The Relationship Between Minority and Dominant Groups - Essay Example

Question 1: Explain the significance of De Jure Segregation, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Civil Rights Act. Currently, what are African-Americans experiencing in our society? Has their quality of life been improving or not? With respect to American Indians, discuss the significance of the initial European contact, the “Indian Problem”, the Ghost Dance Movement and the Dawes Act. What does the future hold for these American Indians? De jure segregation refers to the racial differentiation that is mandated by law. The difference between ‘de facto’ and ‘de jure’ segregation has become an established separation. The concrete outcomes have been a limited applicability of the desegregation decree and an effect mainly on the South. Omissions to this standard took place in the West and North to the point school committees had formed racially divided schools and had not abolished them in accordance to Brown v. Board of Education. The Court, by demanding justification or evidence of official segregative objective, formed a considerably regulatory standard. In spite of disapproval that the difference between ‘de factor’ and ‘de jure’ segregation is mock, it is a distinction between unconstitutional and constitutional. This outcome has become apparent in the decreasing number of cases wherein racially divided schools, even though a prevalent occurrence, posed a constitutional problem. The Civil Rights Movement was a very important event in the history of the American society. It tried to extend the citizenship privileges and rights to African Americans that the White people ignored. In the 1960s it made important legislative and judicial achievements against discrimination in voting and public services. It also had partial achievement in fighting housing and employment discrimination. The movement proved that discrimination was unfair and would not be endured anymore in the country, while becoming a model for discriminated people all over the world. The 1964 Civil Rights Act, which put an end to segregation in public accommodations and prohibited discrimination in the workplace based on racial origin, sex, or religion, is recognized as one of the greatest legislative successes of the civil rights movement. Afterward, Congress extended the act and also created further legislation intended to grant equal rights to African Americans. Like the 1965 Voting Rights Act. It also led to the formation of two important additional legislations—the 1968 Fair Housing Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Due to these efforts, legal segregation has been dismantled. Hence the vital questions are: currently, what are African-Americans experiencing in the American society? Has their quality of life been improving or not? The Harvard School of Public Health, NPR, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation carried out a countrywide study exploring the opinions of African Americans on their lives today. The results reveal that African Americans are mostly contented or pleased with their lives. Nevertheless, many of them raise issues about economic security and their ability to afford health care. A large number of African Americans also reveal continuous experiences of discrimination. Roughly 36 percent of the surveyed African Americans reveal experiences of an adverse episode as an outcome of racial discrimination, and then 26 percent of them identified crime as the most pressing problem confronting their community. How about the American Indians? The experiences of the American Indians differ significantly in various regions of the continent. The outcome is that Europeans in Latin America stayed a comparatively small nobility or elite ruling a population of Indian laborers. From Central America and Mexico to Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, and Ecuador, American Indians live on in huge populations through the colonial period and preserve even nowadays a great deal of their own culture. On the contrary, North America is less industrialized and less inhabited when the Europeans came. Every Indian ethnic group becomes well-known in the tale of North America as the European expands to the west and vies with them for territory. The American Colonization Society was established in 1816 to assist in the relocation of free African Americans to a settlement in Liberia, Africa. Although some believed that African Americans must be assimilated into the Euro-American society, for even certain abolitionists mistrusted the shift or transition could be accomplished. The Indian Problem involved the same uncertainty. Francis Haines gives a definition of the Indian Problem: The Indian Problem of the Pacific Northwest is an integral part of a national problem inherited from the colonial period. From the landing of the first colonists on the Atlantic Coast, the dominant white invaders have debated over the handling of the primitive native people who occupied the country… Some groups have worked to exterminate the Indian people, while others have tried to assimilate them. Although several Indian Agents did express blaming the victims and racially prejudiced ideas of the Indian Problem, others provided interpretations of the problem that incriminated their own traditions, and the system of government for which they operated, as the root of the ‘problem’. For the Indian ethnic groups that engage in the Ghost Dance it may be thought the significance was mainly the hope it created; a hope that eventually the colonizers would disappear and the ancestors will appear. It is important to keep in mind that among the ethnic groups that observed the Ghost Dance, there were differences and various significance of the dance. The Ghost Dance movement was a response to the suppression of American Indians by the American government. It was an effort to restore traditional culture and to look for ways to solve growing epidemics, starvation, and poverty, all embodying the reservation life of the American Indians in the latter part of the 19th century. Similarly, the Dawes Severalty Act was essential for tribal existence for it aided in the reduction of the capability of the tribes to exist in their customary ways. The Act put an end to the public or shared land ownership and broke it down into parts to be owned by American Indians. American Indians in time were granted citizenship and obtained federal assistance. However, American Indians still fight for some of their rights, such as the political campaign of groups like the American Indian Movement (AIM) that highlights the continuing lack of employment opportunities and political marginalization of American Indians. Therefore, the future of these Native Americans will depend on how passionate and determined they are to stand up for their rights. Question 2: Discuss the immigration patterns of Hispanic groups. How do they all differ? What is the significance of the Chicano Movement? How are the experiences of Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Cubans different? With respect to Asian Americans, explain the two categories of the Asian experience. How do the immigration patterns of the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Filipinos, and Vietnamese differ? Discuss the significance of the Yellow Peril and the Japanese internment camps during WW2. The increase of the Hispanic population in America is a significant and highly debated occurrence in the current American history. Growing from a small, locally concentrated populace to a currently broadly distributed population, Hispanic groups are fated to keep on exerting huge effect on the economic, political, cultural, and social life of the American society. Hispanic groups originated from roughly twenty countries—they could speak Portuguese, Spanish, or a broad range of native languages such as Nahuatl and Quechua. Hispanic groups are a multicultural and multiracial population. Two of the most widely used terms to identify Latin American immigrants and their descendants are Latino and Hispanic. In the 1960s the U.S. Congress introduced the word ‘Hispanic’ so as to include in the counting the Spanish-speaking inhabitants of the U.S. The term ‘Latino’ is an idea of the U.S. Census Bureau, created to identify immigrants from the Caribbean and Latin America and U.S.-born citizens with Hispanic roots. Such terms could overgeneralize the individual experiences of Latin American and Caribbean immigrants to the U.S. A large number of immigrants from Latin America want to identify themselves in relation to their national roots rather than to words like Hispanic or Latino. Hispanic means Spanish descent; its actual connotation is ‘pertaining to ancient Spain’, yet it does not comprise the African and/or native origins existing in numerous Latino groups. On the contrary, the word Latino includes numerous groups acknowledging the cultural diversity among them. Even though this concept has been more widespread in places where numerous diverse populations from Latin America reside together, it does not fully represent the numerous disparities between Mexican Americans and Cuban Americans, or between new immigrants from El Salvador and Brazil. The evolution of these terms to identify immigrants from Latin America demonstrates the immigration patterns of Hispanic groups. The same as other campaigns fighting for civil rights, the Chicano movement raised the awareness of the society of the prejudice, discrimination, and other injustices endured by Mexican Americans in the U.S. and inspired social transformation. The Chicano movement was a political and cultural campaign that promoted the history of Chicanos and/or Mexicans in American society. The root of the word ‘Chicano’ is still unknown and its meaning differs, but it has been openly repossessed by Americans of Mexican roots to highlight their ancestry from colonial processes. The movement has been divided into three: (1) call for equal or fair access to empowerment thru political and educational opportunities; (2) the demand for the rights of Mexican American peasants; and, (3) the campaign for renewal of land grants. This movement tackled discrimination and injustices in private and public institutions. Cuba, Puerto Rican, and Mexican Americans all have many similarities, but remain distinct ethnicities, originated from different ancestors. Many migrate to the U.S. for political refuge and in pursuit of the American Dream. Mexican Americans are a varied group who have achieved legal standing, linguistic and socioeconomic integration. Majority are in quest for the American Dream and struggling to free themselves from the meek standing of the previous generations, who are dismissed from this effort because of not having achieved legal standing in the U.S. All through the history of immigration to the U.S., Mexicans appear to have achieved slight advance in going up from immigrant position to majority social position, somewhat because of the extent of discrimination and the inadequate educational opportunities given to them. On the other hand, Puerto Rican Americans are largely Roman Catholics. Puerto Rico belongs to the Commonwealth of the United States; it has its own governor, parliament, and constitution under the executive power of the U.S.; because of such commonwealth standing, every Puerto Rican is an American citizen. In politics, there is a great deal of disagreement about whether Puerto Rico must retain the Commonwealth connection with the U.S., support total U.S. statehood, or demand full independence of the U.S. The assimilation of Puerto Ricans has been both triumphant and plagued with difficulties. The Cubans banished from the Caribbean Island once the revolution of 1959 ended transformed Miami, Florida into the so-called Latin American capital. In the course of the Cold War numerous political immigrants looked for sanctuary in the U.S. where they gladly approved of the advantages provided there. The Cuban Americans considerably transformed numerous aspects of Miami, such as turning upside down the normal process of taking up societal assimilation and embracing American culture. Rather than integrating into American cultures and supplanting Spanish with English, they caused what has been called ‘reverse acculturation’, which means that Miami inhabitants had to become used to the Cuban political control and economical effect. On the other hand, the term Asian Americans refers to a varied group of American inhabitants who are either progenies of immigrants from a common or broad region in Asia or are themselves immigrants. Even though there is a certain extent of disagreement about the roots of Asian Americas, the usual process is to take account of South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia. Languages, religious traditions, political structures, economic circumstances, and cultural legacies are somewhat diverse across these nations. Consequently, Asian Americans differ significantly by country of origin. Indeed, ethnic diversities among Asian Americas are quite huge that they challenge the primary classification applied to categorize them. The wide-ranging classification of Asian Americans is applied for a number of reasons. Aside from the concrete need to breakdown racial classifications in statistical layouts, there are also numerous ways by which Asian Americans are different from other mainstream racial populations in the U.S. Asian Americans are culturally and physically different from White Americans and other minority groups. Also, excluding those of Japanese ancestry, majority of Asian Americans currently migrated to the U.S. as recipients of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (Asian Indians, Filipinos, Koreans, and Chinese) or as expatriates (Cambodians, Laotians, and Vietnamese). The earliest recorded migration of people from Asia took place in 1790 when Filipino seafarers fled capture from a Spanish ship moored in New Orleans. The earliest major Asia relocation to the U.S. occurred when the Chinese arrived to work in the Northern Californian gold mines in 1848. Between 1890 and 1924 Japanese immigration started. Filipinos were given unhindered entry to the U.S. as ‘nationals’ from the time the Philippines officially became the colonial ground of the U.S. in 1902. Nowadays, Asian Americans are an ever more important minority group in the U.S. At the core of the discrimination experienced by Asian Americans is the concept of Yellow Peril, which, according to John Dower, is “the core imagery of apes, lesser men, primitives, children, madmen, and beings who possessed special powers” in the midst of worries about a possible attack from Asia’s sleeping giant. The concept of the Yellow Peril has influenced perception of Asian Americans. In war times, economic trouble or competition, Asians Americas are the adversaries; in moments of plenty, Asian Americans are the ideal ethnic groups to integrate into American society. Such concept inspired the formation of Japanese internment camps during the Second World War. The transfer of Japanese-Americans into these internment camps was considered as one of the most blatant disregard for civil liberties in the history of the American society. Question 3. Are white ethnic groups a minority? Discuss. Explain how the patterns of immigration differ for the various white ethnic groups and how the Jewish immigrant experience is a special case. Discuss the three factors affecting the mobility and assimilation of white ethnic groups. Also, what effect does industrialization play? The term ‘white ethnic’ denotes white who do not belong to the European Protestant group. They are made up of several different groups, and in the U.S. they are considered a minority, comprising roughly 9 percent of the population. The term commonly denotes white immigrants and their progenies from Western Asia, Eastern, Southern, and Central Asia. White ethnic groups comprised the second and third major waves of immigration, ranging from the nineteenth century to the twentieth century. They entered a freshly minted U.S. that was mainly composed of white Protestants originating from England. The first main arrival of European immigrants originated from Ireland and Germany, beginning in the 1820s. Germans migrated to flee political disorder and military enlistment and acquire economic opportunities, particularly after the 1848 Revolutions. A large number of these German immigrants of this time were political expatriates. The Irish immigrants were not constantly as prosperous or affluent monetarily, particularly after the 1945 Irish Potato Famine. Irish immigrants lived primarily in the municipalities of the East Coast, where they were hired as workers and where they confronted considerable prejudice or discrimination. Irish and German immigration persisted until the latter part of the nineteenth century and twentieth century, at which time the population of Eastern and Southern European settlers began increasing too. Italians, mostly from the country’s southern region, starting migrating in huge populations in the 1890s; immigrants from Eastern Europe—Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland, and Russia—began migrating somewhat simultaneously. Numerous of these Eastern Europeans were laborers pushed into hardship in their homelands; crop disasters, unavailability of land, and political disorder forced them to look for a greener pasture in the U.S. The immigration of people from Eastern Europe also comprised Jewish people fleeing persecutions. Some think that the U.S., with a large population of Jews, is in fact the Jewish people’s home, proven partly by the reality that Israel is at times referred to as ‘Little America’ due to its commonalities to the U.S. Even though Jews make up less than 3% of the population of the U.S., Jews have largely had an unevenly bigger representation in the U.S. government, entertainment, academia, and business. Still, there are three factors affecting the mobility and assimilation of white ethnic groups: (1) discrimination; (2) poverty; and (3) cultural differences. Generally, German immigrants were less oppressed or marginalized compared to other inferior groups. Although they may not have been openly received, they were able to form and live in communities. Irish immigrants, a large number of whom were living in extreme poverty, were more of a lower class compared to the German people. In Ireland, the English had exploited and suppressed the Irish people for hundreds of years, destroying their culture and language and persecuting them because of their religion. Such practice was brought into the American soil, where Anglo Americans viewed Irish settlers as a very distinct racial group— no aspiration, filthy, and appropriate merely for lowly occupations. Indeed, Irish settlers were exposed to denigration same as that by which the mainstream group embodied African Americans. Due to necessity, immigrants from Ireland created close communities separated from their Anglo fellow people. The subsequent wave of settlers from Eastern and Southern Europe also experienced severe discrimination. Specifically, the mainstream wave—which currently comprised second and third-generation of Irish and German immigrants—viewed Italian settlers as the remnants of Europe and feared for the pureness of the American race; settlers inhabited the ghettoized or isolated shantytowns in Northeast cities, and in certain instances were victimized by aggression and lynchings. The labored harder and received smaller wages than other laborers, usually performing the hazardous jobs that other workers were hesitant to do. Trying to assimilate into the mainstream society, mostly white Anglo-Saxon Protestant, is hard when facial attributes or cultural practices are different from the ‘norm’. The innate and attained prejudices of the mainstream society hamper acceptance and hinder access to the dominant group’s political, social, and economic system. Similar to any complicated occurrence, European immigration had multiple reasons, yet behind the phenomenon was a huge and basic transformation in core technology—industrialization. The relationship between minority and dominant groups are closely linked to the societal system, and they transform as that system alters. The settlers were forced out of Europe as industrialization ruined the customary agricultural subsistence, and they were attracted to the U.S. by the employment opportunities raised by the expansion of that same technology. In reaction to industrialization, farmworkers started to abandon their homes and relocate to the cities. Numerous of the previous farmworkers took advantage of the opportunities offered in America, particularly in the U.S., where the availability of farmland encouraged people to abandon urban areas, thus retaining a quite stable labor demand in the regions that were easily accessible to Europeans. As industrialization grew, the migration of European people to North American later becomes the biggest in human history until now. Read More