In the chapter titled “The Sting of Prejudice,” Nancy Foner reveals that the issues of racism and prejudice that immigrants face in this country have many complex layers. She shows that being considered white or black is a very complicated matter, especially for immigrants of certain countries where they have mixed ancestries and convoluted social hierarchies that are very different from the way that race is seen in the United States. Additionally, Foner explains that aside from your nation of origin or shade of your skin color, the way in which your race is characterized is due in part to you economic position. For example, she explains that you are perceived to be “whiter” as you move up the economic ladder.
All of these ideas were very interesting. However, the part of the chapter that personally grabbed my attention was the section called “When Jews and Italians Were Inferior Races.” Nowadays, when an openly racist, anti-Semitic, or prejudicial comment is made publicly in a newspaper article, radio segment, or t.v. show, there is enormous uproar. I can vividly remember several times in the past few years where radio hosts or television anchors have been fired immediately after making such a statement. And although racial and religious prejudices still exist, especially for certain immigrants as Foner points out, revealing prejudices in public is extremely frowned upon in our country today.
But as Foner illustrates, this was not always the case in America. Despite our notion of the United States as a country that believes in democracy and equality for all, there was a time not so long ago that feelings racism and anti-Semitism were widespread and discussed openly among the most respected institutions in this country. Foner cites many instances of anti-Semitism during the late 19th and early 20th centuries when the New York Times, Saturday Evening Post, Harper’s, and the New York Sun all made terrible derogatory statements against Jews. Furthermore, resorts had signs, that read “No Jews or Dogs Admitted Here,” and NYU had signs “that told Jews to drop out so the school could be a ‘white man’s college'” (Foner 147). In fact, as recently as the 1930’s an American history textbook asked whether it would be possible for Jews and Italians to be absorbed into the body of the American people.
Because I never lived in a time when these sorts of anti-Semitic and racial slurs were part of the daily public discourse in the United States, it is easy for me to have naive a perspective on the racial issues in this country. People always wonder how a country that was as culturally, intellectually, and scientifically advanced as Germany was, could have simultaneously committed the most horrific racial and anti-Semitic acts of violence imaginable. That question becomes much more complicated when you realize that many of the prejudices that led to that violence have existed in the United States as well.
