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Alexandra Foto Working Toward Whiteness HIST 607 17 February 2020 Roediger’s book Working Toward Whiteness examines how southern and eastern European immigrants became white during the first half of the twentieth century. He argues, “the long, circuitous process by which ‘new immigrants’ became ‘white ethnics’” matters.1 Roediger analyzes the in-between nature of the immigrants’ race, explains how several changes in housing, race relations, and the New Deal policies ultimately whitened the immigrants’ ticket price for becoming white and required them to sacrifice their heritage and take part in a political alliance, which focused on the exclusion of nonwhites, most notably African Americans. In part one, Roediger alters the definition of white ethnic or “immigrant” history as part of the history of race in the United States. It primarily concentrates on race as a category into which the social and intellectual structures of the United States placed new immigrants. He details how American ethnic groups considered white today, such as Italian, Polish, and Jewish Americans, once occupied a muddled racial status in their own country while some historians have claimed that these immigrants identified as “white on arrival,” Roediger paints a very different picture, showing that it was not until the 1920s that these ethnic groups definitively became part of white America, primarily thanks to the emerging labor movement and a rise in home-buying. Furthermore, part two asks what it was like to “live in between” the stark racial binaries structuring United States life and law in the years from 1890 to 1945. It focuses on race as a form of consciousness that new immigrants developed in the United States and, to some extent, 1 Roediger, 27.

brought with them. The new immigrants challenged Americans’ fundamental understanding of race. Roediger states, “the racial landscape discovered gradually by new immigrants to the United States was a mess.”2 American racial views remained inconsistent, and, by the 1920s, a wave of immigration strengthened nativism and organized racism. Roediger defines the recent immigrants as neither white nor black, but “in-between,” and focuses on how this affected the immigrants and their ultimately successful attempts to become white. The immigrants brought their racial attitudes toward America and were surprised to learn that, upon arrival, they were not white, and, regardless of their own racial beliefs, it quickly became apparent that they did not want to be considered black. While white America discriminated against recent immigrants, African and Chinese Americans still faced much worse discrimination and racial violence. Roediger’s examination of the legal, political, and academic sources is informative, seeing as he observes how Americans sorted the new immigrants based on their perception of race, not ethnicity. While white Americans generally excluded new immigrants from the white race and identified them as inferior, the state’s view remained muddled. The naturalization of white American citizens was possible under American immigration laws. However, in 1923 the U.S. Supreme Court abandoned expert testimony to decide who was “white” and, therefore, eligible for naturalized citizenship in the Thind case.3 Instead, the Court developed a rule utilizing the “common speech” or “popular understanding” of whiteness.4 Unsurprisingly, this rule did not help, because Americans themselves did not know which new immigrants could or should be

2 35. 3 59. 4 59.

classified as white. New arrivals challenged Americans notions of whiteness due to its inclusion of skin color, nationality, and religion. In addition to navigating American’s muddled racial waters in court, new immigrants faced confusing race relations in the job market, were excluded from specialized skills jobs, and competed with African Americans for jobs at the bottom of the rung of the labor market.5 Similarly, Slavic immigrants were confined to dangerous jobs in the railroad industry and, over time, the racial slur “hunky” used to describe Slavic immigrants, was used to describe disabled railroad workers.6 While the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924 intended to stop the movement of southern and eastern Europeans into the United States, it ensured the new immigrants would assimilate and become white. The later generations of immigrants gradually became less distinguishable from white Americans. When European immigration was stopped, businesses in the Midwest and North and were forced to look to southern African Americans for labor. Immigrants’ views of African Americans toughened as they began to perceive themselves as white, and they too began to discriminate against them frequently. Working Toward Whiteness addresses the “in-between” immigrants who were not white on arrival, but in practice absorbed the local prejudices, finding grounds for advancement through them. Roediger deepens the understanding, not just of the immigrant experience, but of how several categories developed official and political force and endurance.

5 78. 6 74....