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I agree with the bold, having grown up in a very "ethnic" as you guys call it area, and having lived here in Colorado these last 30 years. However, it's not quite that simple. I have to insert here that I don't get why Italians and Poles are considered "ethnic" while Germans, Scandinavians and Brits are not! However, that seems to be the definition of ethnic whites here in the US; that is, eastern and southern Europeans.
I think it's for historical reasons. Southern and eastern europeans came later. The first settlers were northern european (Pennsylvania had lots of German settlers at the time of the revolution), so southern / eastern europeans were looked upon as the "other" much more. While Germans lost their ethnic label earlier than others, in the late 1800s I think Germans were considered ethnic too, though a "better" class of immigrant than southern or eastern europeans.
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In western PA, those ethnic groups were recruited to work in the mills and mines, given free passage from Europe to come here. Now by the time I was alive, in the 50s, living patterns were pretty decentralized, all Italians did not live in the Bloomfield section of Pittsburgh, nor did all the Poles live in the South Side. In the mill town where I grew up, my family lived in the former Polish part of town for a while. But the big difference I see between Pittsburgh and Denver is that there simply was a larger number of "ethnics" in Pittsburgh. That meant, back in the early days of the last century, lots of Polish clubs and Croatian Clubs, Serbian Clubs, etc. Denver did have its own "Little Italy" on the NW side for many years, now long dispersed, especially to the western suburbs.
I thought I noticed more northern european anscentry in the West when I visited, too.
One of the Catholic Churches in my town in Western MA is a specifically polish church. I used to visit a polish neighborhood in NYC, especially around new year's. Pierogis for New Year's! Irish-American identity is also still very strong in Massachusetts, at least the eastern part of the state and at one time Irish and older stock was a large nasty political divide. The mill towns in Massachusetts brought lots of Portuguese workers, whose descendants are still around today.
I know in the 50s, large swathes of NYC were primarily working-class Jewish; and these areas were often known for leftist and socialist political groups (well maybe earlier than the 50s). South Bronx at the time was 57% Jewish, 20 years it became almost entirely minority.
The Irish are considered ethnics too. Actually for a long time they weren't even considered white in the US. A lot of it has to do with religion. According to the narrow WASP worldview, to be white or Western you had to be Protestant.
The Irish are considered ethnics too. Actually for a long time they weren't even considered white in the US. A lot of it has to do with religion. According to the narrow WASP worldview, to be white or Western you had to be Protestant.
I don't want to go off on a hijack here, but aren't we all "ethnic", even the Brits? I think somehow this word "ethnic" got perverted.
As for the Protestant part, only certain Protestants need apply. Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Methodist, OK. Lutheran, Baptist, Evangelical Free, non-doms, not so much.
Last edited by Katarina Witt; 01-07-2012 at 10:14 AM..
Typically, an ethnic group becomes whiter when another ethnic group arrives after them. Germans and Swedes were in fact on the receiving end of discrimination in early US history: in the 1840s you can read angry descriptions of unwanted immigrants, including "swarthy Swedes" who describe Germans as far too alien to ever become American. Once the Irish started to arrive in big numbers, the Germans and Swedes suddenly became more acceptable. The Irish started setting themselves apart through political and union organization, and after the Civil War, used newly freed African Americans as a stepping stone to advance closer to whiteness--a process aided by the arrival of Italians and Poles later in the 19th century.
In the West there were specific laws that prohibited Chinese or Japanese from becoming American citizens or owning land (even if they were born here) that were in effect until the 1950s. But in more recent decades, Asians have become the "model minority," to the point where if someone calls an area "lily-white" folks will often defend it by mentioning the Asian couple down the street. More recently, the rising profile of Middle Eastern immigrants as the latest "other", and the continuing "other" represented by African Americans provide cultural stepping stones for other groups to advance to whiteness.
It's not so much that there are more northern Europeans out west, but often when people came west they shed a lot of their specific European cultural identity in order to more rapidly embrace whiteness. The presence of Asians and Mexicans helped facilitate this process--an even greater "other" allowed ethnic Europeans to more rapidly inculcate into whiteness. Basically, you got ahead by encouraging people to hate the new guy even more than they hate you.
"Swarthy Swedes"? I've heard the term "dumb Swede", but never swarthy. I think you have them mixed up with some other group.
ETA: I got curious and googled "swarthy Swedes". It was stated by none other than Benjamin Franklin, who also said the same of Germans. Obviously, Franklin was ignorant.
ETA #2: Most midwestern states have a lot of Swedes and other scandinavians, also Germans, not so much Irish, outside of Chicago.
ETA #3: A lot of Swedes settled in the midwest, particularly the upper midwest and plains states, directly from Sweden. They didn't migrate from NYC and decide to become more "white", which they already were, anyway. DH's grandmother emigrated from Sweden at age 17, to Nebraska. She never learned English, didn't have to. There were plenty of people in Oakland, NE with whom to speak Swedish. My church, in Boulder, Colorado, conducted services in Swedish until the 1960s. My mother grew up in Wisconsin, of US born parents, and learned to speak and read German. She was born in 1921. It is not true that all ethnic groups were shedding their European identity when they got here.
Last edited by Katarina Witt; 01-07-2012 at 03:19 PM..
I don't want to go off on a hijack here, but aren't we all "ethnic", even the Brits? I think somehow this word "ethnic" got perverted.
Sure, I agree with you. I also find the word ethnic as in "ethnic food", etc, quite annoying. I was using the word ethnic in the WASP sense, which I don't agree with.
Last edited by Perfect Stranger; 01-07-2012 at 03:19 PM..
Obviously the British were also an ethnic group--they were just the first to arrive here (aside from the Indians) and, along with the Dutch, became the de facto "native" culture (after wiping out the Indians.) While it wasn't exclusively English who moved here, the original American colonies were explicitly English in language, dominant culture and law, and it wasn't until the mid-19th century that the United States expanded and became such a polyglot nation of immigrants. And at the time, there were plenty of Americans hollering about these dangerous foreign immigrants, taking our jobs and introducing alien religions to the United States. The idea of the American "melting pot" came into fashion closer to the turn of the 20th century, when Progressives actively worked to "Americanize" immigrant populations.
New York City thought it was a great idea to put a tower in the park housing project in every neighborhood to increase diversity. Didn't manage to finish the job, but they did a good try. More poor minorities got them than white ones, but white and non-poor neighborhoods got many too. Looking on a map, you can find them in odd random places, a bit of an ugly blight that a neighborhood is stuck with for a likely very long time into the future.
The thing is that when you put 1 or maybe 2 complexes in a neighborhood, you don't get a whole lot of White flight. It's only when you start putting a bunch of projects within the same neighborhood that you really see a lot of White flight.
For instance, here on Staten Island, tracts 173, 114.01 (the map has it listed without a decimal point), and 64 have a housing project in them, and yet all of them are plurality White (with the latter two being majority White): Mapping the 2010 U.S. Census - NYTimes.com
To a lesser extent, tract 7 has a housing project and is still 20% White.
And there are examples on SI where the tract with the projects is bad, but the surrounding area is fine (though it may not necessarily be a White area).
But if you're in an area like the South Bronx, even if you go a while (distance-wise) without housing projects, you could still see a lot of crime and poverty in the neighborhoods between those with houring projects (for instance, East Tremont and West Farms are relatively far from housing projects, but the effect from so many projects a couple of miles away affects the neighborhood)
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Originally Posted by wburg
Typically, an ethnic group becomes whiter when another ethnic group arrives after them.
Very true. It's possible that 20 years from now, Mexicans (and Hispanics in general) will be considered White.
checkmatechamp13: Maybe. Whiteness tends to be an expanding definition--there isn't a scientific definition of "white", and even the more scientific-sounding term "Caucasian" is made-up: it is based on an early 19th century scientist who assumed that since women from Georgia (the European country near the Caucasus) were the most beautiful in the world (in his opinion) that "white" people must have originated there.
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