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Three Worlds of Race, Labor, and Politics

Cybelle Fox

in Three Worlds of Relief: Race, Immigration, and the American Welfare State from the Progressive Era to the New Deal

This chapter describes in detail the three worlds, focusing on the factors—labor, race, and politics—that will best explain the differential incorporation of blacks, Mexicans, and European immigrants ... More

This chapter describes in detail the three worlds, focusing on the factors—labor, race, and politics—that will best explain the differential incorporation of blacks, Mexicans, and European immigrants into the American welfare state and the scope, form, and function of relief provision across regions. On the eve of the Great Depression, the vast majority of European immigrants lived in the Northeast and Midwest, Mexicans lived overwhelmingly in the Southwest, while most blacks still lived in the South. So different were their experiences with the racial, political, and labor market systems in these regions that these groups could be said to be living in separate worlds. Each of them suffered from significant discrimination at the hands of native-born whites in the early part of the twentieth century. European immigrants were largely included in the social welfare system, blacks were largely excluded, while Mexicans were often expelled from the nation simply for requesting assistance.Less

No Beggar Spirit

Cybelle Fox

in Three Worlds of Relief: Race, Immigration, and the American Welfare State from the Progressive Era to the New Deal

This chapter shows how social workers saw European immigrants as culturally inept but nonetheless imagined them as “objects of reform” and so included them in their early social welfare efforts. ... More

This chapter shows how social workers saw European immigrants as culturally inept but nonetheless imagined them as “objects of reform” and so included them in their early social welfare efforts. Moreover, they became their defenders before a sometimes hostile public. They refuted assertions that southeastern European immigrants were paupers and worked to forge a competing construction, marshaling “evidence” to prove that the new immigrants were hardworking, thrifty, sober, and self-sufficient. Part of their confidence in these immigrants rested on their firm conviction that southern and eastern Europeans were capable of economic and racial assimilation. Indeed, looking around, they would have found much evidence confirming these beliefs: from high naturalization rates to growing socioeconomic mobility, all facilitated by the racial, labor, and political context in which these immigrants lived. Social workers then lobbied against national origin quotas and tried to protect European immigrants from harsh immigration and deportation laws.Less

Race, Immigration, and the American Welfare State

Cybelle Fox

in Three Worlds of Relief: Race, Immigration, and the American Welfare State from the Progressive Era to the New Deal

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the three worlds of relief created by the intersection of labor, race, and politics in welfare state development. Blacks, Mexicans, and European ... More

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the three worlds of relief created by the intersection of labor, race, and politics in welfare state development. Blacks, Mexicans, and European immigrants inhabited three separate worlds in the first third of the twentieth century, each characterized by its own system of race and labor market relations and its own distinct political system. From these worlds—and each group's place within them—three separate perspectives emerged about each group's propensity to become dependent on relief. The distinct political systems, race and labor market relations, and ideologies about each group's proclivity to use relief, in turn, influenced the scope, reach, and character of the relief systems that emerged across American communities.Less

Integration

Timothy Matovina

in Latino Catholicism: Transformation in America's Largest Church

This chapter demonstrates how national parishes and their parochial schools were among the societal institutions that most effectively fostered the integration of European immigrants and their ... More

This chapter demonstrates how national parishes and their parochial schools were among the societal institutions that most effectively fostered the integration of European immigrants and their offspring. Attitudes of forced assimilation can lead to frustration and thwart newcomers' desire to integrate. Yet church congregations and organizations remain a refuge for many emigres and can help them and their children and grandchildren adapt to life in the United States. While across generations English language use and other influences of the U.S. milieu are inevitable, the relative success or failure of Latinos' incorporation into the U.S. Catholic Church enhances or inhibits that process. Within the Catholic fold itself, the progression from hospitality to homecoming remains a daunting challenge that many Hispanic ministry leaders concur has only begun to be addressed.Less

The Boundaries of Social Citizenship

Cybelle Fox

in Three Worlds of Relief: Race, Immigration, and the American Welfare State from the Progressive Era to the New Deal

This concluding chapter summarizes the principal findings and offers some reflections on the boundaries of social citizenship and the role of race and immigration in American social welfare ... More

This concluding chapter summarizes the principal findings and offers some reflections on the boundaries of social citizenship and the role of race and immigration in American social welfare provision. Taken together, the treatment of blacks, Mexicans, and European immigrants provides a nuanced picture of how race, citizenship, and nativity served as dividing lines between those who were judged worthy of assistance and those who were not. Despite persistent and widespread nativism, European immigrants were included within the boundaries of social citizenship while Mexicans were left on the periphery, granted limited inclusion at times, completely excluded at other times, and in some instances expelled from the nation entirely. Ultimately, the different treatment of blacks, European immigrants and Mexicans reflected the worlds each group inhabited—worlds bound by both regional political economies and each group's social position.Less

Sheep and Sunshine: New Zealand

Marjory Harper and Stephen Constantine

in Migration and Empire

The Maori population of Aotearoa was much reduced when European immigration from the UK turned the islands into New Zealand. Distance from preferred UK sources of settlers meant that recruiting was ... More

The Maori population of Aotearoa was much reduced when European immigration from the UK turned the islands into New Zealand. Distance from preferred UK sources of settlers meant that recruiting was always a highly politicized project, from the days of the New Zealand Company to 20th‐century ventures which initially tapped into imperial government funds. The balance between immigration and natural increase as a cause of population growth and alterations in migrants' occupations as the economy developed are examined, and the expectations and realities of settlement are compared. Controls restricting the entry of some migrants and the positive recruiting of others explain the age, occupations, experiences, and largely British identity of New Zealand. This last began to alter when other Europeans and especially non‐Europeans were admitted, and the UK became more orientated towards Europe.Less

A New Deal for the Alien

Cybelle Fox

in Three Worlds of Relief: Race, Immigration, and the American Welfare State from the Progressive Era to the New Deal

This chapter focuses on the Social Security Act and the disparate treatment of blacks, Mexicans, and European immigrants in the administration of Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, Aid to ... More

This chapter focuses on the Social Security Act and the disparate treatment of blacks, Mexicans, and European immigrants in the administration of Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, Aid to Dependent Children, and Old Age Assistance. Though framed as legislation that would help the “average citizen,” scholars have shown that the Social Security Act in fact excluded the vast majority of blacks from the most generous social insurance programs, relegating them to meager, decentralized, and demeaning means-tested programs. European immigrants, by contrast, benefited from many of the provisions of the Social Security Act, and in at least some respects, they benefited more than even native-born whites. The net result of these policies was that blacks were disproportionately shunted into categorical assistance programs with low benefit levels, European immigrants were disproportionately covered under social insurance regardless of citizenship, and Mexicans were often shut out altogether.Less

Repatriating the Unassimilable Aliens

Cybelle Fox

in Three Worlds of Relief: Race, Immigration, and the American Welfare State from the Progressive Era to the New Deal

This chapter details variation in relief officials' efforts to use their own funds to expel destitute individuals from the nation. Relief agencies across the country helped repatriate immigrants ... More

This chapter details variation in relief officials' efforts to use their own funds to expel destitute individuals from the nation. Relief agencies across the country helped repatriate immigrants during the Great Depression. However, the scale, scope, and character of these efforts differed drastically depending on the target of repatriation. Relief officials both inside and outside the Southwest used their own funds to repatriate Mexicans who requested relief assistance. These officials conducted mass-removal programs, often using coercive practices, targeting Mexicans and Mexican Americans alike, and placing greater emphasis on the economic savings than on the effects on those repatriated. Where European immigrants were concerned, however, repatriation programs developed on a more limited “casework basis,” where the needs and wishes of the individual were paramount.Less

Inbetween Peoples: Race, Nationality, and the “New-Immigrant” Working Class

James Barrett

in Colored White: Transcending the Racial Past

This chapter addresses the racial position of eastern and southern European immigrants in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, finding it to lie “inbetween” full whiteness and the ... More

This chapter addresses the racial position of eastern and southern European immigrants in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, finding it to lie “inbetween” full whiteness and the fiercer oppressions inflicted on people of color. The development of racial awareness and attitudes and an increasingly racialized worldview among new immigrant workers themselves are described. The chapter also aims to destabilize modern categories of race and ethnicity and to capture the confusion, inbetween-ness, and flux in the minds of native-born Americans and the immigrants themselves. Americanization was never just about nation but was always about race and nation. “White men's unions” often seemed the best path from inbetween-ness to white manhood, but they also erected some of the most significant obstacles. The chapter then moves from the racial categorization of new immigrants to their own racial consciousness. Both “becoming American” and “becoming white” could imply coercive threats to European national identities.Less

Once Again, Strangers on Our Shores

Mary C. Waters

in The Fractious Nation?: Unity and Division in Contemporary American Life

This chapter questions whether the new immigrants are really so different from the lionized immigrants of yore by giving a more sociological twist to the popular query. It explains that the current ... More

This chapter questions whether the new immigrants are really so different from the lionized immigrants of yore by giving a more sociological twist to the popular query. It explains that the current debate hinges on the question of how today's immigrants differ from earlier ones and restrictionists usually make two distinctions between the post-1965 immigrants and the earlier waves of European immigrants. It argues that differences between them may lie in the social circumstances that shape their absorption into American life. It explains that today's immigrants arriving after the rise of the welfare state are not encouraged to work as hard as previous immigrants, who did not enjoy such government help. It further explains that the immigrants themselves are different because the government admits racially different groups into a society that no longer advocates assimilation.Less

Mainstreaming White Immigrants and the Industrial Working Class in the BSA

Benjamin René Jordan

in Modern Manhood and the Boy Scouts of America: "Citizenship, Race, and the Environment, 1910-1930"

Chapter 5 argues that Boy Scouts of America national leaders worked diligently in the early 1910s to defuse the concerns non-Protestant, working-class, and European immigrant leaders had that the ... More

Chapter 5 argues that Boy Scouts of America national leaders worked diligently in the early 1910s to defuse the concerns non-Protestant, working-class, and European immigrant leaders had that the program was a militarist, WASP conversion factory. Labor union officials like Samuel Gompers, Catholic Boy Scout leaders, Mormon Boy Scout leaders, Jewish Boy Scout leaders, and Polish Boy Scout leaders partnered with national and local council officials to establish a growing number of troops which balanced Americanization with the teaching of their respective cultural and religious traditions. Although national Scout policies maintaining the expensive uniform requirement and regular troop meeting format set limits to the number of working class boys who could participate fully in the organization, the Boy Scouts’ proactive incorporation of such groups helped bring them into mainstream culture, thus broadening modern white manhood to include diverse, light-skinned, working-class groups in American society.Less

Recuerdos de Lafayette: The Making and Forgetting of the Past in Central Indiana

Sujey Vega

in Latino Heartland: Of Borders and Belonging in the Midwest

This chapter examines the critical connections between past and present battles of community belonging, with particular emphasis on how the Latinos of Lafayette historically positioned themselves in ... More

This chapter examines the critical connections between past and present battles of community belonging, with particular emphasis on how the Latinos of Lafayette historically positioned themselves in relation to Native Americans, Black freedmen, European immigrants, and even the Ku Kux Klan. It first considers how and why Mexican residents began settling in Lafayette, and what life was like for the city's Mexican “pioneers” during those earlier settlement stages in the 1960s. It then analyzes Indiana's role in slavery, abolitionism, and the construction of White benevolence in its historical record and concludes with a discussion of the parallels between the narratives of Lafayette's earlier immigrants and the immigration debate of 2006.Less

Citizenship Reconfigured

in The Scramble for Citizens: Dual Nationality and State Competition for Immigrants

This chapter focuses on policies and organizational efforts to foster and maintain citizenship since World War II. It examines the reversal in political and economic fortunes that motivates the ... More

This chapter focuses on policies and organizational efforts to foster and maintain citizenship since World War II. It examines the reversal in political and economic fortunes that motivates the descendants of past European immigrants in Argentina to claim the nationality of their ancestors and shows how former emigration countries like Italy and Spain revive dormant policies and institute new ones in line with prevailing political and economic conditions and their geopolitical standing. Former immigration countries like Argentina devise new policies to maintain links to their citizens abroad. The discussion also describes how the paper trail left by past encounters between states and migrants makes these claims possible.Less

Machine Matters: The Politics of Immigrant Integration in the Chicago Metro Area

Jaime Dominguez

in Unsettled Americans: Metropolitan Context and Civic Leadership for Immigrant Integration

This chapter also takes up immigrant integration in the context of a strong political machine, persistent black-white cleavages, and intense neighborhood identification and competition in Chicago. ... More

This chapter also takes up immigrant integration in the context of a strong political machine, persistent black-white cleavages, and intense neighborhood identification and competition in Chicago. These factors created an opening for white Democratic mayors to include Latino immigrants in their voting base as white ethnic voting declined—a strategy that did not prevent an insurgent Latino candidate from challenging the mayor in 2015. More broadly, the chapter suggests that the presence of Eastern European immigrants has diminished the appetite of greater Chicago's native-born white population to “racialize” the immigrant integration debate. It points to variation between different suburbs and also underscores the importance of immigrant-oriented social services at the county and state level won by immigrant social justice organizations. Finally, the chapter considers whether the presence of regionalist efforts “spill over” to a more positive frame around immigrant integration.Less

The Social Logic of Colonial Anti-Judaism: Revisiting the Anti-Jewish Crisis in French Algeria, 1889–1902

Yuval Tal

in Place in Modern Jewish Culture and Society

This chapter examines the social functions of anti-Judaism in French Algeria during the period 1889–1902 by focusing on the roles played by ethnic groups involved in what came to be known as the ... More

This chapter examines the social functions of anti-Judaism in French Algeria during the period 1889–1902 by focusing on the roles played by ethnic groups involved in what came to be known as the “anti-Jewish crisis.” The anti-Jewish crisis erupted in the late 1890s, when the three enfranchised ethnic groups living in French Algeria—Frenchmen with roots in France, European immigrants, and local Jews—challenged the established social order in the colony. The chapter first provides a background on the anti-Jewish crisis before discussing the segregated landscape of Algiers and the rise of the French anti-Jewish movement in the early 1890s. It then considers how xenophobia developed among many Frenchmen with regard to European immigrants in French Algeria and the participation of such immigrants in anti-Jewish riots. It also looks at Jewish reaction to the anti-Jewish crisis.Less

. Nationals: Salvador da Bahia and São Paulo, 1930–1945

Paulina L. Alberto

in Terms of Inclusion: Black Intellectuals in Twentieth-Century Brazil

This chapter examines the whitening ideologies that valued European immigrants above black workers, which had turned the word nacional into a derisive euphemism for pretos and pardos. To be a ... More

This chapter examines the whitening ideologies that valued European immigrants above black workers, which had turned the word nacional into a derisive euphemism for pretos and pardos. To be a “national” in the Republic, as writers in Sao Paulo's black press ruefully pointed out time and again, was essentially to be a second-class citizen, or in their terms, a foreigner in one's own land. This situation changed dramatically after November 1930, when a bloodless coup by Getulio Vargas put an end to the Republic and inaugurated a fifteen-year nationalist regime. Like other nationalist leaders taking power across Latin America in this period, Vargas vowed to do away with the political and economic structures and sharp social divisions of an earlier oligarchic regime. In Brazil, this meant that the nation would no longer be run by alternating groups of landholders from the agricultural powerhouses of Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais.Less

Mr. Perry’s Sweet Shop and a New Old Time Dance

Susan Eike Spalding

in Appalachian Dance: Creativity and Continuity in Six Communities

This chapter examines the role of of cultural exchange in the evolution of old time dancing and the creation of a new style in dance in the coal town of Dante in Russell County, Virginia. It begins ... More

This chapter examines the role of of cultural exchange in the evolution of old time dancing and the creation of a new style in dance in the coal town of Dante in Russell County, Virginia. It begins with a historical background on the Cumberland Plateau and the town of Dante as well as the community's transition from farming to coal mining. It then discusses the impact of social and economic factors, including the interaction among local residents, African American southerners, and European immigrants, on Dante's dance traditions. It also looks at the exchange of dance ideas that took place in venues like Mr. Perry's Sweet Shop, along with the ways that dancing forged connections among African American communities in the coalfields. Finally, it explores changes in the old time dancing in Dante, citing the role played by the values embedded in the movement of the old and new dances and to people's beliefs about community, change, and the individual's relationship to it.Less

The Empire of Virtue: Colonialism in the Age of Abolition

Jennifer E. Sessions

in By Sword and Plow: France and the Conquest of Algeria

This chapter discusses the new system of colonization that French thinkers and policymakers envisioned and sought to implement in Algeria. Under this new system, colonial emigration would provide an ... More

This chapter discusses the new system of colonization that French thinkers and policymakers envisioned and sought to implement in Algeria. Under this new system, colonial emigration would provide an outlet for elements that posed a threat to public order at home; European immigrants would provide free labor to the colonies; and the growth of settler societies would increase the scope of global trade. Equally important, the new colonial emigrants were expected to settle not in cities, but on the land. The resulting colonial society would be essentially rural, and agriculture and civic virtue would flourish in place of the corruptions of urban, industrial life. The goal of this kind of agrarian colonization was summed up in the phrase that would be applied to French policy in Algeria throughout the nineteenth century: “peuplement et fertilisation” (settlement and fertilization).Less