Notes

Irish and Whiteness

- Robert E. Park provided one of the earliest assimilationist perspectives called the "race-relations cycle."
1. contact
2. competition
3. accommodation - getting used to dominant group's norms and adopt their ways
4. assimilation - become similar to dominant group and differences are no longer visible, have essentially become one.

- The "race-relations cycle" helps to explain whit ethnic assimilation, such as Irish Americans.
1. cultural assimilation - culture should not allow between differences between groups, minority group absorbs culture of majority.
2. structural assimilation - looks at relationships and interrelationships between people.

- Milton Gordon (1964) analyzed three ways assimilation occurs.
1. melting-pot - idea that everyone is an immigrant and that they bring their culture/values/norms to society where they conjoin and establish American society.
2. Anglo-conformity - mixing race and religion. argues that not all groups are equal and must subdue to white anglo culture.
3. cultural pluralism - idea that you can maintain your own culture and still be functional in the dominant society.

-Irish immigration to the US post-1820, mostly Irish Catholic. Irish not considered white.
1. Ireland colonized by England (1500s-1922) -
2. Catholic and Protestant conflict - Catholics were dehumanized
3. Penal Laws 1692-1793 - put laws in place against Catholics, prevented them from obtaining any power in their area.

- The mid-1800s was one of the most significant eras of immigration to the U.S. history. This leads to:
1. nativism
2. xenophobia - fear or content of the other/stranger.
3. i.e. sinophobia and Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 - fear/content/hatred of Chinese persons. Restricted immigration against Chinese.
4. ethnic enclaves - when minority groups create a space where they live, such as China Town.

-Between 1845 and 1849, over one million impoverished Irish Catholics immigrate to the U.S.
1. Jim Dandy stereotype - idea that the Irish is belligerent, a drunk and violent.
2. face employment discrimination - got stuck in the dirty jobs

**WATCH GANGS OF NEW YORK FOR SOCIOLOGICAL EVENT!!!!**

-In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Irish Americans worked to emphasize their Whiteness.
1. white ethnic group
2. distancing from non-whites (political affiliations and anti-black violence)
3. i.e. race riots

-Whiteness is consent to the political system of White Supremacy.
1. accepting privileges of whiteness
2. Whiteness DOES NOT equal color
3. Whiteness = set of power relations