Ethnic and Racial Assimilation in the United States.docx

1、Ethnic and Racial Assimilation in the United StatesChapter 8 Ethnic and Racial Assimilation in the United StatesSo in this continent, the energy of Irish, Germans, Swedes, Poles and all the European tribes, of the Africans, and of the Polynesians - will construct a new race, a new religion, a new st

2、ate.Ralph Waldo EmersonBefore You Read1. How did people from so many different countries create the American culture in the United States?2. What group had the strongest influence on shaping the dominant American culture?3. Why do you think some groups might assimilate to the American culture more t

3、han others?4. What do you know about the history of African-Americans in the United States?Melting Pot or Salad BowlThe population of the United States includes a large variety of ethnic groups coming from many races, nationalities, and religions. The process by which these many groups have been mad

4、e a part of a common cultural life with commonly shared values is called assimilation. Scholars disagree as to the extent to which assimilation has occurred in the United States. As we mentioned in Chapter 1, some have described the United States as a melting pot where various racial and ethnic grou

5、ps have been combined into one culture. Others are inclined to see the United States as a salad bowl where the various groups have remained somewhat distinct and different from one another, creating a richly diverse country.The truth probably lies somewhere between these two views. Since 1776, .an e

6、normous amount of racial and ethnic assimilation has taken place in the United States, yet some groups continue to feel a strong sense of separateness from the culture as a whole. Many of these groups are really bicultural. That is, they consider themselves Americans, but they also wish to retain th

7、e language and the cultural traditions of their original culture.People of Hispanic origin were on the North American continent before settlers arrived from Europe in the early 1600s. In Florida and the Southwest, there were Spanish and Latin American settlements established centuries before the thi

8、rteen colonies joined together to form the United States in the late 1700s. Because of their long history and the continued influx of newcomers into the established communities, many Hispanics, or Latinos, have taken a special pride in maintaining their cultural traditions and the use of the Spanish

9、 language.Generally speaking, over the years whites from different national and religious backgrounds have been gradually assimilated into the larger American culture, with some exceptions. For example, American Jews are one group of whites who have traditionally retained a strong sense of separaten

10、ess from the larger culture. This may be a result of the long history of persecution in the Christian countries in Europe, the weaker forms of discrimination and anti-Jewish feeling that exist in the United States, and their own strong feeling of ethnic pride. Yet along with their sense of separaten

11、ess, American Jews have a strong sense of being a part of the larger American culture in which they have achieved competitive success in almost every field.The Establishment of the Dominant CultureThe first census of the new nation, conducted in 1790, counted about four million people, most of whom

12、were white. Of the white citizens, more than 8 out of 10 traced their ancestry back to England. African-Americans made up a surprising 20 percent of the population, an all-time high. There were close to 700,000 slaves and about 60,000 free Negroes. Only a few Native American Indians who paid taxes w

13、ere included in the census count, but the total Native American population was probably about one million.It was the white population that had the greater numbers, the money, and the political power in the new nation, and therefore this majority soon defined what the dominant culture would be. At th

14、e time of the American Revolution, the white population was largely English in origin, Protestant, and middle class. Such Americans are sometimes referred to as WASPs (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants). Their characteristics became the standard for judging other groups. Those having a different religio

15、n (such as the Irish Catholics), or those speaking a different language (such as the Germans, Dutch, and Swedes), were in the minority and would be disadvantaged unless they became assimilated. In the late 1700s, this assimilation occurred without great difficulty. According to historians Allan Nevi

16、ns and Henry Steele Commager, English, Irish, German, . Dutch, Swedishmingled and intermarried with little thought of any difference.The dominant American culture that grew out of the nations early history, then, was English-speaking, Western European, Protestant, and middle class in character. It w

17、as this dominant culture that established what became the traditional values, described by de Tocqueville in the early 1830s. Immigrants with these characteristics were welcome, in part because Americans believed that these newcomers would probably give strong support to the basic values of the domi

18、nant culture such as freedom, equality of opportunity, and the desire to work hard for a higher material standard of living.The Assimilation of Non-Protestant and Non-Western EuropeansAs is the case in many cultures, the degree to which a minority group was seen as different from the characteristics

19、 of the dominant majority determined the extent of that groups acceptance. Although immigrants who were like the earlier settlers were accepted, those with significantly different characteristics tended to be viewed as a threat to traditional American values and way of life.This was particularly tru

20、e of the immigrants who arrived by the millions during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Most of them came from poverty-stricken nations of southern and eastern Europe. They spoke languages other than English, and large numbers of them were Catholics or Jews.Americans at the time were very fea

21、rful of this new flood of immigrants. They were afraid that these people were so accustomed to lives of poverty and dependence that they would not understand such traditional American values as freedom, self-reliance, and competition. There were so many new immigrants that they might even change the

22、 basic values of the nation in undesirable ways.Americans tried to meet what they saw as a threat to their values by offering English instruction for the new immigrants and citizenship classes to teach them basic American beliefs. The immigrants, however, often felt that their American teachers disa

23、pproved of the traditions of their homeland. Moreover, learning about American values gave them little help in meeting their most important needs such as employment, food, and a place to live.Far more helpful to the new immigrants were the political bosses of the larger cities of the northeastern Un

24、ited States, where most of the immigrants first arrived. Those bosses saw to many of the practical needs of the immigrants and were more accepting of the different homeland traditions. In exchange for their help, the political bosses expected the immigrants to keep them in power by voting for them i

25、n elections.Many Americans strongly disapproved of the political bosses. This was partly because the bosses were frequently corrupt; that is, they often stole money from the city governments they controlled and engaged in other illegal practices. Perhaps more important to disapproving Americans, how

26、ever, was the fact that the bosses seemed to be destroying such basic American values as self-reliance and competition.The bosses, it seemed, were teaching the immigrants to be dependent on them rather than to rely on themselves. Moreover, the bosses were buying the votes of the immigrants in order

27、to give themselves a monopoly of political power in many larger cities. This practice destroyed competition for political office, which Americans viewed as an important tradition in politics just as it was in other facets of American life.Despite these criticisms, many scholars believe that the poli

28、tical bosses performed an important function in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They helped to assimilate large numbers of new immigrants into the larger American culture by finding them jobs and housing, in return for their political support. Later the bosses also helped the sons and daught

29、ers of these immigrants to find employment, but the second generation usually had the advantage of growing up speaking English.The fact that the United States had a rapidly expanding economy at the turn of the century made it possible for these new immigrants, often with the help of the bosses, to b

30、etter their standard of living in the United States. As a result of these new opportunities and new rewards, immigrants came to accept most of the values of the larger American culture and were in turn accepted by the great majority of Americans. For white ethnic groups, therefore, it is generally t

31、rue that their feeling of being a part of the larger culturethat is, Americanis usually stronger than their feeling of belonging to a separate ethnic groupIrish, Italian, and Polish, among many others.The African-American ExperienceThe process of assimilation in the United States has been much more

32、successful for white ethnic groups than for nonwhite ethnic groups. Of the nonwhite ethnic groups, Americans of African descent have had the greatest difficulty in becoming assimilated into the larger culture. African-Americans were brought to the United States against their will to be sold as slave

33、s. Except for the Native American Indian tribes who inhabited the United States before the first white settlers arrived, other ethnic groups came to America voluntarilymost as immigrants who wanted to better their living conditions.The enslavement of African-Americans in the United States was a complete contradict