How jews became white folks summary. "How Jews Became White Folk" by Karen Brodkin 2022-10-17
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The process of how Jews became considered white in the United States is a complex and multifaceted one. It is not a linear process and has involved both external factors, such as societal attitudes and government policies, as well as internal factors, such as how Jews themselves have navigated and responded to these external forces.
One of the key external factors that contributed to the perception of Jews as white was the shift in immigration patterns to the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. During this time, there was a significant influx of Eastern European Jewish immigrants, who were often perceived as being racially distinct from the primarily Anglo-Saxon Protestant white majority. However, as these Jewish immigrants assimilated into American society and intermarried with non-Jewish whites, they began to be seen as more similar to the white majority. Additionally, the rise of the civil rights movement in the mid-20th century, which focused on the experiences of African Americans, further distanced Jews from the non-white minority group.
Internal factors also played a role in how Jews were perceived as white. Many Jews, particularly those who were part of the middle and upper classes, actively sought to distance themselves from other minority groups and to assimilate into mainstream white society. This included adopting the cultural norms and values of the white majority, such as speaking English and adopting Christianity.
It is important to note that the process of Jews becoming white has not been a uniform one, and the experience of Jewish Americans has varied greatly depending on their specific circumstances and backgrounds. Additionally, the concept of race is a social construct and has changed over time, so the way that Jews have been perceived as white has also evolved.
Overall, the process of how Jews became considered white in the United States has been influenced by both external and internal factors, including shifts in immigration patterns, the civil rights movement, and the assimilation of Jewish immigrants into mainstream white society. While the experience of Jewish Americans has not been uniform, the perception of Jews as white has played a significant role in shaping their experiences and opportunities in American society.
How Jews Became White Folks: And What That Says about Race in America by Karen Brodkin
Using her own family as a touchstone, Brodkin interrogates the relationship between racial assignment and identity formation. In 1957, he was a writer in residence at the University of Virginia. Ripley and Daniel Brinton that there existed three or four major races of the Alpines, Mediterraneans, and worst of all Jews, who seemed to be everywhere in his native New York- Key to the efforts of the social legitimacy of theories of Eugenics. They thus claimed for themselves the prerogative of the family wage, and the middle class status that went along with it. Yet Sacks implies that many Jews are unaware of possessing white privilege, and many are also unaware of the role that affirmative action played in their achievement of upward social mobility. Second, since white privilege is intricately linked to male privilege, the Jewish quest for whiteness also re-defined the Jewish man in terms of mainstream masculine ideals According to Brodkin, Jewish intellectuals were a primary force behind the "whitening" of American Jews, a process that took firm root during the 1950s and 1960s.
African-Americans were not included in these affirmative action programs, and were therefore left behind. Education and Occupation The GI Bill transformed higher education, raising the educational level for generations to come. But Sheepshead Bay was already a few steps removed from the Lower East Side, and by no means a location of a "pure" immigrant community untainted by the stains of bourgeois convention. Euroraces Immigrants poured into urban centers, which were more than 70% immigrant, leading urban America to "take on a distinctly immigrant flavor" 54 Red scare is linked to anti-working class sentiments "Scientific" racism was a popular ideology: eugenics allowed some of the racist beliefs to be codified into Nordic races were deemed upper class; everyone else lower class Records from 1930 census distinguish "native" whites from immigrants; the "nativist" ideology Jews experienced much discrimination in universities because they tended to attend universities; some schools like Harvard developed anti-immigrant admissions programs Jews came from urban and Essentially their timing was right for upward social mobility; it is not just about placing a high value on Education changed in response to burgeoning industry; schools started to have specialized career-oriented programs rather than just be about intellectual pursuits. Whiteness is and has always relied on continually renegotiated interpretations; that has more to do with ones social class rather than skin color.
“How Jews Became White Folk” by Karen Brodkin, Sample of Essays
Scientific racism can refer to both obsolete and contemporary scientific theories, and includes the use of anthropology notably physical anthropology , anthropometry, craniometry, and other disciplines in the construction of typologies and the classification of humans into distinct biological races. On the contrary, the immigrant community often expressed contradictory impulses while trying to define its place in its new society. When people become scared they often react in different ways, some ways more violent than others. Taking place in Alabama during the 1930s Scout, Jem, and their father, Atticus, go through and experience how the world really is. For the dominant white society, the gravitation of Jews and European white minorities toward hegemonic white culture served as a Horatio Alger story within the cosmology of the nation and allowed for misguided public policy. .
Blacks were excluded from suburbia, pushed into dilapidated inner city developments because "the FHA believed in Up until the GI Bill, both Jews and Blacks received the same type of legislated housing discrimination, as the FHA prohibited the sales of certain properties to Jews and African-Americans alike "African-Americans were totally shut out of the suburban boom" 65 "urban renewal" programs meant smashing down buildings in cities and making them "bad places to live" after the war 65 urban renewal created downtown business districts to replace the manufacturing, shifting manufacturing interests to the periphery freeway construction tore apart literally African-American communities the Jews did not pull themselves up by their bootstraps; they received affirmative action The GI Bill, the FHA, and the VA mortgages were forms of affirmative action open to Jews but not blacks or women According to Sacks, American Jews were the recipients of the "the most massive affirmative action program in U. . Madison Grants influential "The Passing of the Great Race" published in 1916. The red scare fueled by an economic depression, a massive postwar wave of strikes, the Russian Revolution and another influx of postwar immigration Instead of seizing the opportunity to end institutionalized racism, the federal government did its level best to shut and double-seal the postwar window of opportunity for African Americans. She explains the changes in the history of Jews in the United States by analyzing the multi-generational experiences of her family.
They are expected to assimilate, but at the same time they are denied legal status and even worst they face the change of being deported at any time. Scholars have argued that the massive migration during those years straddling the nineteenth and twentieth centuries brought about a revision of racial categories. Grant popularized notions developed by William Z. Excerpt from Research Paper : Jews Became White The Nordic races were viewed as the "real Americans" 53 Even The height of anti-Semitism in the United States was in the Anti-Semitism was related to other types of After WWII, the attitudes of Americans changed so that Europeans were viewed as "model minorities" Jews saw themselves as successful based on hard work and deferred gratification; and discounted the impact of white privilege There was a sort of affirmative action program for Euromales, essentially "whitening" certain groups and creating a new model of institutionalized racism. Conclusion Throughout recent history the Asian cultures have been periodically stripped of their military abilities, however, their educational goals have always been supported. .
Cohen on Brodkin, 'How Jews Became White Folks and What That Says About Race in America'
Since its creation America has been called the land of opportunity, but around the late nineteenth century the United States started to become more exclusive by Negroes Are Anti-White Analysis relationship between Blacks and Jews is one that most people are familiar with when thinking about the two groups. Unlike their nativist counterparts, Progressives viewed immigrants as mutable beings capable of transforming themselves in a democratic environment, even if the reformers tried to inculcate a monocultural Anglo-centric ideal as the goal of such transformation. Though individuals and groups can counter this oppressive force by forming distinctive identities, those very identities are formed under the limiting shadow of racial assignment. At a physical level, urban renewal reshaped them and federal programs brought private developers and public officials together to create downtown central business districts where far behind that of white veterans How Jews Became White Folks explains how Jews have experienced a kind of double consciousness cf. She neglects the fact, however, that the nativists were not the only game in town. Women were also excluded from the affirmative action programs, but white women fared far better than their black counterparts. She ends up advocating a return to yiddishkeit--defined as a commitment to the Jewish people--as a way for Jews of eastern European descent in the U.
For one, it has occurred at the expense of the continued exclusion of non-white groups. She also provided summaries of various literature related to economic and gender components of the nuclear family. Suburbanization After World War Two more Americans owned their own houses, creating suburban exodus. Second, since white privilege is intricately linked to male privilege, the Jewish quest for whiteness also re-defined the Jewish man in terms of mainstream masculine ideals. Perhaps more salient to this audience, Brodkin suggests, as others have, that Jewish meaning has been lost in an exchange with the communal well-being inherent in whiteness. Bill and access to the suburbs. Does money buy whiteness? She does this by first explaining how Jews were racially categorized prior to this time, and how they were considered to be inferior to the white race.
How Jews Became White Folks: And What That Says About Race in America
He next turns to Mannoni's statement that a minority can only have experiences of dependency or inferiority toward the majority 92-93. Jews' movement from racial other, to not-quite-white, to white reveals how race in America is constructed in the discursive space opened by a binary between whiteness and blackness. Brodkin is primarily interested in how racial assignment affected the political consciousness of Eastern European Jewish immigrants and their descendants in the United States. Jews' assimilationist aspirations did not necessarily undermine their commitment to a socialist worldview. Although Brodkin's work might have benefited from the inclusion of work by more recent critical race theorists, her easy language and engaging use of oral history combine to make How Jews Became White Folks accessible and well-suited for introducing undergraduate students to a variety of difficult theoretical concepts. Brodkin made her argument based on ideas provided by pieces of literature related to Marxist history.
