Any student who has taken an American standardized test, such as an AP or an SAT, will remember being asked which ethnicity he or she was, “for statistical reasons” of course. Really, however, this kind of “question” is deeply rooted in the history of New York immigration. When whites wanted to distinguish themselves during the first wave of immigration from the entering Jews and Italians, they declared each of those people separate “races,” since they weren’t black, and didn’t any other means of excuse.
In more modern times, specifically speaking, the second wave of immigration, many white Americans consider the entire amount of people coming from the various countries of the Spanish speaking caribbean, as “Hispanic” or “Latino.” Although we have settled on the term “ethnicity,” in essence, the idea of race is implied. Even a white skinned immigrant from Latin America or the caribbean would be considered Hispanic, and not white. In fact, the term “Hispanic” is even one of American creation, and certainly one that many do not feel comfortable with calling themselves. Above all, it is white man’s attempt to put a modern day, “politically-correct” label on people who they do not consider to be white.
But while some of the emotions of the first wave of immigrations followed through to the second, I believe that some of the emotions caused opposite reactions this time around: “reverse” racism. Ideas such as affirmative action were implemented at universities, and schools went from filling a maximum quota of “other races” during the first wave, to filling a minimum quota during the second wave. The idea of reverse racism could have been a reaction to the first wave of immigration, and an attempt to avoid the same sort of prejudice the second time around (even though it definitely still exists).
Above all, racism is a man-made concept created by whites in order to ensure their social, political, and economical success. If immigrants were truly a different race, they would have to be aliens coming from Mars. Instead, they only exhibit certain physical characteristics that have been determined by the white man as “inferior.”
