Minority Groups Exam 2 Ch.5-7

"OLD" Immigrants

Colonial Period; Northern and Western Europe England, Scotland, Wales, France, Belgium, Holland, Scandinavia, Germany, Ireland

The Swedes hit their peak year of immigration in _____, and the Norwegians hit their peak in ______.

1913; 1924

Italian Americans tody

Intermarriage, or marital assimilation, is a primary indicator of structural assimilation, the last phase of minority-group mainstreaming. Exogamy exceeds 40%. Ethnic community remnants and differences still remain, with occasional flare-ups of ethnic feelings and conflicts. Despite their assimilation and upward mobility, Italian Americans still find themselves unfairly linked to criminal activities.

"NEW" Immigrants

Large streams Turkey, Italy, Russian-Jews, Poland, Hungary, Slavic, Bolkan, Greeks, Syria-Lebanon, Caribbean, Asians, Mexicans

Population

The Census Bureau reported in 2012 that the American Indian and Alaska Native population was 2.5 million for those claiming only that race (and more than 5.1 million if combined with two or more races).

Environmental Justice

a movement to abolish environmental harms to all people

Chain migration

one immigrant comes and sends for others in their social network (family, friends, neighbors)

Prior to Ellis Island

people landed wherever the boat landed and lived there -people with money went to the North -People without money went South

Narratives

stories people tell about who they are as people of their group (who they claim to be) helped develop solidarity and identity for group **Doesn't have to be true; just has to be believed

Environmental Issues

Underneath the 53 million acres held by 22 western tribes lie some of the nation's richest reserves of natural gas, oil, coal, and uranium, worth billions of dollars. The BIA leased large tracts of Indian land to gas and oil companies but failed to collect any money from them. Royalties collected were put into the governments general fund where it was used for various government expenditures and to reduce the national debt. None went to the Indians.

Irish immigration had its greatest impact on U.S. society between what years?

1820-1860

Recent Immigrants

A combination of factors-- their peasant background, economic deprivation, child labor, and little education-- slowed the upward mobility. Many Slavic Americans today are middle class and less recognizable as a distinct ethnic subgroup because of high rates of intermarriage. Slavic migration to the U.S. has been substantial, boosted in great part by the flight of refugees that added to a normal flow of immigration. Since 2002, more than 600,000 Slavic immigrants and refugees have settled in the U.S. Poland and Russia together account for approximately 40% of that total, but Ukrainians, Bosnians, Serbians, and Bulgarians in that order constitute another 50%.

Irish Catholics made slow but steady progress in entering the societal mainstream.

Antipathy against them gradually declined as their command of English, improved economic position, and physical appearance made them less objectionable to English American Protestants than were the new immigrants arriving from other parts of Europe.

English American- Culture Shock

Arrival at one's destination brings with it unfamiliar cultural contact, which jolts one's world of reality-- that subconsciously accepted way of life-- as the group encounters a different civilization. Conventional wisdom would suggest that English immigrants would adjust easily to U.S. society. After all, they spoke the same language, had the same cultural heritage as the dominant Anglo-Americans, and seldom experienced prejudice or discrimination as did other arriving groups. Yet the British were not always comfortable in the new land. Perhaps because they had exaggerated expectations of similarity between the new country and the old, they did not expect to be strangers and thus were unprepared when they realized that they actually were strangers. In the post-Civil War period, an undercurrent of Anglophobia prevailed, and British immigrants discovered that they had to exercise self-restraint to be accepted among U.S. natives. An ethnic consciousness led many British to resent this necessity and to dislike the qway of the new country. Between 1881 and 1889, more than 370,000 British and Irish aliens left the U.S. to return to their native lands. With the passage of years, these English immigrants held onto a pride in and fondness of their old country, even as their personal ties became more and more American. Second-generation British Americans, however, had no such mixed feelings and easily identified the U.S. as their country.

Casinos

Because federal law permits them to offer any form of gambling not prohibited by other parts of the state, 242 tribes operated casinos in 28 states in 2011. They generated more than $9 billion in federal taxes and revenue savings through reduced welfare and unemployment benefit payments. Mist if these casinos barely break even because they are too small and too remote. Thus, only a few wealthy tribes benefit from lucrative casinos. For hundreds of thousands of American Indians living in poverty, the casinos do nothing.

Religious tolerance (Early National Period)

Because no single religion dominated the colonies, religious tolerance slowly evolved.

Legislative Action- 1978

Combined the separate hemisphere ceilings into one worldwide limit of 290,000

The collapse of __________ in Europe in 1989 had a major impact on immigration.

Communism. In the 1990s, hundreds of thousands migrated to the U.S. from Central and East Europe, most particularly from Poland and Russia.

Health Concerns

Demographic statistics testify to the harshness and deprivation of reservation life and the despair accompanying it. The Indian Health Service reports that American Indians have a lower life expectancy by 5.2 years less than the national average, have a higher infant mortality rate, and have higher death rates for tuberculosis, alcoholism, diabetes, unintentional injuries, homicide, and suicide.

English Americans- English Influence

English immigrants' greatest impact on U.S. culture occurred during the colonial period. Settling in the 13 original colonies, they so established themselves that succeeding generations were culturally and politically dominant by the time of the American Revolution. The ears of 1776 and 1812 notwithstanding, the descendants of English immigrants prided the,selves on their heritage. After 1825, when the British Parliament repealed its ban on the emigration of artisans, many English, Scottish, and Irish mill hands found work in the U.S. textile factories, often at more than twice the salary they had been earning at home. Many British coal miners also came, but by the latter part of the 19th century, Slavic ad Italian workers largely had replaced them.

Ukrainian Americans

Ever since the first Ukrainian sailed to the Jamestown colony in 1608, Ukrainians have been coming to the U.S.. What had been a small, steady stream changed into four large waves of new arrivals beginning in the 1880s.

1830-1843

Except for Iroquois and Seminole, more than 100,000 eastern American Indians are forcibly relocated westward. Approximately 12,000 die on the "Trail of Tears."

Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act- 1975

Expands tribal control over reservation programs; provides funding for new public schools on or near reservation

Curtis Act- 1898

Faced with tribes that refused to accept the allotment policy, the government passed the Curtis Act. This aw terminated the tribal governments of all tribes that resisted allotment, and it made their tribal chiefs presidential appointees thereafter.

Split-Labor-Market Theory and Irish Americans

Helps explain much of the conflict involving the Irish. Irish-German conflict was intense in the late 18th and early 19th centuries because of economic competition and the use of German strikebreakers. On the West Coast, Irish workers held meetings and demonstrations to demand the curtailment of further Chinese immigration, viewing the lower-paid Chinese as a serious economic threat. The Irish also fiercely resisted abolition, fearing labor competition from released slaves.

Indian Removal Act

In 1830, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act. This act called for expulsion of all American Indians from the southeastern states and their relocation to the territory west of the Mississippi River. The legislation was prompted in part by the state of Georgia, which for several years had been annexing the fertile land of the Cherokee for its expanding cotton industry. Combining two Supreme court cases, Cherokee Nation v Georgia and Worcester v Georgia, in 1832, it was established that the Cherokee were not a foreign nation and therefore could not sue Georgia. They were instead a "domestic dependent nation," a "distinct community occupying its own territory." Because of this definition the laws of Georgia had no jurisdiction and therefore the Court ruled in favor for the Cherokee keeping their land.

Early Encounters

In the first encounters between American Indians and Europeans, two races with vast differences in culture, knowledge, and lifestyle saw each other's physical distinction for the first time. Some Europeans romanticized American Indians and a positive mystique about American Indians swept Elizabethan Europe and other parts of Europe. Within a few decades of the European discovery of the New World, the American Indian population began to decline rapidly as a result of disease, warfare, and self-destruction. American Indian populations in Latin and North American were decimated by several sicknesses that resulted from earlier contact with white explorers or traders. American Indians were fatally susceptible to such disease as measles, mumps, and chicken pox because they had not developed immunities to these Old World illnesses.

Recent Hungarian Immigrants- mid 1950s

In the mid 1950s, an entirely different group of Hungarians came to the U.S. for political rather than economic reasons. When the Soviet Union crushed the Hungarian rebellion in 1956, Congress passed secial legislation to circumvent the restrictive national quotas of the McCarran-Walter Bill in 1952. The U.S. airlifted refugees and gave them temporary shelter. Many volunteer agencies and Hungarian Americans then assisted the 30,000 newcomers (the "Fifty-Sixers") in their relocation and readjustment.

The Interactionist View

Industrialization, urbanization, economic exploitation, and a host of other factors may have created the social problems regarding the southern, central, and eastern European immigrants, but the native born tended to see only the symptoms manifested in the immigrant communities. Believing such conditions had not existed until these immigrants came, members of the dominant group defined the problems as inherent in the "new" immigrants.

New ethnic immigrants and Mainstream American

Mainstream Americans would view these new white ethnics as so culturally and physically different as to be even farther removed on the social distance scale than the "old" immigrants. Consequently, Anglo-Americans judged these previously excluded older groups as more like themselves and thus more socially acceptable. A redefined mainstream American identity emerged, bringing people of northern and western European origins into this classification in contrast to the newer, "less desirable" newcomers.

Who is the dominant group?

North and West Europeans. (white Anglo-Saxon protestants). However, religion, nationality, and social class were casual factors for conflict even within this North and West European grouping.

Societal Reactions to Greek Americans

Not all early Greek immigrants adjusted smoothly to U.S. society. Many young males, unencumbered by family discipline and village controls, got into trouble. Contemporary views of Greeks usually view them as a model of a nationality group accepted by the dominant group: one that has achieved economic security, become assimilated, yet also retains a strong pride in its ethnicity

Housing

One of the most visible signs of American Indians; economic deprivation is reservation housing. Various tribes often live in small, over crowded western-style houses, in mobile homes, or in hogans (traditional one-room, eight sided log houses with sod roofs. Because many Indians live in crowded dwellings, have limited sanitation facilities, and are exposed to smoke from wood-burning stoves, they are more likely to suffer from respiratory and other infectious diseases than other minority groups.

Recent Russian Immigrants

Russian immigration dropped sharply while the communists were in power. Altogether, approximately 163,000 new immigrants came to the U.S. between 1921 and 1990. That number easily surpassed in the 1990s with the arrival of more than 433,000 Russian immigrants. With more than half of the Russian immigrant descendants holding college degrees and working in virtually every profession and occupation, Russian Americans preserve their heritage with history centers, newspapers, publishing houses, and organizations.

The Functionalist View

The arrival of significant numbers of immigrants served the rapidly industrializing nation well. Immigrants provided a valuable labor pool to meet the needs of an expanding economy. Unemployment was not a problem during this era, and the poor of Europe were able to build a better life for themselves in this new land. The U.S. social system evolved into a complex, interdependent, and prosperous society, in large measure through the efforts of its first- and second-generation European Americans.

Italian Americans

The first Italians to come to the New World included some important early explorers. Many Italians fought in the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the other wars that followed. Throughout the 19th century, parallels and relationships existed between Italians and blacks. In some pre-Civil War southern localities, futile efforts were made to place black slaves with Italian workers. In other areas, Southerners barred Italian children from white schools because of their dark complexions.

Scots

The first wave of Scottish migration occurred during the colonial period. The Scottish Americans played a prominent role during the formative years of the new nation. Like many other communities, they also sought to preserve their culture and to duplicate their way of life from the old country. Nonetheless, they were easily assimilated almost from the outset.

Americanization of American Indians

The government was not reconstructing American Indian lifestyle. Americanization was the goal. This meant destroying tribal organization, suppressing "pagan" religions and ceremonies, allowing only English as the language of instruction in the schools, requiring "white" clothing and hair styles, and teaching only the dominant (white) group's culture and history. One extensively taught value was the rugged individualism of white society rather than the cooperative, noncompetitive approach of the American Indian.

The Interactionist View

The interactionist analysis focuses on understanding how people perceive and define the strangers in their midst. In a country predominantly Protestant throughout its colonial and early national periods, the arrival of large numbers of German and Irish Catholic immigrants disturbed the native population. These differing social interpretations of strangers sets the stage for ethnic conflict

The Conflict View

The native population declined due to warfare, disease, and disruption of sustenance activities, and its social institutions were undermined. Westward expansion occurred by pushing aside the people who already possessed the land, without regard for their rights or wishes. Formal government agreements and treaties became meaningless to those in power if further land confiscation or exploitation for natural resources offered profits. Conflict theory suggests that organized social movements by the exploited can bring about social change. American Indians increasingly are discovering that redress of their grievances will not occur without concerted public pressure and legal action.

Dutch Americans

The two greatest period of Dutch immigration were 1881 to 1930, with 1.6 million, and 1941 to 2970, with nearly 98,000 new arrivals. Since 1971, the level of immigration has been relatively low and now averages approximately 1,300 annually. Pearl Street, Breukelen (Brooklyn), the Bronx, Bergen, Ridgewood, Hackensack, Rampo valleys-- All examples of Dutch settlements. So widespread were the Dutch settlements and so strong was the Dutch imprint that Dutch remained a major language in this region for generations and numerous Dutch colonial homes still remain in much of the Northeast.

Community Organization- polish Americans

The values and forms of village life in rural Poland were reintegrated, although not completely, in the U.S. parish structure of the urban Roman Catholic Church. Similar to other Polish Churches, it blended staunch Roman Catholicism, Polish culture, and a full range of social services to help the immigrants become acculturated. Not all Poles desired assimilation, however, and many wanted the church to reflect Polish culture. Polish immigrants merely wanted the educational system to provide children with a strict moral upbringing in a well-disciplined atmosphere. The Polish community did not fall into complete family disorganization and demoralization.

The American Indians' experiences in the colonial period were unique in one way:

The whites, not the American Indians, were the newcomers, and the whites were the minority for many years. The relationship between American Indians and whites often was characterized by distrust, uneasy truces, or violent hostilities.

Irish Americans and ethnic identity

Their lack of social contact with the larger community and the forced interactions among themselves made the group become more aware of its ethnic identity. Also, because the host society branded all of them "Irish Catholic," a communal solidarity evolved in which they identified less with their local homeland regions and more with a national group identity. In recognizing and acting on their shared ethnic identity, they developed a common subculture that would have an impact on the new society.

Xenophobia (Pre-Civil War)

US citizens saw the large influx of immigrants between 1820 and 1860 as a threat to their institutions and their social order. Not only were many of the newcomers Catholic, but they came from countries embroiled in political turmoil. Anxiety mounted due to the imagined radical threat as well as the Catholic threat. Not all members of the same ethnic group encountered problems, nor id all native-born Americans react negatively to newcomers. Yet patterns of harmony or conflict did exist, and they often depended on the degree of cultural and structural differentiation that existed in each region, as well as on economic prosperity or whatever competition the newcomers appeared to present.

Middlemen minorities

a minority group occupying an intermediate occupational position in trade or commerce Primary characteristics: -small business owner -strip mall retail -service shops ARE NOT OVERLY LUCRATIVE- profit is from making family work for free Live above or behind business; little expenses

Marginality (Italian Americans)

First-gen Italian Americans, because so many of their compatriots lived and worked nearby, retained much of their language and customs. The 2nd-gen became more Americanized, producing a strain between the two generations. Italians who did not settle or remain long in the Little Italys assimilated much more quickly. Some changed their names and religion to accelerate the process.

Why did many journey to the colonies?

Members of each minority group came to the New World for economic, political, or religious reasons, or sometimes for the adventure of beginning a new life in a new land.

As the Irish began to assimilate, they often served as a _____________ ___________, aiding new immigrant groups in work, church, school, and city life.

Middleman minority

Educational Attainment Act-1978

Gave substantial control over policy and programs to the American Indian communities. As a result, local school boards and school authorities now ensure that the curriculum addresses the unique aspects of American Indian culture and heritage.

Key factors that shape the fate of immigrants

1. The degree of racial discrimination and rejection directed at them. 2. The degree of cohesion and solidarity they maintain [SOCIAL CAPITAL]. 3. The resources they bring with them (for example, wealth, education, business skills, etc.) [HUMAN CAPITAL]. 4. Their geographical location. 5. The nature of the job market.

"CONTEMPORARY" Immigrants

ALL CURRENT IMMIGRANTS Latin, Asian, African, European

The Early National Period

As a new nation, the US was forged under the cultural, economic, and political dominance of Anglo-Americans. Their culture, however, was at first a diverse one of Puritans, Anglican Cavaliers, Quakers, and Scots-Irish Presbyterians.

Legislative action- 1929

Restored the annual immigration quota to 3% Total ceiling of 150,000

Minority Response (Irish Americans)- "Actions and Reactions"

The response of the Irish was retreatist in social interactions but aggressive in their involvement in the labor movement and in the urban political machine. Because these activities frequently offended U.S. norms of behavior, they confirmed the suspicions of native-born Americans, thereby reinforcing the stereotypes of the Irish. Socially segregated from participation in normal local and associational affairs, the Irish created their own organizations and social events. In building their parallel social institutions, the Irish succeeded in helping one another, although at first they primarily interacted only with others from the same county of origin. Besides offerring informal aid for kin and neighbors, the Irish created their own mutual-welfare system through trade associations, fraternal organizations, and homes for the aged that were staffed by nuns. These efforts assisted and protected the Irish from societal indifference and hostility, but they also isolated them and slowed their acculturation.

Civic culture

With a common language and history the states coalesced into what is called a civic culture. This common culture solidified by 1820, when the first great wave of non-Protestant immigrants began. The civic culture included strong beliefs in Protestantism, individual enterprise, and political democracy.

Paternalism

ideology and social system that develops around labor intensive technologies. needs large labor population Dominant group shows near absolute control over subordinate group(s) Designed to organize and social control a labor source that is: -large - involuntary -geographically immobile These people are needed Can't let them get together and strike/revolt

Greek Americans

Most of the Greeks who came to the U.S. in the early 20th century did not expect to stay long. Approximately 90% were male. They came as sojourners, planning to make money and then return to Greece. For many, the dowry system was an important push factor. The fact that so many Greek immigrants were male encouraged them to return home to their women.

Places in which race problem could have been fixed

1) American Revolution: could have abolished slavery 2) Civil War: Directly correlated with not ending slavery before; still didn't fix it (just patched it) 3) Civil Rights Movement- small fixes

Evasive Pluralism- Romani American

Although the Roma living in all 50 states have a home base, they maintain a fondness for travel. This mobility orientation rests partly on their association of travel with freedom, health, and good luck and of settling down with illness and bad luck. Job opportunities, social visits, and evasion of gadje authorities are other motives. The Roma have kept their tribal codes and morals virtually unchanged in an urbanized and industrialized society by remaining outside the educational institutions and being passively antagonistic to the larger society. Although they are highly conscious of ritual, they survive through adaptation to their environment. Despite enormous pressure from every society in which the Roma have lived, they have retained their identity and resisted assimilation.

Harriet Martineau

"Mother of Sociology"; defended immigrants; believed we needed immigrants to do our dirty work ("Few or no canals or railroads would be in existence now in the US, but for the Irish labor by which they have been completed"); immigrants benefit from coming here; :The best cultivation that is to be seen in the land is owing to the Dutch and German it contains"

Notes from Homeland (Native American Movie)

-Large areas of Native Americans facing environmental threats -Companies and United States wanting land resources of Native American land -Native American tribes are fighting the companies and sometimes their own neighbors (split between needing money and land respect) -Ongoing struggle

Greek Americans today

-Sends less than 1,000 new immigrants a year. Until now, Greek Americans blended aspects of pluralism with aspects of assimilation. Cultural pluralism has been an important element in their adaptation to U.S. society, with the Greek language and culture reserved through the Greek Orthodox Church. The Greek community so far has retained much of its ethnic vitality. Still, the demographic realities already have led to a division in the Greek American community between those who treat their heritage only symbolically and those who wish to preserve their culture more fully.

Characteristics of Paternalism

-Vast power differentials and huge inequalities -Elaborate and repressive systems of control -Caste-like barriers between groups (no social mobility) -Elaborate and highly stylized codes of behavior and communication between groups (EX: Jim Crow Laws) -Low rates of overt conflict (so oppressive people are afraid to act out)

Four Waves of Ukrainian Immigration

1) Approximately 700,000 Ukrainians immigrated to the U.S. by 1914, some of them settling as farmers in the western U.S. and Canada, but most settling in the urban industrial centers of the Northeast and Midwest, working in factories or coal mines. 2) The second wave came in the 1920s. Better educated than their predecessors, these new arrivals also were less isolated. Living together in ethnic communities, they formed parallel social institutions to keep their own culture and language resilient in their new country. 3) With the 1948 passage of the Displaced Persons Act, allowing homeless people from war-ravaged Europe to enter, the third wave arrived. Under this special legislation and with the assistance of many Ukrainian Americans, approximately 85,000 Ukrainian refugees came to the U.S. The new arrivals were even better educated, more politically oriented, and better able to adapt to U.S. life than the older immigrants. 4) Since the creation of the independent Ukraine nation in 1992, its citizens have led all other former Soviet "republics" in this still-continuing fourth wave of immigration. Between 2002-2011, more than 136,000 immigrants and 23,000 refugees arrived.

Militancy

1) November 1969: marked the first in a series of staged media events to draw public attention to the American Indian complaints and issues. On that day, a group of 78 Indians under the name "Indians of All Tribes" temporarily occupied Alcatraz Island, a former federal prison, claiming its isolation, lack of running water and facilities of any kind, its barren land, and past prison population dependent on others duplicated that found on Indian reservations. 2) February 1973, approximately 200 AIM members seized control of the village Wounded Knee, South Dakota, taking 11 hostages. The location was symbolic as the site of the last American Indian resistance in 1890, when 150 Miniconjou Sioux from the Cheyenne River reservation, including men, woman, and children, were massacred by the U.S. Cavalry. Many were killed from behind, and the wounded were left to die in a blizzard the following night. AIM's 71 day siege ended May 1973, with two American Indians killed, injuries on both sides, and $240,000 in damage to property.

Stereotyping

1) The American Indian was a bloodthirsty savage. Some tribes were warlike but most sought to avoid conflict if they could. Rivalries did exist among various tribes, however, and the French, English, and U.S. settlers often exploited these rivalries for their own advantage. American Indians believed in retributive justice: a wrong had to be repaid, even if it took years, but not to a greater degree. 2) The portrayal that American Indians are silent or aloof. This image probably grew out of normal behavior in ambiguous situations. Because they had developed from childhood a strong inclination to avoid acting in any way that might bring about shame or ridicule, American Indians often remained silent for fear of speaking or acting improperly. American Indian silence is a precautionary device to preserve respect and dignity on both sides. It does not represent aloofness, and it is temporary, continuing only until the situation lends itself to speaking.

Five-level Continuum of American Indian Acculturation

1) Traditional: May or may not speak English but generally speak and think in their native language; hold only traditional values and beliefs and practice only traditional customs and methods of worship 2) Marginal: May speak both the native language and English; may not, however, fully accept the cultural heritage and practices of their tribal group; may not fully identify with mainstream cultural values and beliefs. 3) Bicultural: Generally accepted by dominant society and tribal society/nation; simultaneously able to know, accept, and practice both mainstream values/behaviors and the traditional values and beliefs of their cultural heritage. 4) Assimilated: accepted by dominant society; embrace only mainstream cultural values, behaviors, and expectations. 5) Pan-traditional: Assimilated American Indians who have made a conscious choice to return to the "old ways." They generally are accepted by dominant society but seek to embrace previously lost traditional cultural values, beliefs, and practices of their tribal herbal heritage. Therefore, they may speak both English and their native tribal language.

Legislative action-1917

A literacy bill was passed (similar to the bill proposed in 1913 requiring all immigrants over the age of 16 to be able to read some language). The law did little to stem the tide of immigrants, however, for it exempted the many refugees fleeing religious persecution. Meanwhile, the literacy rate in Europe had risen since 1900, so the literacy test was not a serious obstacle for most.

Alcohol abuse

A serious social problem facing American Indians today s alcohol abuse, which also is a major factor in their high mortality rate. American Indians have a rate of terminal liver cirrhosis twice the national rate, and the majority of American Indians have suicides and motor vehicle deaths involve the use of alcohol. Crimes related to consumption of alcohol and other drugs occur more often among American Indians than among whites in the same area. Indians with more ethnic pride will more likely adhere to antidrug norms than those with little pride.

Red Power- Pan-Indianism

A social movement attempting to establish an American Indian ethnic identity instead of only a tribal identity. At the macro-level, Pan-Indian organizations address broader issues shared by different tribes. Many American Indians prefer a micro-level emphasis that preserves their tribal identities and works for the cultural enrichment and social betterment of their own tribe rather than to engage in a national movement.

Values and Social Structure

Although the cultures of the many tribes differed (and still do) from one another, some marked similarities have existed among them. -American Indians have lived in close and intimate relationship with nature, respecting and not abusing the land. -They traditionally have maximized the use of any animal prey (using as much of their body as possible) -American Indian approaches toward possessing land ranged from individual to joint to tribal ownership depending on the tribe. Most frequently, the land belonged to the tribe; as tribal members, individuals, or families could live on and possibly farm certain portions. -American Indians established primary relationships either through a clan system (descent from a common ancestor) or through a kinship system. Kinship relationships served as the basis of their social organization, stretching from close family units to extended territorial entities. -American Indian children grow up under the encouragement and discipline of the extended family, not only the nuclear family. A generalized love of all children in the tribe, rather than just one's own offspring, is common. A child developed a sense of responsibility and interdependence at an early age. -Means of social control are shame and ridicule. -Personal honor, including the honor of one's word.

Greek American Social Patterns

Although they came from a predominantly agricultural country, Greeks settled primarily in the cities. Like so many other ethnic groups, they gathered in ethnic residential enclaves, or "Greek colonies." Because they preferred endogamous marriage, they often returned home to marry a Greek woman, or they sent money home to pay for the passage of a wife or wife-to-be. Like other immigrant peoples of this period, the Greeks maintained close family ties. Greeks placed high value on education and encouraged their children to enter the professions.

Council of Energy Resource Tribes

American Indian leaders believed their organization could prevent further exploitation and secure far greater revenues in return for tribal mineral resources. The organization offers technical assistance, focuses on internal energy needs of the tribes, and seeks to increase the employment of American Indian youths by increasing their engineering and technical skills and by developing proposals to industrialize reservations with royalties from development of energy resources, including wind. Critics, often other Indians, worry about environmental destruction and disruption of traditional values and culture caused by tapping into the natural resources.

Cultural Impact (German Americans)

American speech, eating, and drinking reflect German influence. Frankfurters, sauerkraut, sauerbraten, hamburgers, Wiener schnitzel, pumpernickel bread, liverwurst, pretzels, zweiback, and lager beer were introduced by German immigrants. Many German industrialists made major marks on U.S. society.

Urban American Indians

Approximately 78% of all American Indians live in urban areas or away from reservations. Often lacking job skills and adequate education, urban American Indians generally experience the same poverty they left behind on the reservation but without the familiar environment and tribal support system. They do not achieve any improved income earnings, on average, until after 5 years of residence in the city (vs reservation). One consequence of migration to cities has been an increase of Native American street gangs that initiate and partner with African American or Latino gangs. Situated in an urban social arena where they constitute a minority, new arrivals experience culture shock and are left with personal disorientation. Members of urban American Indian populations often drink more and have a higher rate of problem drinking. Heavy drinking is most common among the lower SES Indians. American Indians who succeed in adapting to urban living, usually between 2 to 5 years of living in the city, settle into semiskilled or skilled jobs. Once they have gained some degree of economic security, they frequently move to racially mixed suburban areas. Although this shows some degree of acculturation and convergent social adaption, many middle-class, urban-adapted American Indians form their own ethnic institutions.

Armenian Americans

Armenians have a long cultural heritage because of their resilience in maintaining their cultural identity. - Their language and religion are two contributing factors. - Another important factor in Armenian cohesiveness has been family life. Today the U.S. is home to more than 1 million Armenians. Approximately half live in California.

Natural Resources

Encroachment on American Indian land to obtain natural resources or fertile land continues. The need for water and energy has led government and industry to look covetously at reservation land once considered worthless. Moreover, many Indians have serious concerns about use of their lands as dumping grounds. Another issue that divides the Indian community is balancing their environmental concerns against the need for economic development.

Hungarian Americans

As emigration to the U.S. increased, the Hungarian government financed both Catholic and Protestant churches and various immigrant societies in an unsuccessful effort to maintain its influence over Hungarians living in the U.S. The era of the greatest Hungarian immigration to the U.S. was between 1880 and 1919, when approximately 1.6 million arrived. As many as half have returned to their homeland once they had saved enough money. Like others before and after them, Hungarians congregated in their own ethnic clusters. In those earlier ethnic communities, the Hungarians established their own institutions and organizations, embodying the same religious division among Catholics, Protestants, and Jews as in their homeland. They established their own social and fraternal organizations to provide benefits to the sick and to pay for funerals. They also founded their own newspapers and nationalistic cultural groups.

Romani American cultural differentiation- Familia

At the core of Roma culture is the family (the familia), which actually is a functional extended family. The familia is an effective support institution for all problems, offering also a safe refuge from the gadje. The second unit of identity for the Rom is the vitsa, a clan or band of a few to more than a hundred familiyi, forming a cognitive kinship group of affiliation through which the Roma classify one another. The familia is strongly ptriarchal, with males worjing for short spans of time in various trades. Women provide a valuable source of income, usually from fortune-telling. Parents don't force matches, but are the principals in the mate-selection process, encouraging marriages within the vitsa beyond first-cousin relationships. Most Roma marry between the ages of 12 to 16, seldom over 18, for a first marriage. (high rate of failed Roma marriages). The wife traditionally lives with her husband's family and is known as a bori, subject to the supervision of her in-laws. Elopements have increased and romantic love is more accepted preceding still-arranged marriages, but Rom-gadje intermarriages are discouraged and considered socially inferior.

Termination Act- 1953

Authorizes elimination of reservation systems, with an immediate end to federal services and tax immunity. Legislative acts sought to end federal responsibility for welfare and administration of American Indians by ending all federal services and liaison with tribal organizations ad by selling reservation land and giving that revenue to the tribes. Medical care, schools, road maintenance, and other federal services guaranteed under treaty obligations immediately were halted (instead of allowing for transitional adjustments over time).

UK Immigration

Between 1820 and 2011, approximately 5.5 million UK people came to the U.S. It ranks third in the list of nations that have supplied immigrants to the U.S. since 1820, and more than 13,000 new British immigrants arrive yearly.

Polish Jew Immigration

Between 1895 and 1918, approximately 250,000 Polish Jews-- fleeing a rise of anti-Semitism-- migrated to the U.S., followed by another 150,000 between 1920 and 1936 to escape increasing anti-Semitism in Europe. That flow ended in 1939 when Germany invaded and conquered Poland. Migration resumed with passage of the 1948 Displaced Persons Act after WWII, as many Holocaust survivors sought to begin life anew in America.

Indian Reorganization Act-1934

Ended the land-allotment program, encouraged tribal self-government, extended financial credit to the tribes, gave preference in Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) employment to American Indians, and permitted consolidation of American Indian lands split up through inheritance. Furthermore, American Indians were encouraged to revive their ancient arts and crafts, their languages, their religions and ceremonies, and their customs and traditions. In keeping with an administrative philosophy of treating American Indians with dignity, the act was permissive, not mandatory; each tribe could vote to accept or reject the new law. Most chose to accept it.

The Interactionist View

Ethnocentric views of Native American culture prompted a definition of the native population as inferiors, savages, and even nonhumans. Such social distance created by dehumanization makes it easy to justify any action taken. High levels of prejudice against Native Americans still exists in the West. The negative labeling and dehumanizing processes that led to past acts of violence against Native Americans remains a problem today.

Legislative action-1980

Changed the worldwide ceiling limit to 270,000; excluding refugees Immediate relatives of immigrants were admitted above the 270,000 limit, however, bringing annual legal immigration totals to more than 500,000 annually in the 1980s.

Employment

Chronic unemployment remains a serious problem. However, as educational attainment improves, so do employment opportunities. American Indian workers have a higher representation in blue-collar or low-paying white-collar occupational fields. Some tribes have succeeded through their own efforts.

Bureau of Indian Affairs

Created in 1824. Some observers view it as a bureaucracy staffed by able, dedicated people who ability to act is frustrated by an inefficient organization. Others see it as an inept agency that "loses" trust funds, administers ineffective programs that are supposed to reduce unemployment and poverty, and maintains a paternalistic trustee relationship with the tribes, with non-American Indians holding many of the top positions. The agency is in charge of everything, from tribal courts and schools to social services and law enforcement. It must approve virtually every tribal decision regarding the use of tribal resources-- even the disposition of cash settlements that tribes have won in lawsuits against the BIA itself.

Early European Settlers Reaction to Native Americans

Early European explorers and settlers, reflecting ethnocentric views, condemned the aspects of American Indian culture that they did not understand and reacted to other aspects only in terms of their own culture. Some considered the indigenous people to be savages, even though American Indian societies had a high degree of social organization. In colonial and frontier days, the stereotype of American Indians often was negative, especially when they obstructed Europeans from occupying the American Indians' land. As a result of self-justification-- the denigration of others to justify maltreating them-- some whites viewed American Indians as cruel, treacherous, lying, dirty heathens.

The Functionalist View

Early contacts tended to be harmonious, with both sides benefiting. Dysfunctions occurred as Native Americans slipped into economic subservience, their way of life further threatened by encroachment on their land by steadily increasing numbers of white settlers. Whites forcibly removed Native Americans, seen as a hindrance to their making the land productive. Forced segregation on nonproductive reservations destroyed Native American society as a self-sufficient entity. The systemic disorganization of the society restricted life opportunities. Poor education, low income, bad housing, poor health, alcoholism, and suicides are costly to society and the people who endure them. Functionalists stress that the most effective method of resolving these problems is to reorganize our own social institutions to put the American Indian social system back into balance.

The Irish community further was united through ____, _____, and ______, as well as through social and recreational activities.

family; school; church. Such "clanness" added fuel to the fires of resentment among assimilationists.

Dutch Americans- Pluralism

For several reasons, Dutch culture and influence persisted for many generations despite Anglo-Saxon cultural dominance. The Dutch were self-sufficient and enjoyed high social standing in the new society. Their church, rather than mainstream secular ways, formed the basis of their social life; the more orthodox they were, the more they resisted assimilation. A steady migrations into concentrated residential communities reinforced the old ways. Finally, a friendly atmosphere enabled the Dutch to coexist with other groups in a pluralistic society. Another aspect of the Dutch's persistent subculture is endogamy. Although most of the Dutch immigrants came to the U.S. during the same period as did the southern, central, and eastern Europeans (1880-1920), they did not encounter ethnic antagonism and eventually assimilated. Their physical features, their religion, and their relatively urbanized background enabled them both to adapt to and gain approval from the dominant society more easily than other groups.

French Americans

French Americans fall into three population segments: migrants from France, migrants from French Canada (who settled primarily in New England), and French Louisianans. Many of the latter, also known as Cajuns, were expelled from Acadia (primarily Nova Scotia) by the British in 1755; by 1790, approximately 4,000 of them had resettled in Louisiana, where their descendants now live. Each group's experience has been somewhat different, illustrating varying patterns in dominant-minority relations.

Dawes Act- 1887 (General Allotment Act)

Genuinely believed that the law would inspire American Indians with the spirit of self-interest that was considered the major force in white civilization. In reality, this legislation deprived American Indians of even more land. Its goal was to break the backbone of American Indian culture by ending communal ownership of reservation lands and instead giving each American Indian a private parcel of land. Reservations surveyed, divided into tracts, and allotted to individual tribe members; surplus land sold.

Changes in Government policy

In 1763, King George III of England issued a proclamation declaring that henceforth the American Indian tribes would be treated as independent nations and denied the colonies any jurisdiction over them. Thereafter, if the colonists wanted to obtain additional American Indian lands or negotiate trade pacts, they had to do so through the English government and not directly with the American Indians. When the colonists declared their independence from England, they adopted the same policy in 1778, and the tribes remained quasi-national status. Congress reaffirmed this policy when it passed the Northwest Territory Ordinance in 1787, declaring the federal government--and not the states-- responsible for American Indian property, rights, and liberty.

Portuguese Americans

In the 18th and 19th centuries, Portuguese immigrants primarily settled in New England. The Portuguese in Hawaii assimilated, whereas those in California, encountering little conflict, retained their ethnic identity to a much greater extent. About 1,000 Portuguese now arrive annually.

1950s and the Relocation Program

In the 1950s, new top administrative personnel in President Eisenhower's Interior Department and the BIA advocated a different philosophy (from the Indian Reorganization Act) and shifted the BIA back to assimilationist policy. Beginning in the 1950s, the Bureau of Indian Affairs offered assistance to individuals or families who wanted to relocate to urban areas to obtain jobs and living accommodations. More than 40,000 American Indians who enrolled in this program went to work in low-status, unskilled or semi-skilled jobs and found housing in the poorer sections of the cities. Some adjusted and became acculturated; others felt uprooted, became alcoholics, and fared poorly. As a result, more than 1/4 of the total number returned to the reservations. The program tapered off after 1960.

The Courts

In the late 20th century legal efforts to force the government to honor tribes' treaty rights were more numerous and successful.

Polish Americans

Included among other Slavic groups until 1899, when immigration officials began counting them separately, the Poles constituted the third largest ethnic group of early 20th century immigration. One million Poles came to the U.S between 1899 and 1914, fleeing poverty and seeking economic opportunity.

Labor Conflict and Irish Americans

Irish labor was diversified and played a key role in the industrial expansion of the US, particularly in building the great systems of canals, waterways, and railroads. Heavily concentrated in low-status unskilled or semi-skilled occupations, the Irish worked at the hard, physical jobs in the cities, mines, or elsewhere. With their knowledge of the English language, the Irish provided string, articulate membership and leadership in such early labor movements where they became activists for better pay and working conditions.

English Americans- The Departure

Leaving one;s native land for another country known only by reputation usually is an emotional experience. For many, it is a time of joy and sorrow and anticipation and anxiety.

In group Solidarity (Scandinavians)

Like other immigrant groups, the Scands attempted to resist Americanization and cling tot heir Old World traditions. They discouraged intermarriage, even far into the 20th century. As great numbers of Norwegians settled in Minnesota and Wisconsin, they eventually outnumbered the native-born population, creating social tensions and political competition. People argued that in the upper Midwest the melting pot was not functioning properly because immigrant communities were retaining too much of their Old World cultures, and too many "hyphenated" newspapers, schools, and societies still were using the immigrant languages.

Xenophobia (Early National Period)

Many Federalists believed that the large foreign-born population was the root of all evil in the US. Xenophobic remarks illustrate some of the dynamics of Anglo-conformity and assimilation. It really was not the presence of all foreigners that disturbed the Federalists but rather the increasing numbers of non-English foreigners. Wrapped in the dominant group's negative perceptions were concerns that those newcomers' cultures, regions, and political ideologies-- indeed, their very essence as people--were so unlike themselves as to make their blending into the mainstream a virtual impossibility. Such ethnocentrism blinded these early nativists from any other consideration except that of an undermining of their culture and society.

Occupational Distribution- Greek Americans

Many Greeks worked as laborers on railroad construction gangs or in factories. They were often under the control of a padrone, who acted as a labor agent and paternal figure. Abuses were common in this system. Other Greek immigrants operated small businesses of many types, although Greeks came to be identified particularly with candy stores, diners, and restaurants. For many Greeks, the restaurant provided a relatively stable economic base and higher social status. Restaurant owners enjoyed more self esteem than peddlers or manual laborers. Because so many immigrants sought a career in the restaurant business, they continuously interacted with the general public.

Xenophobia- Russian American

Many Russian Americans who had worked hard to achieve some economic security in the U.S. found themselves jobless and unable to find other work after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. Employers, fearful of any threat to capitalism in the U.S., fired their Russian workers lest they be Bolsheviks. Labor unrest and radical agitation during that period caused a strong xenophobic reaction. More than 500 immigrants were deported.

Non-Jewish Russian Immigrants

Mostly were members of the Russian Orthodox Church. The peak Russian migration occurred between 1881-1914, with poor, illiterate peasants emigrating for economic reasons and others seeking political or religious freedom. Forced to adjust from a rural environment to an industrial one, they joined other immigrants in grueling labor in mines and factories. Severely exploited, they often complained about the harshness of their work situation, became active in the labor movement, and sought to improve their working conditions. Following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, a new type of Russian immigrant sought asylum in the U.S. Czarist army officers, landowners, professional people, and political activists all fled from the new regime. Thereafter Soviet restrictions sharply curtailed Russian emigration, except for those Russians who succeeded in coming to the U.S. as displaced persons (DP) after WWII.

Romani American cultural differentiation- shunning

Much like Native American chieftains at a powwow, the tribal leaders confer, settle disputes, and place restraints on more powerful members. The most potent social sanction is shunning--no longer acknowledging someone as Rom. Because they spend virtually all their waking moments in group activities with other Rom, shunning is a feared social death that keeps the Rom effectively in line.

Dichotomy of views of Native Americans

Noble Savage vs bloodthirsty barbarian. It was either considered that the American Indians were no better than beasts who should be enslaved. Or The American Indians were innocents who were artistically and mechanically inclined, and with intellectual capabilities for learning and a willingness to co-exist

Finding Jobs (Irish Americans)

Nonviolent antagonism toward the Irish was most obvious in social and job discrimination. For a long time, job advertisement in Boston and elsewhere included the words "No Irish Need Apply" ("NINA"). Consequently, most Irish men only could find work in such demanding but low-paying jobs in construction or as miners or dock workers. As time passed, Irish American men became business entrepreneurs, store clerks, salesmen, and teachers, first within the Irish communities and then elsewhere. Large-scale Irish immigration continued between 1871 and 1910, with the arrival of approximately 1.9 million newcomers. Unlike many other arriving groups, most Irish immigrants were young, unmarried women, migrating with sisters or female cousins, or even traveling alone. By 1900, more than 60% of the Irish immigrants living in the U.S. were single women, many working as domestic cooks, maids, or caregivers.

English Americans- Resisting Assimilation

Not all immigrants desire to become full, participating citizens in the country to which they move. Many, in fact, never become naturalized citizens. Although they are starting a new life, they do not necessarily intend to forsake their cultural heritage. More often, they seek to preserve that heritage as a familiar world in a strange land and to pass it on to their children. Often, the children become assimilated into the new ways despite their parents' efforts.

The Pre-Civil War Period

Not until 1820 did the national census include a person's country of origin as part of its data, and new regulations required shipmasters to submit passenger lists to customs officials. The 1820 census (which excluded Native Americans) listed approximately 9.6 million American. Between 1820 and 1860, more than 5 million immigrants crossed the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to the US. In these 40 years preceding the Civil War, the FIRST GREAT WAVE of immigrants produced additional arrivals from England and Scandinavia. Ireland (44% of all immigrants in 1830s and 49% of immigrants in 1840s) and Germany, however, supplied the greatest numbers. The fact that so many of the newcomers were Catholic-- a religion toward which many Protestant groups openly were hostile-- made the rising tide of foreigners a major concern for nativists.

Present Day American Indian life

Of all the minorities in the U.S., according to government statistics on income, unemployment, and housing, American Indians are the "poorest of the poor." It is cruelly ironic that most of the American Indians' problems are due not only to their subordinate position as a result of conquest but also to their insistence on their right to be different, to continue living as American Indians.

Russian-Jews

Of the more than 3 million Russian immigrants who arrived in the U.S. between 1881 and 1920, approximately 43% were Jewish

The Great Migration- Italian Americans

Of the nearly 5.5 million Italians who have come to the U.S. throughout this history, 80% came between 1880-1920. Many Italian males engaged in "shuttle migration," going back and forth between the U.S. and Italy. Fleeing abject poverty and economic disaster, their rapid and pronounced visibility led to vicious anti-Italian bigotry. Most Italian immigrants were peasants from rural areas and thus ill prepared for employment in an industrial nation. As a result, they labored in low-status, low-paying manual jobs in factories or as railroad laborers, miners, and longshoremen; in construction, they dug ditches, laid sewer pipes, and built roads, subways, and other basic structures in urban areas.

Slavic Americans

Often included under the general classification "slavic peoples" are Belarusians, Russians, and Ukrainians (East Slavic); Czechs, Poles, and Slovaks (West Slavic); and Bosnians, Bulgarians, Croatians, Macedonians, Serbs, and Slovenians (South Slavics). Poles, Russians, and Ukrainians came to the U.S. in much greater numbers than the others during the 1880-1920 mass migration period. However, U.S. public opinion during this period usually made no distinction among these groups; and as a result, their experiences in this country tended to be similar.

Cultural Impact

Perhaps no other ethnic group has had as great an impact on U.S. culture as the American Indians, primarily because they already were here when the first Europeans arrived. The whites, who had to adapt to a new land, found it advantageous to learn from those indigenous people.

Assimilation

That hundreds of thousands of American Indians are not assimilated into mainstream society certainly has not been through a lack of effort by the dominant group. After following a policy of frontier genocide, expulsion, and forced segregation on reservations, the federal government adopted other methods to "kill the Indian, but save the man." -Authoritarian boarding schools attempted to "civilize" American Indian youth into mainstream society. -The Dawes Act disrupted their traditional approach to communal landholding in an attempt to force them to conform to the social and economic structure of the dominant society. -In the 1890s, cultural onslaught occurred with the outlawing of indigenous religions. -In the 1950s, the termination and relocation programs represented another federal effort to get American Indians to assimilate. These efforts had a major impact on the American Indian way of life, much of it negative.

Romani American cultural differentiation- marime

Romani culture, which has some differences among the three main subgroups, emphasizes the concept of marime, which extends to all areas of life. The term, which means "defilement" or "pollution," refers to rigid lines between good and bad, clean and unclean, health and disease, Rom and gadje. Most notable is its application to the upper and lower halves of the human body. The pure and clean upper portion cannot come into contact in any way with the lower portion or with objects that have been in contact with it.

Romani American cultural differentiation- sexual mores

Romani sexual mores concerning intimacy are very strict, an outgrowth of their normally confined living arrangements and their social structure. Premarital chastity remains highly regarded, and Romani women rarely resort to prostitution. Birth control and abortions are rare.

Segmented Assimilation

Segmented Assimilation - assimilation that is fragmented and can have a number of different outcomes: Straight-line assimilation - mainstream Enclaves - resisting acculturation Immigrants with less human capital and targets of discrimination - lower class sectors of US society. Immigrants with higher human capital - penetrate the mainstream regardless of their race

Early Immigration of Romani Americans

Sent as slaves to the Americas as early as the 15th century on the third journey of Columbus in 1489, Spain shipped even more to its 18th century colony in Louisiana, where an Afro-Romani community of the descendants of intermarriage from the two enslaved peoples still live. Beginning in the second half of the 17th century and into the 18th century, Romani slaves from England and Scotland came to work on Virginia plantations. Repressive actions against them in England in the 1840s prompted migration to the U.S. in substantial numbers. The Nazis perhaps exterminated as many as 700,000 Roma, and they generally remained unwelcome throughout Europe after WWII. Many legal and illegal Roma immigrants came to the U.S. during the postwar period.

Legislative action- 1990

Set an immigrant ceiling of 700,000 for 1992 to 1994, dropping to 675,000 thereafter

Polish American mobility

Several studies conducted in the 1960s showed the rate of Polish upward mobility lagged behind other ethnic groups. Although this was true of the first two generations, changes occurred in the mid-1970s, when older Polish Americans were at the top of the blue-collar world, and most of their offspring were entering the professions and the white-collar world. By 1980, Polish-American high school graduation was higher than all other European American groups.

Indian Boarding Schools

Significant changes have occurred since 1976, when the American Indian Policy Review Commission criticized the BIA for failing to resolve any of the problems in the BIA school system. Singled out for especially sharp condemnation were the 19 boarding schools described as "dumping grounds for students with serious social and emotional problems," which "do not rehabilitate" but "do more harm than good." Moreover, it accused the BIA of violating official policy by not sending students to the school closest to their homes, but often hundreds of miles away. The intent of this deliberate action was to force a separation between children and their parents and between "children and the idea of the reservation."

Earlier Immigrants- Slavic Americans

Slavic people have been in the New World since colonial times. Protestant refugees came in the 17th century, Moravians fled to colonies in the 18th century, and Slavic political refugees came to the U.S. in the 19th century. In the post-Civil War period, Slavic people began coming in steadily increasing numbers, and this influx continued until sharply curtailed by the Immigration Act of 1921. Although their languages and customs varied, the Slavic peoples all experienced economic hardships.

Societal hostility and Italian Americans

Strong hostility against Italian immigrants sometimes resulted in violence and even killings. Because they arrived in large numbers, the public became increasingly aware of their presence, and Italian Americans quickly became stereotyped as possessing all the objectionable traits the dominant group perceived in the "swarm" of immigrants then coming. Then an Italian got in trouble, newspaper headlines often magnified the event and stressed the offender's nationality. Italians, like Jews, found certain occupations, fraternities, clubs, and organizations closed to them, and restrictive covenants among property owners excluded them from certain areas of the city and suburb.

Reservations and Dependence

Switching from using annihilation and expulsion to deal with the American Indians, the government embarked on a policy of segregation and isolation, establishing, between 1850 and 1880, most of the nation's Indian reservations. In 1871, Congress ended federal recognition of the American Indian tribes as independent, sovereign nations-- or "domestic dependent nations"-- and made them wards of the government instead. Bureaucrats became responsible for the welfare of their lives. The results were devastating. Many of the tribes, once nomads, found it difficult to adjust to reservation life. Such problems as inadequate administration by government agents and irregular delivery of food, supplies, and equipment made matters worse.

Sociohistorical perspective

The 1870s saw a dramatic increase in the number of Russians, Italians, and Austro-Hungarians arriving in the U.S. By 1896, a turning point occurred, as immigrants from the rest of Europe outnumbered those from northern and western Europe. Their physical appearance and cultural differentiation easily identified the newcomers as strangers, and they often were broadly categorized as alike despite their many differences as individuals and as separate ethnic groups. They arrived in large enough numbers to be able to preserve their old-country cultures and social boundaries within the new urban subcultural setting, but this circumstance also increased the probability of prejudice and discrimination against them.

Latin American Indians

The Indian population in North and Latin America differ in their social, economic, and political status. In Latin America, Spain's adoption in the 16th century of a benevolent policy toward the indigenous population led to greater interaction, intermarriage, and absorption, and gradual acculturation occurred between the native peoples and the Spanish. Except for those living in the central Andes and other remote areas, the natives became fuller participants in their society than did their counterparts in the U.S. and lived in relative cultural and racial harmony with the white, black, mulatto (mixed black and white), and mestizo (white and Indian) populations. Along with the other non-white groups, they were part of the large lower social class, in sharp contrast to the small upper class. Despite this comparative racial harmony, however, they have had little opportunity for upward mobility, and most Latin non-whites live in economic stagnation. In contrast, most North American tribes have experienced both economic stagnation and a lack of racial harmony.

Social Patterns of Italian Americans

The Italians settled mainly in urban "Little Italys". Often families from the same village lived together in the same tenement. Earning poor wages as part of the unskilled labor force, the new Italian immigrants moved into rundown residential areas vacated by earlier arrivals whose children and grandchildren had moved up the socioeconomic ladder. Their numbers enabled them to create an Italian community abounding with Italian stores, newspapers, theaters, social clubs, parishes, and schools. Because of their regional and family orientations, however, they at first failed to establish a national social identity. A variant of the extended family system of southern Italy society was adapted to Italian life in the U.S. Relatives were the principle focus of social life, and non-Italians usually were regarded as outsiders. True interethnic friendships were rare. Individual achievement was not strongly encouraged. More importantly were family honor, group stability, social cohesion, and cooperation. Each member of the family was expected to contribute to the economic well-being of the family unit. In the U.S., as in Italy, the working class-- especially males-- had little involvement with the church, and schooling was regarded as having limited practical value. Children attended school, for the most part, only as long as the law demanded; then they were sent to work to increase the family income. A few families did not follow this pattern, but most 2nd gen Italian Americans who attended college did so against the wishes of their families.

Romani Americans (Gypsies)

The U.S. Roma, often negatively stereotyped and derogatively called "Gypsies," are perhaps the most elusive U.S. minority. They number up to 1 million, although that is only an estimate. Several factors account for this: census and immigration authorities never have kept official statistics on them; the Roman also actively discourage any form of "snooping"; and often they do not reveal their ethnicity to outsiders. Their major distinguishing characteristics are language and culture. They speak Romani, a form of Sanskrit. Romani culture distinguishes between the Rom and the gadje (outsiders). When individual Roma assimilate into the dominant culture, the Roma no longer consider them part of their group. Thus, we must view the Roma as a persistent subculture maintaining a unique cultural system.

Labor Conditions for Hungarian Americans

The U.S. was seeking industrial workers, so the Hungarians worked in the mines, steel factories, and other heavy industries. The prominence of Hungarian immigrants in such brawny occupations as mining and steel led to whites using the ethnophaulism hunky, an alteration of their proper name. A sizable number of these turn-of-the-century immigrants originally came as sojourners, but most eventually stayed. Consequently, their becoming U.S. citizens was a slower process.

Welsh

The Welsh were a distinct ethnic minority in the U.S. and sufficient numbers lived in the U.S. to warrant the printing of newspapers and books in Welsh. The Welsh had economic and religious motives for immigrating to the U.S. and exerted strong social and political influence in the U.S.

The Conflict View

The conflict perspective emphasizes English American dominance and the economic exploitation of other nationalities. Not only did they influence the adoption of language, customs, and social institutions derived from Great Britain, but they also held economic and political power. Economic exploitation, particularly in the case of the Irish, brought prosperity to the owners of mines, factories, and railroads. Much of the industrial expansion in the 19th century, conflict theorists maintain, came at the expense of the immigrant workers who made it possible.

The Conflict View

The conflict perspective focuses on the use and abuse of power, rather than on societal inability to cope with rapid changes. U.S. industrialists' exploited of immigrant workers from southern, central, and eastern Europe, maximizing profits by minimizing wages and maintaining poor working conditions. Change resulted from conflict, from class consciousness, and from an unrelenting social movement against entrenched economic interests.

Environmental Racism

The disproportionate impact of hazardous substances on low-income minority groups, particularly people of color.

Culture Shock- Polish Americans

The effects of culture shock-- bewilderment and disorganization, particularly in family life-- became apparent in many immigrants' writings and in the records of courts and social-service agencies. Leaving behind a gemeinschaft society with behavior regulated by custom and habit, the Polish immigrants continually encountered unsympathetic, even hostile, people whose language and customs they did not comprehend. In fact, many immigrant families found the adjustment too difficult, and so crime, delinquency, divorce, desertion, prostitution, and economic dependence were the by-products of family disorganization. Such tendencies also occurred in other immigrant communities caught in a web of economic and social instability.

Russian Americans- first immigrants

The first Russian immigrants were Mennonites, who actually were of German origin and had maintained their German language and customs within Russian borders for a century. As they became targets of forced assimilation, military contribution, and persecution during the 1870s, they began to leave Russia for the U.S. They made a significant contribution to U.S. agriculture by introducing Turkish wheat, a hard winter wheat that, by the turn of the century, had become the leading first-class wheat product.

The fundamental difference in values that separates European Americans from American Indians....

The former sees the world from a linear perspective. The Western mind believes in empirical evidence, in separating and categorizing elements of experience in the belief that this process leads to ultimate knowledge. Statistical truth thus becomes the key to knowledge and to understanding human behavior and relationships. This approach has led to spectacular advances in science and technology but also to an ethnocentric attitude that dismisses other approaches as unsophisticated and inadequate. In contrast, American Indians have a holistic, or symbiotic, view of existence, seeing it as a great circle, or sacred hoop, ,representing unity and equality, linking all aspects of culture. Life thus is a complex matrix of entities, emotions, revelations, and cooperative enterprises, and the hallmark of the American Indian approach is to experience rather than to interpret human existence. Because everything is interconnected, American Indians believe a unified approach to life is more satisfying than a fragmentary one.

Normal Pattern of Slavic Immigrants

The normal pattern was for the males to come first and their families later, if at all. Like many Greek and Italian males, numerous Slavic males came merely as sojourners to earn money for land, dowries, or just a better life, returning to their native land after a year or two. In fact, they accounted for the majority of the more than 2 million aliens who returned from the U.S to Europe between 1908 and 1914.

Suicide and Violence

The number of deaths by suicide among American Indians is generally higher than for all other groups. Recent studies reveal that risk factors for suicide among American Indian youth include strained interpersonal relationships, family instability, depression, low self-esteem, alcohol use or substance abuse, negative school attitudes, and perceived discrimination. The U.S. Justice Department reports that they experience violence far more than any other racial or ethnic group and at more than twice the national average. Alcohol abuse, tensions with non-American Indians, poor law enforcement services, and other factors all may play a part in generating such high rates of violent crime. Gang violence is another problem on some reservations and is increasing.

Native Americans

The pre-European colonization number of American Indians who lived in what later became the U.S. is estimated between 6 and 10 million. Divided into several hundred tribes with discrete languages and lifestyles, these original inhabitants had cultures rich in art, music, dance, life-cycle rituals, belief systems, social organization, coping strategies, and instruction for their young. Although tribes varied in their values, customs, beliefs, and practices, their cultures primarily rested on living in harmony with the land. Outsiders frequently generalize about American Indians, thinking of the many tribes as one people, even though the tribes always have differed from one another in language, social structure, values, and practices. Of the approximately 300 different American Indian languages spoken in 1492, only approximately 175 are still spoken today. At present, there are 334 federal and state recognized American Indian reservations, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs recognizes 565 different tribal entities in the U.S.

Cultural Diversity in the colonies (Colonial Period)

The settlements were distinct culturally from one another in nationality or religion (ex: Puritans in Massachusetts; Congregationalists in Connecticut). Some settlements, even in their early stages, were a mixture of ethnic groups.

Irish Americans and endogamy

The small degree of intermarriage both reflected and reinforced the distinction between the Irish American and other US residents. Irish religions and social considerations encouraged a tendency to marry their own kind.

Water Rights

Water rights are the western tribes' most valuable rights, providing a bases for achieving economic independence. Loss of water dooms them to an even worse existence. Suburban sprawl is not only impacting water usage. As it encroaches on the nation's green spaces, a growing number of sacred Indian sites are under threat from housing developments and industrial plants.

Tribal Colleges and Universities

Tribally controlled colleges came into existence in 1968. Federal legislation in 1978 provided funding for the establishment and continued operation of these colleges. Tribal Colleges Executive Order (established in 1996; renewed in 2002) directed federal agencies to provide more resources to tribal colleges. Tribal colleges and universities offer a family-like support system, reaffirming their cultural identity while preparing them to succeed in the larger society.

Italian Americans Social Mobility

Upward mobility occurred more slowly for the Italians than for other groups arriving in the U.S. at the same time. Many factors contributed to this situation-- a retreatist lifestyle, disdain for education, negative stereotyping, and societal hostility protracted by the continuing flow of new Italian immigrants. Considered to be an ethnic group in poor circumstances in the 1930s, by the 1970s, Italian Americans had entered the economic mainstream.

Cultural Strain

When the white settlers were few in number and depended on American Indian assistance, intergroup relations usually were peaceful and cooperative. With stabilization of the settlements, relations between the two races became more strained. At first, both sides benefited from the thriving trade in furs and hides for cloth, tools, and food provisions. Eventually, the attempt to meet the growing demand for furs and hides inevitably led to wildlife reduction. Moreover, the once self-sufficient tribes became increasingly dependent on the colonial traders. An irreversible path to economic dependence ensued. A labor shortage in the ever expanding colonial settlements encouraged some Indians to leave their tribal compounds to work as servants or laborers. Despite the potential for further integration, population growth from natural increase and immigration created a need for more land and the Indians were in the way. Throughout the westward movement, if contact led to cooperation between the two cultures, the resulting interaction and cultural diffusion usually worked to the disadvantage of the American Indians. They lost their self-sufficiency and became economically dependent on whites. The whites, in turn, insisted on full compliance with their demands s the price of continued peaceful relations. Even if the American Indians complied with the whites' demands, however, many whites continued to regard them as inferior people destined for a subservient role in white society.

Assimilation of South, Central, and East Europeans

With so massive and complex a migration and settlement pattern, no general assessment of acculturation and assessment is possible for the many ethnic groups from South, Central, and East Europe. Strikingly different in appearance, culture, customs, language, and often religion, societal reaction was more uniform to their presence than was their adjustment to the new society. At first, most experienced the social isolation and social distance that newcomers typically do, but these also were accompanied this time by racism. Whether in rural or urban locales, most remained socially segregated in flourishing ethnic communities with a strong social network and where endogamy was norm. For many immigrants, the transition from an agrarian to an industrial society was difficult. Those who came from an urban background or had to adapt as a subordinate minority group in Europe adjusted to city life more easily. Others, consisting predominantly of illiterate peasants, took longer to get established. Not all the immigrants became citizens, and not all were successful; some did not even learn English. Yet throughout the generations, even as they shed their ethnolinguistic marks that distinguished these white ethnics from other white Americans, those who were Catholics and Jews still encountered prejudice based off their faith. Their continuance as the target for ethnophaulisms, ethnic humor, and stereotyping is an unfortunate legacy from those intolerant times.

Immigrant women and work

Within the immigrant communities, gender played an important role in the organization of economic activities. Although men sought employment in a variety of occupations, cultural norms dictated that married women should not work outside the home. Typically, the wife's role was to maintain the house. If family required her income because the children were too young to work, then should would take on work at home or else care for boarders. The world of work for women thus fell mostly on the young and single. Approximately a third of all employed female workers at this time were blue-collar workers. Another third were domestic workers. The final third of female workers usually were not first-generation Americans. Employed women in this category were in such white-collar positions.

Women's vs Men's role in the tribe

Woman's functions were to work and to raise children. A cooperative but not egalitarian arrangement existed between the sexes, with the men doing the heavy work and the women doing tasks that would not conflict with their child-rearing responsibilities. In hunting and fishing societies, the men would be away from the village for extended periods searching for food. In farming societies, the men cleared and cultivated the land, and the women tended the crops, collected edible foods, and gathered firewood while the men sought a fresh meat supply. Each member of the tribe, according to sexually defined roles, had kinship and tribal responsibilities to fulfill.

1977-1990s

most tribes that had been terminated had their federal recognition restored, but in many cases, not their land.

Pull factors

positive inducements that lure people to seek a better future -U.S. industry grew rapidly, requiring even larger numbers of workers. -Improved transportation-- quicker, sturdier steamships with highly competitive rates-- encouraged transoceanic migration. -"American Fever"; "Golden America"; land of opportunities -Letters from friends or relatives already in the U.S. were read eagerly and circulated among villagers

Molly Maguires

A secret terrorist group that aided Irish miners in their struggles with mine owners. Following infiltration of the group by a secret agent from the Pinkerton Detective Agency and a highly questionable court proceeding, the Molly Maguire movement ended in the hanging of 20 men, one of the largest mass executions in the US.

German Americans

Germany has supplied the largest number of immigrants to the U.S. (more than 7.3 million) since 1820. Today, 47.4 million people, about 1 in 7 Americans, can trace at least some of their forebears to Germany. In several earlier periods, the large concentrations of German Americans raised nativist fears.

Anti-foreign associations

In the 1830s, anti-foreign associations, calling themselves "native" American organizations, arose in many cities. Mobs frequently burned Catholic convents, churches, and homes, assaulted nuns, and indiscriminately killed Irish, Germans, and blacks that they encountered.

Legislative Action-1965

The Immigration and Nationality Act- ended the proportional-representation quota system (national-origins quota system). Limits of 120,000 from the Western Hemisphere and 170,000 from the Eastern hemisphere (with a 20,000-per-country limit for the Eastern) were set, the numbers based on a complicated preference system stressing job skills and close family kinship. (excluded spouses, children, and parents from numerical restrictions).

Legislative Action- 1976

Added a 20,000-per-country limit to the Western hemisphere

Structural Conditions (Pre-Civil War)

Along the East Coast and in the newer cities west of the Appalachian Mountains, life was stable and established. Although regional variations existed as did differences in religion and social status, the prevailing cultural norms were relatively homogeneous. Urban living conditions, particularly among the poor Irish immigrants, were substandard, even for those days.

The 1790's census

Although WASPs were the dominant group in 1790, the nation's first census revealed a society that was both culturally and racially diverse. -1 in every 5 people was of a racial minority -1 in 7 was an ethnic minority English- 48.3% African-18.9% German- 6.95 Scots- 6.6% Unassigned- 5.2% Scots-Irish- 4.8% Irish- 2.9% Dutch-2.7% Native American- 1.8% French and Sweden- 1.8% Scots-Irish Presbyterians lived mainly on the western frontier; The dutch lived in mostly self-contained communities (NY and NJ); Germans clustered within their own urban and rural communities in the "German Belt" (Eastern seaboard Middle Atlantic states into the Midwest)

Societal Reaction

Although the immigrant groups segregated themselves socially from one another, outsiders saw them mainly as unacculturated strangers and tended to lump them together. Although many viewed all "new" immigrants as undesirable and unassimilable, U.S. society directed the greatest antagonism against the more visible Italians and Jews.

The pitfall in considering ethnic groups within a limited historical framework

Immigration patterns vary among countries and peaks at different times. Although most minority groups experience one especially intensive period of migration, which provides a logical time frame to emphasize, most countries have sent a continual flow of immigrants throughout the years.

The Dillingham Commission

In 1907, in response to public pressure, a presidential commission compromised of members of the Senate and House investigated the entire immigration situation. The Dillingham Commission issued a voluminous report in 1911, concluding that the "new" immigrants tended to congregate, slowing the assimilation process, whereas the "old" immigrants had dispersed immediately on arrival. Moreover, "new" immigrants were less skilled and less educated, had greater criminal tendencies, and were more willing to accept low wages and a low standard of living. As a solution, the commission suggested instituting either a mandatory literacy test or tighter immigration restrictions.

Irish American- Scots-Irish (also called Ulster Irish; Protestant)

Most pre-revolutionary immigrants from Ireland were Ulster Irish, Presbyterian descendants of Scottish immigrants who had migrated to Northern Ireland a generation earlier. Settling chiefly in New England at first (around 1717), they clustered together, preserving their ethnicity and seldom mingling with English Americans. The latter regarded these newcomers contemptuously, labeling them ill-tempered ruffians who drank and fought too much. By 1784, a decline in the linen trade and poor harvest had prompted the exodus of approximately 400,000 Irish Protestants to the beckoning colonies. The next wave of Scots-Irish immigrants chose Pennsylvania (William Penn's recruitment) as their preferred destination. However, the tendency of the newcomers to be squatters without paying for the land and their frequent conflicts with the Germans living there spurred Pennsylvania authorities to discourage further immigration. In four waves during the 18th century, between 200,000 and 400,000 Scots-Irish emigrated to the colonies, a great many of them settling in the frontier regions, from Pennsylvania to Georgia. By the end of the 18th century, cultural assimilation had occurred, but structural and marital assimilation lagged behind.

Ethnic Identity- Scands

Norwegians, Swedes, and Danes came to the U.S. from lands with different governments, different traditions, and different languages. Nonetheless, because of physical similarities among the three groups and because they frequently settled together in the new land, none of the three nationalities originally were strong enough to make a separate impact on the host society, and group members often resented being called by another nationality. As a result of the mixing of these three immigrant groups, the term Scandinavian to describe them came into common usage. In addition to farming, the Scands primarily worked as lumberjacks sailors, dock workers, and craftsmen in the building and machine trades. Because they came from countries with compulsory education, their literacy rate was high, and a significant percentage acquired U.S. citizenship. Danes tended to spread out more and to downplay the role of the church and fraternal organizations in comparison to Norwegians and Swedes. For that reason, the Danes assimilated more quickly, although all groups succeeded in blending into the social fabric easily.

The first European colonists

Shared in the adventure of creating a new society. First the necessity to survive, then religious preference, and finally pro- or anti-British sentiments dominated relations among diverse peoples in North American colonies. As life stabilized and a common culture evolved, other newcomers found themselves not only in strange surroundings but also they were perceived as strangers in a society in which WASP (white Anglo-Saxon Protestants) homogeneity was the norm.

Social Realities for Women

Social class and ethnic background were important variables in determining women's places in the social order in the 19th century. Working class women would likely either produce goods for sale (cheese, cloth, shoes, yarn) or render services (cooks, domestics, servers). Among those ethnic groups living even a short distance from cities-- especially the Germans, Scots-Irish, and French Canadians-- women normally would perform a variety of agricultural tasks, working in barns, stables, meadows, fields, etc. Many Irish women were single women taking jobs as domestics or nannies for the native-born urban elites. The loss of husbands through accident, desertion, or sickness left many women without means to support large families except perhaps by taking in boarders or hiring out to do others' laundry or sewing at home. Among working-class, rural, and frontier families, women continued working at many tasks that genteel ladies of the mercantile and upper classes did not do. However, one commonality almost all women shared, regardless of social class or residence, was that they married at a young age, had many children, and were usually grandmothers by the time they were 40.

Scandinavian Americans

Some Swedes came to what is not the U.S as early as 1638, making their landfall at the mouth of the Delaware River. They established a colony, New Sweden. Although small numbers of Norwegians, Swedes, and Danes continued to immigrate to the U.S. throughout the next 200 years, they did not come in substantial numbers until after 1865. Thereafter, motivated by religious dissension, voting disenfranchisement, crop failures, and other economic factors, the Scandinavians emigrated in large numbers, totaling nearly 2 million between 1870-1920. Many of these immigrants settled in fertile soil regions of the northern Midwest and established rural communities where they could enjoy social and political equality. These farmland settlements became strongholds of Norwegian and Swedish traditions that revolved around the Lutheran Church. Isolation from the dominant drift of U.S. social patterns permitted widespread, long-lived retention of old country lifestyles, which continue in some measure to this day.

Legislative Action (Early National Period)

The Federalists attempted to limit all office holding to the native-born and to extend the period for naturalization from 5 to 14 years. In 1798, the Federalists passed a series of laws known collectively as the Alien and Sedition Acts, designed to discourage political activity by pro-French immigrants. One factor contributing to the successful passage of this notorious legislation was the widespread belief that a large foreign-born population threatened the stability of the US. Jefferson's election to the presidency in 1800 ended this xenophobia and legislation.

Xenophobia- Haymarket Affair

The Haymarket Affair= the single most important factor inciting a xenophobic reaction against all immigrants. In Chicago in May 1886, at the height of a general strike for an 8-hour workday, the strike's anarchist organizers-- almost all immigrants-- held a rally in Haymarket Square. As nervous police approached the peaceful gathering, someone threw a bomb at them, killing an officer and wounding 70 people. The bomb thrower's identity was never discovered, but the courts sentenced 6 immigrants and 1 native-born U.S. citizen to death; another immigrant received a long prison term. Newspapers promoted a negative stereotype of immigrants as troublemakers and national hysteria and fear of anarchy mushroomed, particularly in the large cities of the Northeast and Midwest. For a long time after the Haymarket Affair, the words foreign and radical were linked. Negative stereotyping and nativist movements increased. Calls for restrictions on immigration continued until the Immigration Law of 1921 was passed.

Assimilation of Northern and Western Europeans

The differing experiences of northern and western European Americans illustrate the roles that ethnocentrism and social distance play in the assimilation process. At first, cultural and religious differences kept the groups socially segregated for the most part, but eventually those with greater similarities coalesced into what became the mainstream group. Such was not the case with many other groups with pronounced ethnic differences, and this difference often was sharpened even more by their numbers and geographic isolation. Race, culture, and/or social class shaped group relations in the U.S. in 1890, keeping the nation a patchwork quilt of cultural diversity. All three variables influenced perceptions, receptivity, and interactional patterns. Their ingroup solidarity strengthened by social isolation, endogamy, and vibrant ethnic communities, these groups remained pluralistic entities throughout much of the 19th century, even if some of their number had assimilated.

Constitution and Religious tolerance (Early National Period)

When the constitution was drafted in 1789, the nation's leading statesmen put aside their prejudices to institutionalize such tolerance, creating a bedrock principle of US culture the separation of church and state. Congregationalists in New England retained a privileged tax position for a few more decades though, until their diminishing political power no longer could sustain that contradiction. In addition, some states barred Catholics and Jews from running for elected office in the early years of the republic. But this institutionalized bias eventually yielded, though not without a struggle, to the democratic principle of freedom of religion that had emerged from the primeval diversity of the nation's beginning

Push-pull factors

those forces that encourage migration from one place to another

Societal Responses (German Americans)

A diverse group in their religions, occupations, and residence patterns, German Americans came under increasing criticism for being clannish and for attempting to preserve their culture. Their large numbers added to rising tensions, which culminated in violent confrontations. Louisville, KY- August 5, 1855. "Bloody Monday"- A mob of Know-Nothings, incited by fiery articles in the Louisville Journal, stormed into the Germantown section intent on mayhem. When the riot was over, 22 men had been killed, several hundred wounded, and 16 houses burned. Following the Civil War, German Americans were well positioned economically and suffered little interethnic conflict until the outbreak of WWI. As a wave of anti-German hostility and patriotic zeal swept the land, German Americans became targets of harassment, business boycotts, physical attacks, and vandalism of their property. Several states banned the German language. Attempting to prove loyalty to the U.S., many abandoned their cultural manifestations. Since 1920, more than 1.7 million German immigrants have arrived in the U.S. Such members gave resilience to a German ethnic subculture, but nothing like what had flourished before 1914. Today, newcomers tend to assimilate fairly rapidly and few easily identifiable ethnic communities exist, although strong ethnic concentrations exist in many parts of the country.

Societal Reaction (Irish Americans)

Americans blamed the Irish for their widespread poverty and resented the heavy burden they placed on charitable institutions. They also stereotyped the Irish as inherently prone to alcoholism, brawling, corruption, and crime. Viewed as an unwelcome social problem, the Irish served as the rallying point for opponents of immigration. Nativism, briefly evident in the immediate post-Revolutionary War Period, now swept across the land in a shameful display of bigotry and intolerance. Aiding the growth of anti-Irish feeling was anti-Catholicism. Fears of "Popery" arose, partly in response to the influx of priests to minister to the needs of the Irish Catholics. Know-Nothing violence targeted the Irish far more than it did the Germans, as destruction of property, brutal beatings, and loss of life occurred in the Irish sections of many cities. Besides starting frequent street brawls, anti-Catholic mobs sometimes burned churches and convents.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

An articulate literary figure; popular speaker on the lyceum lecture circuit. Combat nativist movement by stressing the "smelting-pot" concept: "The energy of the Irish, Swedes, Poles, and Cossacks, and all the European tribes-- of the Africans, and of the Polynesians, will construct a new race, a new religion, a new state, a new literature, which will be as vigorous as the new Europe which came out of the smelting pot of the Dark ages"

Pluralism (French Americans)- French Canadians

Another persistent subculture exists among the Americans of French/French Canadian ancestry living in New England. There are nearly 2 million people of French Canadian ancestry in America. Although some French Canadians immigrated to the U.S. prior to the Civil War, the largest movement came afterwards. The Industrial Revolution brought rapid expansion to the New England factories, and the owners actively recruited labor in Quebec. In response, French Canadians became the largest immigrant group in most textile centers in New England. As in Louisiana, in French New England the family and the church serve as strong cohesive units for retaining language and culture. French parochial schools also have a unifying effect on the community. Ethnic French Canadians remain a distinct subgroup, and their loyalties to the institutions and to their original home, Quebec, suggest that they will retain their identity as a strong subculture in the foreseeable future. Moreover, their proximity to Quebec forests a vibrant ethnicity.

Dutch Americans- Structural Conditions

During the colonial period, few Dutch were willing to exchange the security at home for the hardships of the New World. With their stable economy and harmonious society, they had few inducements or "push" factors to migrate in such great numbers as had other ethnic groups. When seeking to establish trading settlements in the New World, the Dutch therefore sought other minority-group members willing to journey to the New World. As a result, immigrant Dutch settlements became as heterogeneous as Holland. The English takeover of New Amsterdam in 1664 caused no hardship for the Dutch settlers. They enjoyed a basically favorable social environment during the colonial and post-Revolutionary War periods and thereafter. A relatively tolerant people in an intolerant age, similar in physical appearance and religious beliefs to other Americans, the Dutch generally were accepted, though sometimes they were the butt of gentle humor. In 1864, a group of Dutch religious separatists settled in what became Holland, Michigan. Spurred by religious and economic motives, a new wave of immigrants from the Netherlands followed suit, settling mostly in Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Illinois because of favorable soil and climate conditions. The social bond proved to be religion rather than nationality, and sectarian schisms ensued, resulting in the Dutch Reformed Church, the Christian Reformed Church, and the Netherland Reformed Church.

Racism

Earlier nativist themes-- anti-Catholicism, fear of "foreign radicals," and xenophobia-- manifested themselves again with the so called "new immigrants," but two new elements also emerged: anti-Semitism and actions based on physical features. Now those who had been here longer and possessed blue eyes and lighter complexions and hair claimed biological superiority over the new arrivals. (Eugenics movement) Soon, however, industrial conflict, WWI, and revolution in Russia changed societal reaction to the new immigrants. Although racist assumptions about them continued, primary concern focused on their rapid assimilation to eliminate any threat they may present to the political order. The Americanization movement, with its focus on national loyalty and stability, sought to erase cultural pluralism, stimulate civic pride and patriotism, and integrate the newcomers into the fabric of U.S. society as quickly as possible.

Cajuns

For approximately 200 years, the Cajun subculture remained strong and resisted assimilation. A system of common values-- perpetuated by language, family, kinship, and religious ties-- served as social integrative Forces. Cajun ethnic identity remained solid, thanks to tight-knit communities and suspicion of outsiders. After the oil industry came in the 1930s, the Cajuns' SES changed from agricultural to working class. This in turn led to an interesting form of suburbanization for approximately 2/3 of Cajuns, one in which their ethnicity remained strong but fluency in Cajun French among the young declined. The emergence of TV in the 1950s further accelerated the process of ethnogenesis. Cajun parents typically gave their children Anglicized names and encouraged them to go to college. However, these upwardly mobile, college-educated Cajuns did not completely abandon their parents' subculture, and by the late 1960s, they again embraced their heritage. Community-based French immersion education programs have generated a growing youth population that's fluent in Louisiana French. Also the commercialization of Cajun ethnicity into the consumer economy helped.

The Functionalist View

Functionalists see as highly desirable the arrival of large groups of people to forge a civilization out of a vast, undeveloped country rich in natural resources, due to their emphasis on a social network of interrelated parts working cooperatively for survival or stability. Dysfunction occurred when large numbers entered the country because they could not be absorbed quickly enough. They clustered together, culturally distinct from the dominant English American model, generating prejudice and discrimination. In time, education and upward mobility through economic growth and the civil service allowed both acceptance and assimilation. Stresses the young nation's need for newcomers and sees the problems arising from the arrival of large numbers of Irish and German immigrants resulting from the sheer size of influx, which hampered more rapid absorption.

Marginality and Assimilation (French Americans)

In the 17th century, the Huguenots (French Protestants) fled either to Holland or to colonial America to escape religious persecution. Their Protestantism, willingness to work hard, conversion to the Anglican Church, and rapid adoption of the English language eased the Huguenots' assimilation into colonial society. However, the transition was not altogether smooth, and members of the second generation apparently agonized about their marginal status much as those in other groups would later do. Encountering distrust and occasional violence from the dominant society, partly explained by the frequent hostilities between England and France, the Huguenots tried to Anglicize themselves as quickly as possible to avoid further unpleasantness. They changed their names and their customs, learned to speak English, and soon succeeded in assimilating completely into the host society. For them, assimilation and loss of ethnic identity were the desired goals. By 1750, the Huguenots were no longer a distinct subculture.

Legislative action- 1924

Johnson-Reed Act- reduced each country's annual quota to 2% of its emigrants already in the U.S. as of 1890 This change discriminated even more severely against the "newer" immigrant countries, and the worldwide quota dropped to near 165,000.

Early Signs of Nativist Reactions

Many new immigrants arrived during the immediate POST-REVOLUTION PERIOD, igniting a broad-based anti-foreign attitude. Whatever their motives, the dominant English Americans' reactions toward the newly arriving northern and western European immigrants followed what was to become a familiar pattern in dominant-minority relations. Suspicious of those who differed from themselves, the members o the dominant culture felt threatened.

Legislative action-1952

McCarran-Walter Act- simplified the quota formula to 1/6th of 1% of the foreign-born population from each country in the 1920 census. Had a minimum quota of 100 and a ceiling of 2,000 for Asian countries

Religious intolerance (Colonial Period)

Religious differences caused social problems more frequently than did nationality differences during this period. Many people who first crossed the Atlantic as immigrants had been religious dissenters in their native land and were seeking a utopia in the new land. They brought with them RELIGIOUS PREJUDICES. Although they themselves cam seeking religious freedom, many were intolerant of others with different religious beliefs. -Christians, including Baptists, disliked the Catholics (Papists) -Presbyterians, Baptists, Quakers, German Reformed, and Lutherans along the frontier were intolerant of each other, but all shared a strong dislike of Anglicans. -Anglicans disliked the New England Puritans which was also reciprocated by the Puritans. Religious clashes in the 18th century were not uncommon. -Animosity between England-loyalist Anglicans and England-hating Scots-Irish Presbyterians was common. Even though many colonists shared a common nationality, religious intolerance created wide cultural gulfs and social distance among the various denominations.

English Americans

The English were the first white ethnic groups to establish permanent settlements in the New World. The first two successful ones were Jamestown and Plimmoth (Plymouth) Plantation. These two settlements were quite different culturally from one another and so they offer an excellent example of cultural diversity within the same nationality. Many factors-- including the different purposes of the settlements, religions, climates, and terrains-- played a role in the unfolding of events and lifestyles.

Pluralism (French Americans)- Louisiana French

The French subculture in southern Louisiana suggests ethnic homogeneity to the outsider, but its communities include two subgroups: the Creoles and the Acadians (or Cajuns). Creoles are people of color-- a blend of French and African American, Native American, Jamaican American, or other ethnic groups of color. Cajuns are a blend of French and German, Italian, Polish, or other white ethnic groups. Both groups practice endogamy, usually based around skin color, hair texture, and shared cultures.

The Second Wave: Segregation and Pluralism (German Americans)

The German immigrants of the 18th century first settled in Pennsylvania and then in other mid-Atlantic states. The 19th century immigrants predominantly went to the Midwest. There they became homesteaders, preserving their heritage through their schools, churches, newspapers, language, mutual-aid societies, and recreational activities. The failure in 1848 of an attempted liberal revolution in Germany brought many political refugees to the U.S. Known as the "Forty- Eighters," these Germans settled in large cities of the East and Midwest. Although more dispersed throughout the country then the Irish, in the cities, they concentrated in "Germantown" communities. Here Germans owned and operated most of the businesses, and German functioned as the principal spoken language. An array of parallel social institutions-- fraternal and mutual-aid societies, newspapers, schools, churches, restaurants, and saloons-- like those of other immigrant groups, aided newly arrived Germans in adjusting to their new country. Gymnastic societies and cultural centers known as Turnvereine provided libraries, reading rooms, discussion groups, and singing and dramatic groups for German Americans. They became controversial, however, as a result of their radical reform proposals and political activism on behalf of social-welfare legislation, direct popular election of all public officials, tax and tariff reform, abolition of slavery, and their militant opposition to prohibition. In the "German Triangle"-- the area defined by Cincinnati, Milwaukee, and St. Louis-- the presence of hundreds of thousands of German Americans resulted in many states printing their documents in German and English and also authorizing the use of the German language in public schools for classroom instructions. The use of German in the schools served as additional purpose: It was intended to preserve the whole range of German culture.

Early Reactions (German Americans)

The German immigrants' experience provides a good example of how a distinct minority group sometimes incurs the hostility of the dominant culture. The Germans were different in language, customs, and religion (mostly Lutherans), as were other groups. But their high visibility in numbers and settlement patterns set them apart and the Anglo majority worried about them as a possible threat.

Irish Americans- Irish Catholics

The Irish Catholics fared poorly. Their religion, peasant culture, and rebelliousness against England marked them as strangers to the dominant culture and set the stage for the most overt discrimination and hostility any ethnic group thus far had encountered. By 1790, Irish Catholics accounted for nearly 4% of the almost 3.2 million total population. Their growing numbers became a source of increasing concern to the Federalists. Fearing that "wild Irish" rebels would attempt to turn the U.S. against England and that they would join the Republican Party, the Federalists strongly opposed the incoming "hordes of wild Irishmen." After 1820, emigration to the U.S. became increasingly essential to the Irish Catholic, who suffered under oppressive British rule in their native land. Failure of the potato crop in successive years and the resulting famine during the late 1840s accelerated the exodus. Approximately 1.2 million Irish emigrated between 1847 and 1854; in the peak year 1851, almost a quarter of a million Irish Catholics arrived. The immigrants settled mostly in coastal cities. Their living conditions in these overcrowded 'Dublin Districts' were deplorable. With man families living in poorly lighted, poorly heated, and badly ventilated tenements, contagious, deadly diseases were widespread. Moreover, when the immigrants were drawn elsewhere to work in mines or to build canals and railroads, shantytowns sprang up in many locales, their presence serving as a symbol to native-born U.S. residents that an "inferior" people had appeared in their midst.

Cultural Differentiation (Irish Americans)

The Irish attracted attention because of their sheer numbers, their Catholicism, and their strong anti-British feelings. These factors weighed heavily against them in Anglo-Saxon Protestant America. In addition, they were a poverty-stricken rural people who settled in groups mainly in the slum areas of cities on the East Coast. Because they could find only unskilled jobs, they began life in the U.S. with a lower-class status, bearing that stigma at a time when the country was becoming increasingly class conscious. The Irish were the first ethnic group to come to the U.S. in large numbers as a minority whose culture so differed from the dominant culture. They were the first of many immigrant groups yet to come with a peasant culture. As a result, many flagrantly discriminated against the Irish, although some welcomed them as a necessary working-class contingent. Yet even those who welcomed the Irish as people to fill working-class jobs did so with an ethnocentric attitude of superiority over such a lowly breed of people.

Legislative action- 1921

The National Origins Quota Act- limited the number of immigrants. Limited immigration to 3 percent of foreign-born persons of each nationality living in the U.S. in 1910. The effect of this legislation was to reduce the number of south, central, and east European immigrants from a 780,000 annual average in the years 1910-1914 to approximately 155,000 annually.

Structural Conditions

The U.S. that the immigrants came to differed considerably from the land earlier immigrants had found. The frontier was disappearing rapidly; industrialization and urbanization were changing the nation's lifestyle. The immigrants, mostly illiterate, unskilled, rural peasants, were plunged into a new cultural and social environment. With virtually no resources, many immigrants settled in their ports of entry or in inland cities along railroad lines. Overcrowding, disease, high mortality rates, crime, filth, and congestion were endemic. Crowded into poorly ventilated tenements and cellars, the immigrants often lived in squalor. Settling in the oldest city sections, immigrants formed ethnic subcommunities, recreating the nationality quilt of Europe. Although they were neighbors out of necessity, intermarriage and joint organizational activities were rare. To find security in a strange land, they repeated the adjustment patterns of the "old" immigrants. They sought and interacted with their own people, establishing their own churches, schools, and organizations to preserve their traditions and culture. As unskilled workers, most found employment in the low-status manual-labor jobs in the factories, mines, needle trades, and construction. Conditions, though bad, were better than what they had left behind. More important, the U.S. gave them hope and a promise for better things.

Know-Nothings

The sporadic outbursts of anti-foreign associations gradually coalesced into the powerful Know-Nothing movement in the 1850s. The Know-Nothings unleashed a vicious hate campaign, frequently accompanied by brutal violence, particularly in large cities, where many immigrants lived. Surprisingly successful, the Know-Nothings attracted those fearful of foreigners and escalated their worries into irrational thoughts and actions. The bitter sectional rivalry of the Civil War period then effectively ended this ethnocentric-turned-xenophobic movement.

Upward Mobility and Irish Americans

Unlike other immigrant groups in the 19th century, the Irish then experienced at first occupational or social upward mobility. Through a tightly organized patronage system, the boss-controlled urban political machine offered economic and political opportunities, as well as social-welfare provisions for the Irish community.

Francophobia (French Americans)

While the French Revolution was still in its moderately liberal stage, the Jeffersonians were French sympathizers and the Federalists were anti-French. With the XYZ Affair (French officials demanded bribes before permitting U.S. diplomats to secure desired conferences or agreements), public opinion inflamed against the French and their sympathizers. The lives of French immigrants during those passionate times at best were uncomfortable and at worst were filled with trouble and turmoil. In the eyes of the Federalists, every French American was a potential enemy, not only because of fears they might join a French army to invade the U.S., but because these political conservatives worried that the perceived loose morals and irreligion of the French might infect Americans. By 1801, the Republicans effectively had ended the Federalists' political dominance in the U.S. President Thomas Jefferson purchased the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803 and, with it, the French city of New Orleans, which retains much of its ethnic flavor today.

Americanization

Without government assistance and with little knowledge of the language or customs, the immigrants were expected to fit into U.S. society quickly. Native U.S. residents expected them to speak only English, strip away their old culture, and avoid ethnic institutions or organizations. These demands often led to ethnic self-hatred or a negative self-image because of the newcomers' ambivalence about assimilation or their inability or slowness to achieve it. To preserve the stability of the country, many people attempted to hasten the assimilation of the new immigrants already here. They looked on the schools as agents of socialization, a key force in effecting Anglo-conformity. There was a need to break up groups or settlements of immigrants through assimilation and for educators to teach the immigrant kids Anglo-Saxon concepts. Children of immigrants felt the marginality conflicts between majority-group expectations and their minority perspective more keenly than their parents. Schools vigorously promoted the shedding of cultural differences.

Push factors

those negative elements that discourage one from remaining in the country of origin. -Peasant life especially was harsh in Europe. The ruling class and local estate farm owners ruthlessly exploited the common people. Trying to eke out an existence amid poverty, unemployment, sickness, and tyranny, many of Europe's poor looked elsewhere for a better life. -Political and economic unrest in Europe also encouraged the exodus. Old World governments faced pressures of overpopulation, chronic poverty, the decline of feudalism, dissident factions, and a changing agrarian economy. They sponsored emigration as it provided a practical means of easing societal pressures without actually addressing the root causes of many institutional problems.