Proposal

Michael Skok

How racism has changed of Immigrant groups over time?

As with immigration, racism changes to the tune of time and volume of immigrants that come in. I thought this would be an interesting topic to discuss because its taken a center stage in American politics today. For instance, immigration reform has heavy undertones with Latino (mostly Mexican) immigration, and attempting to “limit” the volume that come in as illegal and even legal immigrants. This has been an ongoing debate for large parts of American history, just targeted against a different immigrant group. There was the Chinese Exclusion Act, racism against the Irish, Italian and Polish groups early 20th century, and finally against the latest surge from Latin America.

Another angle one can look at this issue is from racism due to national security issues. Post 9/11, we have seen the Sikh Temple Shootings, Racial Profiling, and the WTC Mosque controversy – all that stems from both an irrational fear/ hatred of an entire religion/ anyone or anything that resembles said religion. The Japanese Internment Camps, although a much darker time period of American bigotry was another time in our history where a certain group/ groups that looked like them was victimized on the back of Pearl Harbor. Germans also suffered bigotry and hatred during both World Wars, where Germany was enemies of America in both cases. There is a general phobia created when horrible events associated with groups that stems from irrational hatred and misunderstanding of how the actions of a few do not represent that of the entire group.

I find this topic particularly interesting because it exposes the frailties of the human consciousness unable (for some) to not generalize based on one unfortunate event/ phenomenon. It is the dark side of immigration, but just as interesting to look into as any other topic.