the society that can clearly demarcate the differences among individuals to create groups (Lee 6). It thus becomes the categorization upon which races are developed. Within the United States, nationality played a fundamental role in the development of races, where people from different countries were considered of different race. As a result of this fact the hostile nationalities, which were mainly European, became united as whites, and the other people were considered Negros. Although the races are socially constructed, they must be legally defined in order to achieve full systemic and structural power in the society. The aspect of racialization has been a process that developed as a result of certain actions that were either constituted or just practiced and regarded to be normal within the American society. The people considered as Negros, were deemed to have “no rights that white men were bound to respect” as per the constitutional statutes that existed as early as 1705 (Bob Wing 5). The definition through statute presented the racist practice with legal power and enabled the whites to perpetuate the vice freely. When the Asian people arrived in America, they were also categorised among the non-whites and those racial discrimination actions would be directed to them, hence development of the racialization process. The racialization process began through the development of races that were mainly perceived as social groups. The existing differences between the people were mainly based on nationalities with the European nationalities being considered whites. The concept of white supremacy meant that the whites would be accorded preferential treatment by the law over the other races. Such discriminative laws resulted in the development and advancement of the racism elements with the society (Kim 121). Although the process is gradual, the provision of legal power to through definition of races results in the execution of racist actions, which are supported the existing legal statutes. These practices became commonplace and marked the prevalence of racial discrimination within the society and the true development of the racism concept. Racially Coerced Labour Force Many Asian immigrants of the early times thrust themselves into racially coerced labour, although they did not come to America as part of the labour trade, which flourished during the time for the immigration. Many of the early immigrant s bought their tickets to the country through credit and hence they could not become contract workers. Although they were considered to be free after completely paying off their debts, the European immigrants who had arrived earlier in America presumed the white rights (Bob Wing 7). This resulted in the Asian immigrant ns becoming considered as the same with the other people who were not whites within the society. The racial privileges that were accorded to the whites were not accorded to the Asian immigrants. Although they were not treated as slaves, they were considered to belong to mid-level social class, which was relatively inferior to the European. In the allocation of jobs and employment opportunities, the racial element continued to be the differentiating factor. A new class of the Asian Americans sprouted due to the level of skills that the Asian immigrants had (Kim 7). The racial constraints were not immediately entrenched upon the Asian immigrants as there still lacked clear definition of the category that they would belong to. The increased shortage of labour during the time was one of the prime condition that resulted in the reproduction of racism. The European people, despite themselves being immigrants asserted themselves the white rights to resources. This included coercing other races into forced labour. With the support of the existing law within the country, many of the Asian immigrants found themselves becoming victims of racism through the coerced labour. Making “aliens ineligible to be citizens” Many racial regulations existed during the time when Asian immigrants arrived in America and these were mainly applied to Negros, whites and American Indians, who were the group that existed during the formulation of the rules. The Asian people presented an unusual combinations non-whiteness and foreignness that made it relatively difficult to classify them within any racial group defined by the law. While much of the definitions of races was ethnic, the white people sought to ensure that the chines were subjected to the racially discriminative practices to limit their capabilities within the society. In seeking to find their position within the society a political and ideological struggle ensued between the whites and the Asian. As an result of the white supremacy concept and desire by the whites to control economic activities in the country the foreign concept was employed in defining the actual position of Asians in the American society the definitions of racial groups was dictated by the existing race relations between people and racialization in accordance to the socioeconomic and power struggles within the system. The attempts that were made in defining the social status of Asian immigrants generally took a racial as opposed to nativist form. This definition could not completely and clearly define the Asian people and as a result a combination of the nativist and racial approaches was utilised in racialization of the Asian people. A new category of a social groups emanated from these struggles, which combines the national and racial concepts. This resulted in the Asians being racialised as aliens ineligible to be citizens. The aspect of alien was a national element while citizenship was based on race. The Asian were classified as aliens form there hence and the constitution of US at the time defined naturalization as only available to free whites, a category of people in which the Asian people did not belong. Class Struggle The racialization process remains one of the fundamental element which affected the first experiences of Asian-Americans. These people were completely stripped of political economic and even citizenship rights. They became subjected to a labour force with lower wages than those of whites. Through the lower wages the Asian people were subjected to substandard living conditions that would benefit the capitalist whites who were seeking cheap labour (Tang 123). Cordoning of the Asian also allowed the non-capitalist whites to monopolise the small businesses further driving the Asian people into deeper levels of destitution. Some of the non-capitalist whites were advocating to the complete exclusion and expulsion of Asian from the United States. Many Asian people were involved in factory and field jobs that some whites were also involved in. the whites who worked in the same jobs as the Asians joined in the support of a power struggle to free the Asians and accord them rights in the fear they might also become subjected to the laws that governed these jobs. These included oppression of workers by capitalist whites. This made the status of Asian employees an element of class struggle between themselves and the capitalist whites. Exclusion As the struggle for class continued within the labour market, the white labour began advocating for Asian exclusion for the nation. This was aimed at advancing the working conditions of white labour at the expense of the Asian people. This resulted in a racist form of trade union being formulated, and which include the white workers joining in the name of “Americanism” seeking to defend the privileges that they held over non-white workers. The most affected Asians were the Chinese as the Chinese exclusion act was enacted in 1882 through white consensus, which defined the position of Chinese in US, Filipinos could not be excluded since Philippines at that time was a red colony of the US. The Impacts of the Racialization Process Exclusion of Asians and other minority groups was not limited to immigration restriction as it became a unique form of racism within the society. As opposed to the other groups like the Negros who had been economically integrated, the Asian people remained excluded from the mainstream American society and were thus confined to ethnic enclaves. The ethnic enclaves could therefore be identified as the main products of nationality and racial discrimination of Asians. The people who had been affected by the forms of racism reacted in seeking to ensure they would be accorded some rights within the context of the American constitution. This was mainly because the elements which Asian were being subjected to, were a combination of national and racial oppression in the society Structure of Dual Domination The ruling circles in many of the Asian countries that had immigrants in the United States developed social, political and economic institutions to control the emigrants in the US. This resulted in the immigrants becoming both oppressed by the US and their homeland elites as well. The exclusion conditions that faced the Asian emigrants within the US resulted in a unique racist isolation. The people were subjected laws and customs from their home countries, which made them to become isolated communities in America. The concept of dual domination was influenced by the fact that the two structures became mutually reinforcing. The home countries desired to retain social, cultural and political loyalty of the overseas communities while the US sought to retain the racially oppressive and exclusionary policies that would ensure they gain access to cheap Asian labour force. The United States government therefore became comfortable with the Asian communities as long as they maintained their cultural affiliation and remained within the borders of US. The Asian countries on the other hand gained from the racist isolation by retaining control and influence of these communities. All the Asian communities were faced by this dual structure of dominations since they thought that their native countries could be of assistance in achieving freedom from oppression and exclusionary policies within America The Class Composition of Asians Many of the first immigrants from Asia were mainly male labourers who left behind their families. As a result of this gender imbalance the, growth of Asian population in American became stunted by the exclusion. This made the composition of many Asian communities to be overwhelmingly male dominated. The exclusion acts however failed to ban the wives, merchants and students from entering into the US and this later became the element that would alter the composition of Asian people after the introduction of the exclusion acts. The hostilities that were directed to the Asian people and riots combined with the exclusionary policies forced the people to gang together in groups forming Chinatowns, Japantowns and other such social settlements (Lye 117). The conditions within these settlements promoted small entrepreneurs to develop their skills. The exclusion of Chinese natives for example drove many of them out of the major cities leading them to settle within small enclaves within cities where many of the people were Asian The period of exclusion, which lasted till 1960s allowed for the development of Asian ethnic enclaves in America. These enclaves mainly constituted of individuals from certain professions majorly merchants and business class. These social classes of Asian enclaves were mainly conservative due to the backing of the dual structure domination and isolation of workers in small cultural settlements. Many of them who were employed were forced to work exclusively under conditions that did not resemble those of mainstream working class in US. Consciousness of Asian Americans The Asian Americans have been fighting against the discrimination that they have faced since their arrival in America. Similar social fights that occurred included the Mexicans and other strugglers who mainly fought on the basis of class or nationality. The Asian American consciousness began to develop through the 1960s when the first American-born Asians began to sprout (Tang 120). This delay in the policy formulations was as a result of several social factors. The movements that occurred resulted rejection of passive racist stereotypical terms like “negro” and “oriental” in favour of Afro-American and Asian-Americans respectively. Many of the immigrants originated from different countries within Asia and rarely worked or lived within the same geographical region. As a result of these discrepancies in the Asian immigrants, there was no amalgamation of the Asian nationalities like what happened with the African ethnicities during slavery. Despite this, the Asian s were subjected to the same racial laws, which were subjected to the African-American before them. This resulted in the racialization process using the same pattern although the consciousness was ethnic/national and not racial or pan ethnic as was the case with African-Americans (Chan and Hune 221). The Asian American consciousness began to occur when many of the present people were American born. This was mainly political consciousness, which was being influenced by the prevailing civil rights and movements of black people during that time. While the simple consciousness could be contained in simply having Asian background the deeper meaning involved rejection of stereotypes that branded Asians as oriental and recognised them as Asian-Americans. The movement that developed during the time played a fundamental role in transforming the political and social consciousness among Asian American communities. The changes that have occurred since the development of consciousness of Asian Americans have resulted in an increase in the number of foreign-born Asian-Americans. This is mainly because the exclusion acts have been removed and are no longer functional. The presence of these foreign-born Asian-Americans further strengthens national/ethnic element of consciousness. This has resulted in the consciousness exhibiting both ideological and institutional power in many progressive Asian-American organisations within the US. The element of consciousness has brought about the formation of a racial and national intersection. Conclusion The racialization of different nationalities played a fundamental role in the formation of many of the modern day American social systems. The patterns that were utilised in the process of racialization for African, Caribbean, Latinos and even Asian immigrants was the same and involved the institutionalisation of the aspects (Ngin and Torres, p369). It was mainly based on the white supremacy over the other races living within the society. As a result of the white supremacy concept many of the white people practiced various actions that resulted in the Asian people becoming affected by racial discrimination directed to them. The Asian immigrants were branded aliens as a result of their combination of foreignness and racial appearance that had not been defined by the existing laws within the country. The Asian American society within American has undergone through different situations that have shaped the current circumstances of the society. The exclusion of Chinese within America was conducted through enactment of laws providing for such actions. When these laws were lifted following civil rights and mass actions, the Asian populations experiences a form of consciousness that continued even in the modern times. The racial stereotypes were eliminated and the people became referred to as Asian – Americans rather than oriental people. This is the form of transformation that occurred and that resulted in the development of the community of Asian-American society. References Bob Wing. “Crossing Race and Nationality: The Racial Formation of Asian Americans, 1852-1965.” Monthly Review-An Independent Socialist Magazine 57.7 (2005): 1–18. Print. Chan, Kenyon S., and Shirley Hune. “Racialization and Panethnicity: From Asians in America to Asian Americans.” Toward a Common Destiny: Improving Race and Ethnic Relations in America. Ed. Willis D. Hawley and Anthony Wells Jackson. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1995. 205–233. Print. Kim, Claire Jean. “The Racial Triangulation of Asian Americans.” Politics & Society 27.1 (199AD): 105–138. Print. Lee, Sharon S. “Over-Represented and De-Minoritised: The Racialization of Asian Americans in Higher Education.” UCLA Journal of Education and Information Studies 2.2 (2006): 1–15. Print. Lye, Colleen. America’s Asia: Racial Form and American Literature, 1893-1945. New York: Princeton University Press, 2009. Print. Ngin, ChorSwang, and Rodolfo D. Torres. “Theorizing Asian American and Latino Identities and Ethnicities in Southern California.” Racialised Metropolis. Ed. Rodolfo Torres. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001. 368–390. Print. Omi, Michael, and Howard Winant. Racial Formation in the United States. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2015. Print. Tang, Eric. “A Gulf Unites Us: The Vietnamese Americans of Black New Orleans East.” American Quarterly 63.1 (2011): 117–149. Print.  Read More