Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
It sounds like you're agreeing each other — you're quote says become common after 1926
Prior to 1917, it was legal to racially restrict neighborhoods. After that, covenants, which did not have the force of law, were enacted as a way around the legal restrictions.
Prior to 1865, of course, there were few free blacks around to restrict, as slavery was still in effect.
Actually, in the 1850s, slavery was still being practiced.
Irrelevant fact: in Massachusetts by the 1850s there was a small population of African immigrants from Cape Verde. They first came to work on whaling ships. My previous landlord was partially descended from Cape Verde immigrants, who had been in the state for almost two centuries.
Prior to 1917, it was legal to racially restrict neighborhoods. After that, covenants, which did not have the force of law, were enacted as a way around the legal restrictions.
Prior to 1865, of course, there were few free blacks around to restrict, as slavery was still in effect.
Got the distinction. However, probably there was less an urge to exclude blacks befor about 1920 in northern cities as the black population was very small.
Irrelevant fact: in Massachusetts by the 1850s there was a small population of African immigrants from Cape Verde. They first came to work on whaling ships. My previous landlord was partially descended from Cape Verde immigrants, who had been in the state for almost two centuries.
Got the distinction. However, probably there was less an urge to exclude blacks befor about 1920 in northern cities as the black population was very small.
That's interesting. It seems really rare to find, going back to pre-1960s times, non-white or non-European immigrants, or their descendents on the East coast.
It must be an odd and trying experience to be an early African or non-white immigrant during the days in the US, having the double-whammy of the color line plus the immigrant experience.
At least NYC has decent schools to choose from. I'm amused to the author's naive assumption:
I waited my whole life to move to New York so that I could raise my child in the most diverse city in the country -- or so it had appeared to me in magazines and The New York Times, and during the few brief visits I'd made as a teenager.
But the New York I encountered as a mother visiting public and independent schools was a far different place than the city I had imagined from afar. Though students in the city's public schools overall are 30 percent African American and 40 percent Hispanic, many of the schools I visited seemed at first glance to be identical to what I encountered in rural New England. They were largely full of white kids.
While these numbers do not differ drastically from last year, the numbers of minority students accepted did drop in specific schools.
Somehow asians don't count as minorities. Asians are a near majority in NYC magnet schools. Most come from working-class immigrant families, they're not exactly privileged.
Aren't there a lot of blacks who are immigrants in NYC too? I heard African immigrants are even actually more educated on average than Asian immigrants.
Native-born African-Americans or black Americans (what's the appropriate way to distinguish them without implying one group is somehow more "American" than another?) are obviously more disadvantaged by having a longer history of odds stacked against them. So, one thing I was getting at in this thread was it must be a different experience in cities and towns where there is a long history of non-white group as the "other" (Black and possibly Native Americans in some places) with urban planning developing alongside these tensions vs. places where the non-whites are the "other" but they are newer, foreign non-white arrivals that suddenly change the city and people have tensions with them because they won't assimilate.
Cape Verde was an island discovered by Portuguese explorers, the Africans there were brought to Cape Verde as slaves by the Portuguese, so while the Cape Verdeans who came to the United States were free rather than transported slaves, their parents were probably slaves. Cape Verdeans spoke a dialect of Portuguese called "Criolou" and settled around the country--I interviewed a Cape Verdean woman whose parents came from the island of Fogo for a book on a local Portuguese neighborhood. They were generally considered part of the Portuguese community, which was not really considered "white" until after World War II. I was told the Cape Verdeans often participated in Portuguese cultural traditions if there was a Portuguese neighborhood or community, along with their own traditions, but they were often singled out within the Portuguese community. I assume this was based on skin color, but there were also some factional differences between mainland ("Continental") Portuguese and those from the island colonies, like the Azores and Madeira, while Cape Verde was distinct for its different racial mix.
Cape Verde was an island discovered by Portuguese explorers, the Africans there were brought to Cape Verde as slaves by the Portuguese, so while the Cape Verdeans who came to the United States were free rather than transported slaves, their parents were probably slaves. Cape Verdeans spoke a dialect of Portuguese called "Criolou" and settled around the country--I interviewed a Cape Verdean woman whose parents came from the island of Fogo for a book on a local Portuguese neighborhood. They were generally considered part of the Portuguese community, which was not really considered "white" until after World War II. I was told the Cape Verdeans often participated in Portuguese cultural traditions if there was a Portuguese neighborhood or community, along with their own traditions, but they were often singled out within the Portuguese community. I assume this was based on skin color, but there were also some factional differences between mainland ("Continental") Portuguese and those from the island colonies, like the Azores and Madeira, while Cape Verde was distinct for its different racial mix.
That's interesting. So culture (sort of) trumped race in self-identity for the Cape Verdeans? Makes sense in some ways (even today, many black immigrants identify with culture, such as being West Indian etc. more than race). I wonder if technically they are "Hispanics" (though that term means associated with Spain and not Portugal).
Another issue I think that makes historically American black-white segregation different in terms of the urban-landscape than say segregation with many of the other non-white, such as Asian, Hispanic, or even white ethnic minority groups is that is that the latter, although sometimes to an extent involuntary or imposed on them, can be also more voluntary self-segregation that is culture-based.
Little Italy, Chinatown, Jewish, Irish neighborhoods etc. could come about, not only partly by discrimination, feeling alienated by the mainstream but also because people wanted to live with communities of their own with shops and businesses.
However, segregation to blacks was not really from any choice of their own. They couldn't really choose to live with others based on shared cultural communities (the way that Italians or Chinese often choose or chose to live with their "own people", though forced segregation existed for non-black racial minorities too, like Chinese on the West coast). That makes "black" neighborhoods different from most immigrant/ethnic enclaves.
That's interesting. So culture (sort of) trumped race in self-identity for the Cape Verdeans? Makes sense in some ways (even today, many black immigrants identify with culture, such as being West Indian etc. more than race). I wonder if technically they are "Hispanics" (though that term means associated with Spain and not Portugal).
The term "Latino" was invented to describe both Spanish-speaking and Portuguese-speaking folks, while "Hispanic" is strictly Spanish speakers. Apparently the term for Portuguese speakers is "Lusitanic" but it isn't a term I hear very often, and I know a lot of Portuguese folks.
Racial categories like these are basically imaginary constructs, they don't have firm or explicit boundaries--there is no "technically black" except what we decide black is. American Black culture is a unique development of the past few centuries, drawn on in part by their special circumstances, and the rules regarding how white you had to be to avoid becoming valuable property instead of a person.
In the case of the Cape Verdeans, I think they were no longer slaves by the 19th century and I think there was a lot of intermarriage, resulting in a culture that mixed both--like Brazil or much of the Caribbean, a culture that intermixed bits of Portuguese or Spanish with native islander or South American native culture and African culture brought over by slaves. People are fungible and culture emerges and mutates quite frequently, especially when people are moved over long distances and don't necessarily have a way to transport their cultural icons and institutions with them.
Native-born African-Americans or black Americans (what's the appropriate way to distinguish them without implying one group is somehow more "American" than another?)
as an ethnic group there's probably no other group that's more american (in the geo-political/cultural sense) than african-americans.
But if someone is 1st generation I refer to them as whatever country they're from or, if speaking in a vague sense I'll use the region - south asians, west africans, eastern europeans, etc.
You raise an interesting point though and I guess we'll have to wait a generation before we see how the 3rd and 4th generations African-US(?) kids define themselves.
The term "Latino" was invented to describe both Spanish-speaking and Portuguese-speaking folks, while "Hispanic" is strictly Spanish speakers. Apparently the term for Portuguese speakers is "Lusitanic" but it isn't a term I hear very often, and I know a lot of Portuguese folks.
Lusophone is the term for Portuguese speakers. The Lusitania was a British passenger ship that was torpedoed by zee Germans towards the beginning of WWI.
FWIW - Spaniards are 'hispanic' but they're not Latino.
I think Latino, if anything, is clever as a marketing term for Telemundo, Univision, etc because a Peruvian and a Cuban have far less in common culturally than an american and an australian, a belgian and a quebecois, or even an Italian and an Argentine.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
