Race has different aspects. The Macro is the Institutional aspect of racism that includes policy, practice, procedure and law. Macro mostly refers to the below the surface aspect of the iceberg effect. It is the implicit social order that we don’t necessarily see but learn via the agents of socialization and hegemony. The Naturalization Act was an act to establish a uniform rule of Naturalization in 1790. It was an opportunity to gain a citizenship in some legal form. If you were an immigrant in order to gain citizenship you had to be male, white and “free” meaning you had to own land and be financially independent. Women could not get citizenship other than through marriage.
It is so important to U.S history because this was the time period when slavery was in full blown practice. The ways to become a citizen were very limited meaning it was very exclusive rather than inclusive. The Dred Scott Supreme Court decision of 1857 concluded that blacks were never citizens, prior to 1790 and never could be citizens. According to Racial Restrictions on the Law of Citizenship by Haney Lopez. Scott was “an enslaved man who fought and sued for his freedom. He tried to use federal courts but in order to do so citizenship was an essential base to determine whether they had access or not. The Supreme Court dismissed his claim.
In 1857, Roger Taney the person of chief justice declared that Scott and all other blacks free and enslaved, were not and could never be citizens because they were a inferior class of beings. Dred Scott was invalidated after the Civil war by the Civil Rights Act of 1866. On page 32 Lopez described the significance of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. Around that time whites and blacks were eligible for citizenship but others particularly from Asia were not. The prohibition of Chinese naturalization was the only U.S. law ever to exclude a particular nationality by name from citizenship. This act was approved on May 6,1882 passed by Congress and signed by president Chester A. Arthur.
The Civil War changed American ideas of citizenship. In 1868 The fourteenth amendment granted citizenship to people born within the United States which did exclude the non- taxed Indians who were granted citizenship in the 1920s. Regardless of their parents’ race, citizenship or place of birth. On the racial restrictions article by Lopez on page 30 it stated that California Governor Wilson, called for a federal a constitutional amendment that would prevent the American-born children of undocumented persons from receiving birthright citizenship. This change was supported by 49 percent of Americans, this explicitly discriminating against fathers by eliminating their right to confer citizenship through parentage which completely discriminated.
The Ozawa and Thind cases presented in the film “The House we live in” were examples of how both cases contradicted law. Both cases show different types of racism; de Jure racism and de facto racism. Takao Ozawa case was about a Japanese man who came to the U.S and was seeking to settle for citizenship. This supreme court case was taken place in 1922, he claimed he had lighter skin tone and that citizenship should not be determined based upon race. But instead be determined on being a true American at heart, he claimed that people around him saw him as Benedict Arnold. The Supreme Court decided that he could not be a citizen “he was not white within the meaning of the statue and therefore not eligible to citizenship.” They also ruled that he was not Caucasian because science said so. This particular institution suggested he was not white and was denied citizenship. This is an example of de jure racism because it means of scientific law, they specifically relied on the law to make this determination for Ozawa.
On the other hand we see that in Bhagat Singh Thind’s case shows the complete opposite happening. Thind was a South Asian immigrant and U.S Army Veteran who was also seeking citizenship through racial categorization. He claimed that science was on his side because science proved that south Asians were included in the Caucasian race and therefore, he was Caucasian. However, in this case even though he had scientific evidence they said that “white is not something that can be scientifically determined but was subjectively understood by who they called the common person, the common man.” This meant that if the public meaning white Americans did not see him that way he was not, no matter what science said. This case was completely contradicting to what the Supreme court previously decided. I thought this was really frustrating and completely unfair.
On Thind’s case they completely ignored the law and was an example of de facto racism which means that it is based on everyday experiences instead of science. Essentialism is the perspective that reality exist independently of our perception of it that we perceive the meaning of the world rather than construct that meaning. According to the Meaning of Difference article by Rosenblum and Travis there are important differences among categories of people that identify them like race, sex orientation, and social class identity. This term is related to Eugenics because since people are aware of people differences based on those categories, people started practicing controlled breeding.
People thought that in order to improve population it needed to be done this way. It was also done with the intention to increase the occurrence of desirable characteristics of a population. Eugenics believed that not only intelligence but also alcoholism, laziness, crime, poverty, and other moral and cultural traits could be inherited. People were starting to believe that due to the immigration happening around this time the population was in decline and the high fertility of poor people was in full bloom. The reason why sociologist argue that race is a social construction is because people like to think about race as physical differences. We perceive that race is the characteristics that we first see about each other.
However, sociologist in the film the house we live in, argue that what makes race are the laws and practices that affect life chances and opportunities based on those differences. Our institutions and policies assign racial differences and reinforce racial inequality through the 20th century. For example, in 1790 congress passed an act which was available for people to attain citizenship in some legal form. If you were an immigrant in order to gain it you needed to be male, white, and free. The institution in this case was the congress which provided this opportunity but reinforced racial inequality because of the implemented restrictions. In the 1700s and 1800s the hegemonic narrative about race in the U.S is that there was always a dominant group who rules and controls all the facets of society. Takaki in “A different Mirror” explained that race has functioned as a metaphor necessary to the construction of Americanness.
The creation of the national identity America was defined as white, anything other than white was considered as other. This is a hegemonic example because it shows how being white is more superior than the other races. The definition of who is American according to Takaki can reflect and reinforce a general thinking that can be found in the media, and public policies. Today with the amount of diversity that we have is causing to challenge the master narrative. When it comes to race and racism in the United States and the course content so far, I feel like I am more educated in the subject and I look at race completely different now. Every time I think of race now I think of the iceberg effect that we reviewed in class several times. It is so important to be educated about this subject to look at things differently and be able to be aware that there is more to that person rather than just identifying them with their skin color, hair texture etc.
It surprises me that people till this day avoid speaking about race when in fact if many more people would be willing to discuss it there would be less people identified as racist. Learning that since the past we have been practicing bias decisions to benefit us as a country still to this day frightens me. In a way I did knew that racism was still taking effect till this day just by watching how the leader of this nation labels and makes accusations of people without really knowing and just going off by stereotypes. My first memory of race awareness is when I spoke at a youth group event. As the Latino youth group leader in my church it is very important to me to share what I learn. I shared my testimony on how many times I’ve felt discriminated against at schools where diversity is common.
On that speech my goal was to motivate Latino students to look over the racial profiling faces when going places to apply for college. I remember I told them a specific experience of mine where many people felt identified with. It was surprising to see that many people like me were experiencing the same racial discriminations however, this motivated many people to become stronger and prouder of the Latinx culture. As a woman of color and female race and racism do indeed impact my life today and everyday everywhere, I go. When professor Tanya shared about her own experience with how she felt when people racially profiled her. She shared that people surrounding her immediately had an insinuation that since she belongs to that group/race she was the same as the others. This was something that I felt identified with because it has happened to my family and I in many places out in the public. Racial profiling is a huge thing for the Hispanic community it does not matter what we decide to wear or where we go.
