Racial hierarchy

As it pertains to the United States of America, racial hierarchy refers to ranking of different races/ethnic groups, based on physical and perceived characteristics that have been perpetuated through legal and political policy, leaving the "white" race on top and all other non-white races in succession beneath. Selected immigrants to the United States have attempted and succeeded in crossing over the subjective racial boundaries while others, particularly those with darker skin complexions, continue to be treated as inferior.

Japanese in the US

Japanese immigrants faced similar treatment after immigration spiked from the late 1800s to early 1900s. Over 100,000 more immigrants arrived on the Californian coast between these years. More and more Japanese immigrants were becoming successful and opening their own businesses that were lucrative. Racial tension came to a head in 1906 when the California Board of Education passed a law segregating all children of Japanese decent into separate classes. ^[2] In 1907, Theodore Roosevelt took it one step further, passing the Gentlemen’s Agreement, to eliminate the immigration of the Japanese. The agreement allowed the current Japanese born people to stay and not be exposed to the racial segregation of the school system if Japan agreed to disallow immigrants from coming to the United States.

Japanese born and Japanese-Americans were subject to further discrimination nearly four decades later, following the attack of Pearl Harbor to bring the United States into World War II. The attack created mass hysteria in the United States which caused many Americans to believe that every Japanese looking person held allegiance with Japan and were therefore forcefully taken out of their homes and relocated to several concentration camps around the Western and Mid-Western United States [ [http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/japanese_internment/1942.htm The War Relocation Authority and The Incarceration of Japanese-Americans During World War II: 1942 ] ] . Both Japanese immigrants and legitimate US citizens of Japanese decent were abducted. Franklin D. Roosevelt passed Executive Order 9066 in early 1942, legally allowing such mistreatment. ^[2] The following statement was recovered from Secretary of War Henry Stimson just prior to Roosevelt’s executive order and exemplifies the mind set of many Americans:

"The second generation Japanese can only be evacuated either as part of a total evacuation, giving access to the areas only by permits, or by frankly trying to put them out on the ground that their racial characteristics are such that we cannot understand or even trust the citizen Japanese. This latter is the fact but I am afraid it will make a tremendous hole in our constitutional system to apply it." ^[1]

Mexicans in the US

Mexican immigrants have faced similar political and cultural discrimination following initial encouraged immigration and acceptance. Many migrant workers traveled illegally over the border to work for agricultural outlets that paid low-wages and the hiring farmers answered to no authority. In accordance of the Good Neighbor Policy, the United States and Mexico initiated the Bracero Program that formalized the temporary worker program and made hiring practices more humane ^[3] . As World War II and the postwar period moved on, more and more agricultural help was needed. After problems arose between Mexico and the US, Mexico eliminated the program and stopped allowing workers to participate. In response, the US Immigration Service allowed thousands of immigrants into the country, arrested and sent them to various growers in Texas ^[3] . As a result, the illegal immigration population spiked to nearly 6,000% ^[3] . In 1954, Operation Wetback was implemented to begin the removal of the illegal population.

African-Americans

African Americans have received arguably the worst treatment of any racial category historically in the United States. Since Africans were first brought over to the Americas during the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade beginning in the 16th century, peoples of African decent have notoriously been looked at as a lesser race. Although the establishment of slavery was formally eliminated with President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in 1865, African-Americans have continually been underrepresented in political and cultural realms. Groups such as the Ku Klux Klan have attempted to instill perpetual fear and a sense of not belonging through lynching while the formal Jim Crow Laws promoted “separate but equal” and lasted up until 1965. Other forms of formal discrimination practices include the GI bill, passed in 1944, which allowed returning war veterans the opportunity to move to the suburbs for lower interest rates and a zero down payment. ^[5] Although black servicemen were eligible for this, residential discrimination forced many blacks to remain in the inner cities and over the last half century, inner city life has been neglected, mainly due to the high percentage of Afican-American population. Anti-discriminatory programs such as Affirmative Action have attempted to promote minorities and help combat the racial discrimination that continues to degrade the United States.

Chinese in the US

Beginning in the early 19th century, immigrants from China began arriving in the United States West in hopes of becoming wealthy from the Gold Rush. As surface level gold became a premium, Americans showed displeasure with the amounts of immigrants and eventually developed policy to keep them out. The Chinese Exclusion Act passed in 1882 served as the first restriction of immigration in United States history and lasted for 60 years.

Future

As the population of the United States continues to become less diverse with the blending of races, the white majority will likely begin looking for competent allies to recognize with and continue to sit on top of the hierarchy. Whites have allowed previously “colored” (as they were recognized in early censuses) peoples to assimilate once they have proven their worth but more importantly have the correct skin pigmentation. Early Italian immigrants were seen as colored and looked at as a lower race upon arriving to the United States during the Industrial Revolution. ^[4] Not until they were able to separate themselves from free Northern Blacks and establish themselves in the community where they treated as white. ^[4] Herbert Gans suggests a transformation from the dual racial hierarchy seen today in the United States of white vs. non-white, to black vs. non-black.

References

# [http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/japanese_internment/1942.htm The War Relocation Authority and The Incarceration of Japanese-American During World War II: 1942] , Harry S. Truman Library & Museum.
#Gordon, Linda, and Gary Okihiro. [http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdf?vid=10&hid=13&sid=084e80c2-3fce-4599-996d-7da8ff7fa2dc%40SRCSM1 "Persons of Japanese Ancestry"] . New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2006.
# [http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/onling/articles/OO/pqol.html The Handbook of Texas Online] . Accessed 2007-11-28.
#Herbert J. Gans. "The Possibility of a New Racial Hierarchy in the Twenty-first-century United States," in "the Cultural Territories of Rac: Black and White Boundaries, "edited by Michele Lamont, pp.371-79, 386-90. Copyright 1999 by the University of Chicago Press.
#Wikipedia.com/gi_bill