Warren J. Blumenfeld

Associate Professor

Department of Curriculum & Instruction

Iowa State University

wblumen@iastate.edu

The notion of “race” is discursively or socially constructed.

The concept of “race” arose concurrently with the advent of European exploration as a justification and rationale for conquest and domination of the globe beginning in the 15th century of the Common Era.

“Race” is an historical, “scientific,” and biological myth. It is an idea.

Geneticists tell us that there is often more variability within a given so-called “race” than between “races,” and that there are no essential genetic markers linked specifically to “race.”

Assumptions

2010, Arizona: SB 1070 Mandates police officers stop and question people

about immigration status if they suspect they may be in this country illegally

Criminalizes undocumented workers who do not possess an “alien registration document”

Allows U.S. citizens to file suits against government agencies that do not enforce the law

Criminalizes employers who transport or hire undocumented workers

Janet Murguia President CEO of civil rights organization, National

Council of La Raza,

“By signing it, this bill, Governor Brewer has

thrown the door wide open for racial profiling.”

“Racial Profiling” “Racial profiling occurs when race is used by law

enforcement or private security officials, to any degree, as a basis for criminal suspicion in non-suspect specific investigations.”

Racial profiling constitutes a form of discrimination, based on race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, and other identities “undermines the basic human rights and freedoms to which every person is entitled.”

Amnesty International

SB 1070 “law enforcement official or agency…may not consider

race, color or national origin in implementing the requirements of this subsection except to the extent permitted by the United States or Arizona constitution.”

But…how can this NOT be a major consideration?

Federal Government & Racial Profiling

1975, U.S. Supreme Court case regarding the Border Patrol's power to stop vehicles near the U.S.-Mexico border & question occupants about citizenship & immigration status

United States v. Brignoni-Ponce: the "likelihood that any given person of Mexican ancestry is an alien is high enough to make Mexican appearance a relevant factor."

1982, Arizona Supreme Court: State v. Graciano “enforcement of immigration laws often involves a relevant consideration of ethnic factors.”

Chin

Simon (Szymon) Mahler

Maternal grandfather

Krosno, Poland.

13 siblings

Wolf & Basha Mahler

Butcher shop

Ashkenazi Jewish Tradition

Child named in honor of a deceased relative.

Wolf Mahler gave me my name, sense of history, sense of my identity.

My Hebrew name is Ze'ev, means “wolf.”

Identity

5 years old

Family history

Direct relationship to German Holocaust

NAZI “RACIAL” PHILOSOPHY

“Racial” arguments cornerstone of persecution of Jews (as well as most people of color and people with disabilities).

Jews and others descendants from inferior “racial stands.”

NAZI “RACIAL” PHILOSOPHY

Nazis asserted Jews polluting “Aryan race.”

Jews forced to wear Yellow Star of David patches, sign of “race pollution.”

Mahler’s of Antwerp

Lilian and Armand Mahler Bushel forced to wear yellow star.

Cultural Genocide & Deculturalization

Cultural Genocide: the attempt to destroy other cultures through forced acquiescence and assimilation to majority rules and standards

Works through the process of “deculturalization”: the process of destroying a people’s culture and replacing it with a new culture

Joel Spring, 2004

2010, Arizona: HB 2281 Signed into law by Governor Jan Brewer

Targets public school districts’ ethnic studies programs

Arizona School Superintendent, Tom Horne, primary supporter of the bill

The law is necessary because, in particular, Tucson, Arizona’s Mexican American, African American, and Native American studies courses teach students that they are oppressed, encourages resentment toward white people, and promotes “ethnic chauvinism” and “ethnic solidarity” instead of treating people as individuals

Immigration & Cultural Genocide in

Historical Perspective

Colonialism

Exploitation

Violence

Kidnapping

Genocide

Christopher Columbus & Crew

“Puritans” Left England to practice

“Purer” form of Christianity

Divinely chosen to form “a biblical commonwealth”

No separation of “church & state” (religion & government)

Intolerant of other religious beliefs

Killed Quakers, Catholics, others

Scriptural justifications used to support slavery

Many slave ships had on board a Christian minister to help oversee and bless the passage.

Slave ship names included: “Jesus,” “Grace of God,” “Angel,” “Liberty,” & “Justice.”

http://propagandapress.org/2006/09/20/the-first-slave-ship-to-land-in-america-was-called-jesus/

http://www.pleasecomeflying.com/2007/10/lucille-clifton-slaveship.html

Slavery

“[Slavery] was established by decree of Almighty God...it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation...it has existed in all ages, has been found among the people of the highest civilization, and in nations of the highest proficiency in the arts.”

Jefferson Davis

“Manifest Destiny” The belief that the United States destined by

Providence to expand from Atlantic to Pacific (from “sea to shining sea”), & led by so-called “Anglo-Saxon race.”

Justified stealing Native American territories

Justified war with Mexico

“Manifest Destiny”

“The doctrine of ‘manifest destiny’ embraced a belief in American Anglo-Saxon superiority…. ‘This continent,’ a congressman declared, ‘was intended by Providence as

a vast theatre on which to work out the grand experiment of Republican government, under the

auspices of the Anglo-Saxon race’.”

Ronald Takaki, 1993, p. 176

“Race,” Immigration, & Citizenship

14th Amendment, U.S. Constitution

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of

the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property,

without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Eugenics Movement “Eugenics” movement in science

18183, coined in England, by

Sir Francis Galton, a cousin of

Charles Darwin

Greek word meaning “well born”

or “of good origins or breeding”

“Science” of improving

qualities of a “race” by

controlling human breeding Sir Francis

Galton

“Race,” Immigration, & Citizenship 1790, Naturalization Act

Excluded “nonwhites” from citizenship

Enslaved Africans

Asians

Native Americans (“domestic foreigners”)

1924, Native Americans rights of citizenship

Asians continued denied naturalized citizenship status

“Race,” Immigration, & Citizenship 1882, Chinese Exclusion Act

Also illegal for Chinese to marry Whites or Blacks

1917, Immigration Act further prohibited immigration from Asian countries, the “Barred Zone.”

China, India, Siam, Burma, Asiatic Russian, Polynesian Islands, Afghanistan.

Takao Ozawa v United States Takao Ozawa, a Japanese man, filed for citizenship under

Naturalization Act of 1906

Which allowed white persons and persons of African descent or African nativity to naturalize.

Asians termed an “unassimilateable race” and not entitled to citizenship.

Ozawa attempted to have Japanese classified as "white.“

Claimed his skin is “white”

1922, Supreme Court

Denied natualized citizenship status.

1896, Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court Case

Sustaining racial segregation & “Jim Crow” laws

Setting precedent: “Separate but Equal”

June 7, 1892, East Louisiana Railroad

Homer Plessy forced off “whites-only” railroad car & onto “colored” car.

Plessy “one-eights black,” “seven-eights white”

Blacks Lynched A Jew Lynched

President Theodore Roosevelt “In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant

who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an

exact equality with everyone else….But this is predicated upon the person’s becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American….There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag….We have room for but one language here, and

that is the English language…and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American

people.” 1907

MADISON GRANT 1865-1937

U.S. Lawyer, Eugenicist

Co-founder, with Henry Fairfield Osborn, of the Galton Society for the Study of the Origin and Evolution of Man, 1918.

Grant Influential in Immigration Restriction and Anti-Miscegenation Policies.

Book: The Passing of the Great Race (1916) detailing the so-called “racial” history of Europe: in fact, a work of “scientific racism.”

MADISON GRANT 1865-1937

“Racialization” of European “Races”

The Passing of the Great Race (1916)

European “Racial” Hierarchy:

“Nordics” (Northwestern Europe—superior)

“Alpines” (Central Europe—somewhat inferior)

“Mediterraneans” (Southern and Eastern Europe—inferior)

Jews (most inferior)

1924 Immigration Act 1924 Johnson-Reed Immigration Act: a.k.a.

“National Origins Quota Act,” or “National Quota Act”

Restrictive quotas: Eastern & Southern Europe

Viewed as Europe’s lower “races”

Jews (“Hebrew race”), Poles, Italians, Greeks, Slaves

Prohibitions of “aliens ineligible

to citizenship”

(Asians from 1790 Naturalization Act)

Increased numbers

Great Britain, Germany

1930s United States Great Depression

High Unemployment

Homes and farms lost

W.W.II Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941

Segregated military units

UNITED STATES 1939, Congress refused to pass Wagner-Rogers Bill

Would have permitted entry of 20,000 children, primarily Jewish, from Eastern Europe over existing quotas.

“20,000 charming children would, all too soon, grow into 20,000 ugly adults.”

Laura Delano, cousin of F.D.R.

Japanese American Internment Camps 120,000 Japanese Americans

Uprooted from homes

Transported to Internment Camps

Interior U.S.

Have we learned anything? Following the 9/11 attacks

31% of U.S.-Americans agreed with the statement:

“Muslims in the U.S. should be incarcerated like we incarcerated Japanese Americans during WWII.”

1940s Urban Riots Realization German & Italian prisoners of war treated

better than People of Color in U.S.

People of Color fighting in military but treated poorly

After W.W.II Gender Roles rehardened

Women relinquished jobs

Mandated nuclear families

Racial segregation & “Jim Crow” continued

Anti-Miscegenation Laws Many states: outlawed interracial sexual relations

Outlawed interracial marriage

Example: Mildred Deloris & Richard Loving

Married in D.C.

Residents of and lived in Virginia

Arrested

“Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, Malay and red,

and He placed them on separate continents. And but for the

interference with His arrangement there would be no cause for such

marriages. The fact that He separated the races shows that He did not intend for the races to mix.”

Judge Leon M. Bazile “Act to Preserve Racial Integrity, 1924,”

Ruling, Virginia, July 1958, Richard Perry Loving & Mildred Delores Jeeter

1967, Loving v. Virginia Supreme Court Decision

Struck down anti-miscegenation laws in remaining 16 states

1950s - 1960s

Tumultuous social change

Challenge underlying assumptions

Authority

Power relationships

Civil Rights 1954, Brown v. Board of Education (Topeka, Kansas)

Supreme Court

Unconstitutional: “Separate but Equal” in public education

Linda Brown & mother Linda Brown attending integrated school

Civil Rights

Rosa Parks

1955, refusal to give up seat white person

Montgomery, Alabama

Municipal bus boycott

Civil Rights Lunch counter sit-in to end segregation

Civil Rights 1963, National March on Washington

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Civil Rights Movement to improve working conditions, wages

Farm Workers

César Chávez Founder, National Farm Workers

Association

Free Speech Movement 1964-1965

Student Protest

University of California, Berkeley

Students insisted university lift ban of on-campus political activities

Grant students' right free speech

& academic freedom

Vietnam War

Environmental Movement Earth Day

Proposed: U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson

First, April 22, 1970

Environmental teach-in

Disability Rights Movement

The 1952 McCarran Walters Act overturned the 1924 Act.

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 removed 'natural origins' as the basis of U.S. immigration legislation, and was framed as an amendment to the 1952 McCarran-Walter Act.

Immigration and Nationality Act 1965

Abolished National Origins Formula from

National Origins of 1924

Increased immigration from Asian and Latin American countries and religious backgrounds

Allowed 170,000 immigrants from the Eastern Hemisphere, 20,000 per each country

120,000 from Western Hemisphere

300,000 total visas allowed

Cultural Pluralism Horace Kallen

Jewish immigrant and sociologist

Polish and Latvian heritage

Coined “cultural pluralism” to challenge the image of the so-called “melting pot,” which he considered to be inherently undemocratic

Kallen envisioned a United States in the image of a great symphony orchestra, not sounding in unison (the “melting pot”), but rather, one in which all the disparate cultures play in harmony and retain their unique and distinctive tones and timbres

Discussion