Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race

"Whiteness of a Different Color explores how European immigrants who were considered to be of different races came to be understood as a “single, consanguine race of Caucasians.” Jacobson shows how the large influx of European immigrants that began in the 1840s led to internal divisions in the concept of ‘white people.’ New hierarchies emerged to classify distinct white races, which included Celts, Slavs, Hebrews, and Anglo-Saxons. In 1924, however, whiteness began to be reconstituted again with the passage of the Johnson–Reed Act. The new law dramatically curtailed immigration, which, in turn, led all ‘white people’ to be considered ‘Caucasian.’ This drift was further propelled by the Great Migration. As a growing number of black people fled the south and headed west and north, white people came to believe that they ought to focus on the black/white binary. Jacobson’s work shows how despite the proliferation of anxieties about the Anglo-Saxon race being decimated because of the influx of inferior white races, in the years between the 1870s and the 1920s, US courts minimized the differences between “distinct white races.” Jacobson eloquently holds “whereas for some the phrase ‘white persons’ became the instrument of exclusion, for others it became a powerful crucible whose exclusions based upon distinctions of color blurred other potentially divisive physical distinctions, This, indeed, is the melting pot.”"

"Having studied and done my graduate training with Professor Jacobson, I have a soft spot for this book. Whiteness of a Different Color looks at how ethnic groups in the United States in the early 20th century, who were not considered white at the time, became assimilated into the idea of a Caucasian or white majority. He’s looking at Irish immigrants, Polish immigrants, Jewish immigrants and others. And of course there are differential levels of assimilation. He identifies that by 1924, all of these groups, which had been considered nonwhite, were pulled into whiteness. This text connects with the family history of a lot of readers who now consider themselves white. It shows how that whiteness is historically contingent. What whiteness means is wildly different across time. Readers who are interested in the contingency of whiteness across American history can go as far back as early America; the work of Peter Silvers is about how white ethnic groups in early America functioned as political blocks and only became racialized in the early 1800s. Across time whiteness is a very contingent, changing category. The classic book about white privilege, the best text for really understanding how it works, is George Lipsitz’s The Possessive Investment in Whiteness , which I think was published in the late 90s. It explains how someone who cares deeply about racial inequality and believes in their heart that people are equal can still be participating in and benefiting from a system of white supremacy. He details all the ways that differential outcomes have been made available to people based on race—outcomes in the realm of housing and education through historical practices like redlining and admissions advantages. He lays out that the problem is not merely that someone’s ancestors might’ve been slaveholders. The reality is that we all live in a system, and many people who identify as white are still benefiting from a system that advantages whiteness. Understanding all of the different ways that works might be something that needs to happen before the system of white supremacy can be dismantled."