WHITE AMERICANS
Introduction
Race is diverse and can be perceived from different perspectives depending on the context; for instance, the scientific point of view of race is usually different from the social constructs of the subject. Race and ethnicity in the context of United States refers to the self-identification groups that people opt to identify with and indicate their origin. The racial classifications usually represent the socio-political constructs that people consider their origin. Apart from the scientific and anthropological approaches to racial construction, it also takes into consideration the socio-cultural attributes and ancestries that are identified using scientific approaches and that are not necessarily biological in nature. With these regard, the United States is considered a country that has immense racial diversity (Tsuda, 2009). In the course of its history, the United States has been considered as a dream country for many, resulting to inception of people from diverse racial and ethnic origins. Having an in depth understanding of the core roots of this ethnic and racial diversity over the history of the United States is important to understand the contemporary America.
Immigration into the New World can be significantly attributed to separation of the various regions in the Old World. Within the context of the Americas, the immigrant community commenced mixing in the midst of themselves and with the native residents found in the continent. For instance, in the US, a significant percentage of individuals who consider themselves as being of African Americans origin have a relationship with ancestors from Europe, which was found after an investigation of the genetic markets that consist of varying frequencies between the different continents. Ancestry from Europe ranged from an approximate of 7 percent for sample population from Jamaica to about 23 percent for sample populations of African Americans. On a similar account, s significant percentage of people who identify themselves as Europeans have some associations to ancestors of Native Americans and Africans, which is through interracial marriages and slow inclusion of individuals having mixed ancestry into the majority of the American population (Tsuda, 2009).
Over the course of early history of the United States, Native Americans, African Americans and European Americans have been recognized as fitting in different racial origins. Within an approximate duration of three hundred years, the criteria for racial classification within these identified racial groups were mostly same, consisting of the physical characteristics of a person, percentage of the recognized non-European ancestry and the social background. The late 19th century saw a diversion of the criteria for racial classifications. For the period of Reconstruction and afterwards, the civil war paved way for the liberation of the slaves. The Reconstruction was an effort to increase the supremacy of the whites in southern America. During this time, whites who were conservative considered any individual who had known black ancestry as black. This legal definition of racial classification was not passed into law until the 20th century in most states found in the southern America. On the other hand, race that has been socially constructed was inflicted during certain periods in history with the sole objective of categorization and discrimination of people, who were perceived to be inferior. A typical example was in the United States, whereby the Whites were viewed as superior compared to other non-whites ethnic communities such as the African-Americans. With regard to this, it is perceived that the onset of the social construction of race was between the 16th and the 19th centuries, the time of Europe’s expansion. During this time, the Europeans perceived the natives as inferior in order to maintain the control over them (Tsuda, 2009).
During the early years of 20th century, the aspect of invisible blackness; that is people who have known African American ancestry was made constitutional in the states found in the south. A percentage of Indian blood defined the Amerindians race; this was because of the significant land allotment that was witnessed during late 19th century as provided in the Dawes Act. According the financial segregations, standards were set up as a criterion to determine whether a person belonged to the Native Americans race. During this time, a person was considered white only if he/she had untainted European ancestry.
During the 20th century, significant efforts were directed towards sorting the diverse United States population was faced by notable difficulties and complexities. According to the standards established previous censuses, children who were born out of mixed races were classified as of different race compared to the race of their biological children. Further efforts to classify the mix-race individuals resulted to proliferation of racial categories and distinctions based on blood quantum. It is also important to note that an individual’s race is subject to change in the due course and that racial identification that is self-ascribed can be different from the racial background that has been assigned. It was until 2000 that Latinos in the US were required to affiliate with one race irrespective of the long history associated with the mixing in Latin America.
In conclusion, ethnicity and race in the United States has been mostly characterized by aspects of social construction, ancestry and political constructs that serve to reflect the social aspect of race. This approach makes it difficult to have discrete racial and ethnic groups in the United States and imposes complexity imposed by changes in a person’s ethnicity and racial classification over time.
References
Tsuda, T. (2009). Immigration and Ethnic Relations in the U.S. San Diego: Cognella Academic Publishing.
Works cited
Gjerde, Jon. Major problems in American immigration and ethnic history: documents and essays. Washington DC: Houghton Mifflin, 1998.
Michael, Perman and Taylor Murrell. Major Problems in the Civil War and Reconstruction: Documents and Essays. New York: Cengage Learning, 2009.
Roger, Daniels. Coming to America: A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life. New York: Perennial, 2002.
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