Sociology 11.5

These schools, run by both Christian missionaries and the United States government, had the express purpose of

"civilizing" Native American children and assimilating them into white society

The only nonimmigrant ethnic group in the United States, Native Americans once numbered in the millions but by 2010 made up only

0.9 percent of U.S. populace

The segment of the U.S. population that self-identifies as Hispanic in 2013 was recently estimated at

17.1 percent of the total

Japanese immigration began in the

1880s, on the heels of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

Italians, mainly from the Southern part of the country, began arriving in large numbers in the

1890s. Eastern European immigrants—people from Russia, Poland, Bulgaria, and Austria-Hungary—started arriving around the same time.

Mexican migration to the United States started in the early

1900s in response to the need for cheap agricultural labor

The eradication of Native American culture continued until the

1960s, when Native Americans were able to participate in and benefit from the civil rights movement

While Korean immigration has been fairly gradual, Vietnamese immigration occurred primarily post

1975, after the fall of Saigon and the establishment of restrictive communist policies in Vietnam

Physical and sexual abuses were rampant for decades; only in

1987 did the Bureau of Indian Affairs issue a policy on sexual abuse in boarding schools.

German and Irish immigration continued into the late

19th century and earlier 20th century, at which point the numbers for Southern and Eastern European immigrants started growing as well

Dates of the migration are debated with estimates ranging from between

45,000 and 12,000 BCE

Of the total Hispanic group

60 percent reported as Mexican, 44 percent reported as Cuban, and 9 percent reported as Puerto Rican

The sole minority group which did not originally immigrate to the United States by choice

African Americans

These early immigrants and their descendants, who were more likely to think of themselves as Syrian or Lebanese than Arab, represent almost half of the

Arab American population today

Represent many religious practices, but are often assumed to all practice just one

Arab Americans

Although the rate of hate crimes against Arab Americans has slowed,

Arab Americans are still victims of racism and prejudice

Helen Samhan of the Arab American Institute suggests that

Arab-Israeli conflicts in the 1970s contributed significantly to cultural and political anti-Arab sentiment in the United States

First came to the American West during the Gold Rush in the mid-19th century

Asian Americans

Chinese immigration came to an abrupt end with the

Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

After Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965

Chinese immigration again increased, and many Chinese families were reunited

The first Asian immigrants to come to the United States in the mid-nineteenth century were

Chinese. These immigrants were primarily men whose intention was to work for several years in order to earn incomes to support their families in China. Their main destination was the American West, where the Gold Rush was drawing people with its lure of abundant money

The major blow to America's formally institutionalized racism was the

Civil Rights Act of 1964. This Act, which is still followed today, banned discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

Which subgroup is viewed as the model minority group among Hispanic Americans?

Cuban Americans

The 2010 U.S. Census states that "Hispanic" or "Latino" refers to a person of

Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race

The United States has historically supported the State of Israel, while some Middle Eastern countries deny the existence of the Israeli state.

Disputes over these issues have involved Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine

Many people with dark skin may have their more recent roots in

Europe or the Caribbean, seeing themselves as Dominican American or Dutch American.

If indigenous people tried to retain their stewardship of the land,

Europeans fought them off with superior weapons

The main wave of Cuban immigration to the United States started after

Fidel Castro came to power in 1959 and reached its crest with the Mariel boatlift in 1980

From which two European countries did the earliest wave of White Ethnic American immigrants emigrate?

Germany and Ireland

The first major influx of European immigrants came from

Germany and Ireland, starting in the 1820s

Many Japanese immigrants came to

Hawaii to participate in the sugar industry; others came to the mainland, especially to California

Began immigrating in the early 20th century as needed agricultural workers

Hispanic Americans

Mexican Americans form the largest

Hispanic subgroup and also the oldest

The Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968 guaranteed

Indian tribes most of the rights of the United States Bill of Rights

The Irish immigrants of the same time period were not always as well off financially, especially after the

Irish Potato Famine of 1845

The most recent large-scale Asian immigration came from

Korea and Vietnam and largely took place during the second half of the twentieth century

The experience of a Japanese American whose family has been in the United States for three generations will be drastically different from a

Laotian American who has only been in the United States for a few years.

What group forms the largest subgroup of Hispanic Americans?

Mexican Americans

According to the 2010 U.S. Census, about 75 percent of the respondents who identify as Hispanic report being of

Mexican, Puerto Rican, or Cuban origin

Currently, about 2.9 million people identify themselves as Native American alone, while an additional 2.3 million identify them as

Native American mixed with another ethnic group

Long-term poverty, inadequate education, cultural dislocation, and high rates of unemployment contribute to

Native American populations falling to the bottom of the economic spectrum. Native Americans also suffer disproportionately with lower life expectancies than most groups in the United States.

Racial profiling has proceeded against Arab Americans as a matter of course since 9/11

Particularly when engaged in air travel, being young and Arab-looking is enough to warrant a special search or detainment

Native American culture prior to European settlement is referred to as

Pre-Columbian: that is, prior to the coming of Christopher Columbus in 1492

After the establishment of the United States government, discrimination against Native Americans was codified and formalized in a series of laws intended to subjugate them and keep them from gaining any power. Some of the most impactful laws are as follows:

The Indian Removal Act of 1830 forced the relocation of any native tribes east of the Mississippi River to lands west of the river. The Indian Appropriation Acts funded further removals and declared that no Indian tribe could be recognized as an independent nation, tribe, or power with which the U.S. government would have to make treaties. This made it even easier for the U.S. government to take land it wanted. The Dawes Act of 1887 reversed the policy of isolating Native Americans on reservations, instead forcing them onto individual properties that were intermingled with white settlers, thereby reducing their capacity for power as a group.

Italian Americans' cultural assimilation is "almost complete, but with remnants of ethnicity."

The presence of "Little Italy" neighborhoods—originally segregated slums where Italians congregated in the nineteenth century—exist today.

Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

This act was a result of anti-Chinese sentiment burgeoned by a depressed economy and loss of jobs. White workers blamed Chinese migrants for taking jobs, and the passage of the Act meant the number of Chinese workers decreased. Chinese men did not have the funds to return to China or to bring their families to the United States, so they remained physically and culturally segregated in the Chinatowns of large cities

Once in the Americas, the black population grew until

U.S.-born blacks outnumbered those born in Africa

A Dutch sea captain brought the first Africans to the

Virginia colony of Jamestown in 1619 and sold them as indentured servants

Formed the second and third great waves of immigration beginning around 1820

White Ethnic Americans

Mexican Americans, especially those who are here illegally, are at the center of

a national debate about immigration.

But colonial (and later, U.S.) slave codes declared that the child of a slave was

a slave, so the slave class was created

A century later, the civil rights movement was characterized by boycotts, marches, sit-ins, and freedom rides: demonstrations by

a subordinate group that would no longer willingly submit to domination

Arab Americans represent all religious practices, despite the stereotype that

all Arabic people practice Islam

model minority stereotype

applied to a minority group that is seen as reaching significant educational, professional, and socioeconomic levels without challenging the existing establishment

Hispanic Americans have a wide range of

backgrounds and nationalities

The next 150 years saw the rise of U.S. slavery, with

black Africans being kidnapped from their own lands and shipped to the New World on the trans-Atlantic journey known as the Middle Passage

The National Urban League's 2011 Equality Index reports that

blacks' overall equality level with whites has dropped in the past year, from 71.5 percent to 71.1 percent in 2010

Slavery poses an excellent example of

conflict theory's perspective on race relations; the dominant group needed complete control over the subordinate group in order to maintain its power

Students of U.S. history will know that the institution of slavery was

crucial to the Southern economy, whose production of crops like rice, cotton, and tobacco relied on the virtually limitless and cheap labor that slavery provided In contrast, the North didn't benefit economically from slavery, resulting in an economic disparity tied to racial/ political issues.

Schools forced children to

cut their hair, speak English, and practice Christianity

As is often the case with stereotyping and prejudice, the actions of extremists come to

define the entire group, regardless of the fact that most U.S. citizens with ties to the Middle Eastern community condemn terrorist actions, as do most inhabitants of the Middle Eas

This dynamic reached into the new world, where Anglo Americans saw Irish immigrants as a race apart:

dirty, lacking ambition, and suitable for only the most menial jobs

the dominant group—which now included second- and third-generation Germans and Irish—saw Italian immigrants as the

dregs of Europe and worried about the purity of the American race

They were predominantly Syrian, Lebanese, and Jordanian Christians, and they came to

escape persecution and to make a better life

the Immigration Act of 1924

further curtailed Chinese immigration he Act included the race-based National Origins Act, which was aimed at keeping U.S. ethnic stock as undiluted as possible by reducing "undesirable" immigrants

Most tribes considered the earth a living entity whose resources they were stewards of,

he concepts of land ownership and conquest didn't exist in Native American society

The later wave of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe was also subject to

intense discrimination and prejudice

Slavery eventually became an issue over which the nation divided

into geographically and ideologically distinct factions, leading to the Civil War. And while the abolition of slavery on moral grounds was certainly a catalyst to war, it was not the only driving force

Irish immigrants settled mainly in the cities of the East Coast, where they were employed as

laborers and where they faced significant discrimination.

From the first Spanish colonists to the French, English, and Dutch who followed, European settlers took what

land they wanted and expanded across the continent at will

The first Arab immigrants came to this country in the

late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

While sociologists believe that individual experiences can often be understood in

light of their social characteristics

The earliest immigrants to America arrived

millennia before European immigrants

Relations between Arab Americans and the dominant majority have been marked by

mistrust, misinformation, and deeply entrenched beliefs

Cuban Americans are often seen as a

model minority group within the larger Hispanic group

Today, our society is

multicultural, although the extent to which this multiculturality is embraced varies, and the many manifestations of multiculturalism carry significant political repercussions.

Whereas many Asian immigrants came to the United States to seek better economic opportunities, Vietnamese immigrants came as

political refugees, seeking asylum from harsh conditions in their homeland. The Refugee Act of 1980 helped them to find a place to settle in the United States.

White ethnic Europeans formed the

second and third great waves of immigration, from the early nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century

Cuban Americans are the

second-largest Hispanic subgroup

The boarding schools were located off-reservation to ensure that children were

separated from their families and culture

But the growing agricultural economy demanded greater and cheaper labor, and by 1705, Virginia passed the

slave codes declaring that any foreign-born non-Christian could be a slave, and that slaves were considered property

Unlike the Chinese, however, the Japanese had a

strong government that negotiated with the U.S. government to ensure the well-being of their immigrants.

However, Native Americans (some of whom now wished to be called American Indians so as to avoid the "savage" connotations of the term "native") still

suffer the effects of centuries of degradation

Native American culture was further eroded by

the establishment of Indian boarding schools in the late nineteenth century

There are now more Irish Americans in the United States than

there are Irish in Ireland

laws like the Indian Self-Determination Act of 1975 and the Education Assistance Act of the same year recognized

tribal governments and gave them more power

Although government-sponsored, formalized discrimination against African Americans has been outlawed,

true equality does not yet exist

In order to justify their severely discriminatory behavior, slaveholders and their supporters had to

view blacks as innately inferior

Irish immigrants, many of whom were very poor,

were more of an underclass than the Germans

For several decades, Mexican workers crossed the long border into the United States, both legally and illegally, to

work in the fields that provided produce for the developing United States

Slaves were denied even the most basic rights of

citizenship, a crucial factor for slaveholders and their supporters

Castro's Cuban Revolution ushered in an era of

communism that continues to this day. To avoid having their assets seized by the government, many wealthy and educated Cubans migrated north, generally to the Miami area.

Germans came both for economic opportunity and to

escape political unrest and military conscription, especially after the Revolutions of 1848.

Mexican migration was often circular; workers would stay for a few years and then

go back to Mexico with more money than they could have made in their country of origin. The length of Mexico's shared border with the United States has made immigration easier than for many other immigrant groups.

the Arab region comprises the Middle East and parts of

northern Africa

The U.S. Census from 2008 shows that 16.5 percent of respondents reported

of German descent: the largest group in the country

In a broad sense, German immigrants were not

victimized to the same degree as many of the other subordinate groups this section discusses

The California Alien Land Law of 1913

was aimed at them and other Asian immigrants, and it prohibited aliens from owning land