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OUR LIVES AN ETHNIC STUDIES PRIMER

WEST HILLS COLLEGE LEMOORE

OUR LIVES: AN ETHNIC STUDIES PRIMER ii

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CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS Guadalupe Capozzi Silas Cha Daryl Johnson

EDITOR Neomi Daniels CONTENT REVIEWERS Katie Conklin Greg Kennedy Rene Paredes Jacqui Shehorn Kelsey Smith COVER IMAGE Image by Jackson David, Pexels is licensed under CC BY 4.0 COPYRIGHT Produced and distributed under a Creative Commons License in June 2022. “Our Lives: An Ethnic Studies Primer” by Vera Kennedy and Rowena Bermio is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0. The contents of this book were developed under an Open Textbooks Pilot grant from the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE), U.S. Department of Education. However, those contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the Department of Education, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Module 1. The Significance of Ethnic Studies............................................................................... 1

Learning Objectives ................................................................................................................................... 1

Key Terms & Concepts ............................................................................................................................... 1

Introduction ............................................................................................................................................... 2

Application 1.1 Acknowledging Indigenous People’s Land ................................................................... 3

Understanding Race................................................................................................................................... 4

Application 1.2 Breaking the Illusion of Skin Color ............................................................................... 4

Race-Ethnic Relations Today...................................................................................................................... 6

Application 1.3 Leadership Development through Intergroup Dialogue ............................................. 8

Race-Ethnic Group Perceptions ................................................................................................................. 8

Explanations of Racial Inequalities .......................................................................................................... 10

Table 1. Structural Factors of Social Position & Intergroup Relations ............................................... 11

Application 1.4 Intergroup Dialogue & Social Change ........................................................................ 13

Application 1.5 Social Distancing by Race & Ethnicity ........................................................................ 15

Reality of Inequality ................................................................................................................................. 16

Table 2. Indicators of Racial Ethnic Inequality in the United States .................................................. 16

Table 3. Indicators of Racial Ethnic Inequality in the United States .................................................. 16

Application 1.6 Housing Discrimination .............................................................................................. 18

Summary .................................................................................................................................................. 18

Review Questions .................................................................................................................................... 18

To My Future Self .................................................................................................................................... 18

References ............................................................................................................................................... 19

Module 2. Our Power & Identity ................................................................................................ 21

Learning Objectives ................................................................................................................................. 21

Key Terms & Concepts ............................................................................................................................. 21

Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 22

Collective Culture ..................................................................................................................................... 22

Social & Cultural Bonds ....................................................................................................................... 23

Biographical Reflection 2.1 When Did You Become Black? ................................................................ 25

Levels of Culture ................................................................................................................................. 26

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Groups & Organizations ...................................................................................................................... 26

Application 2.1 Your Regional Culture ................................................................................................ 27

Doing Culture ...................................................................................................................................... 29

Identity Formation & Politics ................................................................................................................... 30

Intersectionality .................................................................................................................................. 31

Application 2.2 The Privilege & Oppression of Intersectionality ........................................................ 32

Globalization & Identity ...................................................................................................................... 33

Identity Today ..................................................................................................................................... 34

Cultural Change & Adaptation ................................................................................................................ 35

Othering & Belonging .............................................................................................................................. 36

Biographical Reflection 2.2 One Times Three Equals One .................................................................. 38

Application 2.3 The Meaning & Impact of Your Story ........................................................................ 39

Application 2.4 Privilege & Life Chances ............................................................................................. 40

Biographical Reflection 2.3 Single Mother Gets a Bad Rap ................................................................ 41

Summary .................................................................................................................................................. 41

Review Questions .................................................................................................................................... 42

To My Future Self .................................................................................................................................... 42

References ............................................................................................................................................... 42

Module 3. Our Story: Native Americans ..................................................................................... 45

Learning Objectives ................................................................................................................................. 45

Key Terms & Concepts ............................................................................................................................. 45

Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 45

Indigenous Peoples of the Americas ....................................................................................................... 46

Contact & Conflict with the “Old World” ................................................................................................ 46

English Colonial Period ............................................................................................................................ 47

Westward Expansion............................................................................................................................... 49

Application 3.1 Shifting Perspective: Cherokee Indians ..................................................................... 50

The 20th Century ...................................................................................................................................... 53

Application 3.2 Shifting Perspective: Alcatraz Proclamation .............................................................. 54

Application 3.3 Our Fires Still Burn ..................................................................................................... 55

The Recent Past ....................................................................................................................................... 55

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Summary .................................................................................................................................................. 56

Review Questions .................................................................................................................................... 56

To My Future Self .................................................................................................................................... 56

References ............................................................................................................................................... 57

Module 4. Our Story: African Americans .................................................................................... 58

Learning Objectives ................................................................................................................................. 58

Key Terms & Concepts ............................................................................................................................. 58

Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 59

Colonial Period to Reconstruction .......................................................................................................... 59

Application 4.1 Shifting Perspective: Benjamin Banneker .................................................................. 62

Application 4.2 Shifting Perspective: Justifying Slavery ...................................................................... 64

1877 to WWII .......................................................................................................................................... 67

Application 4.3 Shifting Perspective: What is Race? .......................................................................... 69

Civil Rights Movement of the 60s & 70s ................................................................................................. 71

Application 4.4 Shifting Perspective: Letter from Birmingham .......................................................... 72

The Recent Past ....................................................................................................................................... 73

Biographical Reflection 4.1 A Proud American, or a Proud African American? ................................. 74

Summary .................................................................................................................................................. 75

Review Questions .................................................................................................................................... 75

To My Future Self .................................................................................................................................... 75

References ............................................................................................................................................... 75

Module 5. Our Story: Asian Americans ...................................................................................... 77

Learning Objectives ................................................................................................................................. 77

Key Terms & Concepts ............................................................................................................................. 77

Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 77

Mid 1800s to early 20th Century ............................................................................................................. 78

Global Conflicts & the 20th Century ........................................................................................................ 82

Application 5.1 Shifting Perspective: Self-Determination .................................................................. 82

Application 5.2 Shifting Perspective: Japanese Internment ............................................................... 83

New Immigrants & Expansion of Diversity .............................................................................................. 83

The Recent Past ....................................................................................................................................... 85

Biographical Reflection 5.1 Southeast Asian Refugees....................................................................... 86

Summary .................................................................................................................................................. 88

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Review Questions .................................................................................................................................... 88

To My Future Self .................................................................................................................................... 88

References ............................................................................................................................................... 88

Module 6. Our Story: Latinx Americans ..................................................................................... 90

Learning Objectives ................................................................................................................................. 90

Key Terms & Concepts ............................................................................................................................. 90

Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 90

Indigenous People’s & Colonization ....................................................................................................... 91

Westward Expansion & Warfare ............................................................................................................. 92

Labor & Civil Rights ................................................................................................................................. 96

Application 6.1 Shifting Perspective: Zoot Suit Riots .......................................................................... 97

Application 6.2 Shifting Perspective: Labor & the Struggle of Migrant Farm Workers ...................... 99

The Recent Past ..................................................................................................................................... 100

Biographical Reflection 6.1 A Little Goes a Long Way ...................................................................... 101

Summary ................................................................................................................................................ 101

Review Questions .................................................................................................................................. 102

To My Future Self .................................................................................................................................. 102

References ............................................................................................................................................ 102

Module 7. Our Divisions ............................................................................................................ 103

Learning Objectives ............................................................................................................................... 103

Key Terms & Concepts ........................................................................................................................... 103

Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 103

Cultural Hierarchies ............................................................................................................................... 104

Prejudice ................................................................................................................................................ 104

Biographical Reflection 7.1 New Home and Race Relations ............................................................. 105

Application 7.1 The Thinking Behind Prejudice ................................................................................ 109

Biographical Reflection 7.2 This is Not an Altercation ...................................................................... 110

Application 7.2 The Affect of Implicit Bias ........................................................................................ 114

Racism & Exploitation ........................................................................................................................... 114

Application 7.3 Little Acts of Discrimination ..................................................................................... 115

Application 7.4 Recognizing White Privilege ................................................................................... 116

Summary ................................................................................................................................................ 117

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Review Questions .................................................................................................................................. 117

To My Future Self .................................................................................................................................. 117

Application 7.5 Visual Ethnography Part 1 ....................................................................................... 118

Application 7.6 Visual Ethnography Part 2 ....................................................................................... 119

References ............................................................................................................................................. 119

Module 8. Our Way Forward .................................................................................................................. 123

Learning Objectives ............................................................................................................................... 123

Key Terms & Concepts ........................................................................................................................... 123

Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 124

Racial & Social Justice ............................................................................................................................ 124

Biographical Reflection 8.1 The Blue Mornings ................................................................................ 125

Reducing Prejudice ........................................................................................................................... 128

Biographical Reflection 8.2 My Turn, Why Ending Prejudice Is Not a Hopeless Cause .................... 130

Building Community .............................................................................................................................. 132

Table 4. Anti-Racist & Anti-Colonial Practices .................................................................................. 132

Cultural Intelligence .......................................................................................................................... 132

Biographical Reflection 8.3 Religious & Cultural Conflict ................................................................. 134

Application 8.1 Cultural Intelligence Resources ............................................................................... 136

Conflict Resolution Strategies & Practices ........................................................................................ 137

Table 5. Five Modes of Resolving Conflict ........................................................................................ 138

Application 8.2 Conflict Reduction In Action .................................................................................... 139

Table 6. Conflict Reduction Techniques ........................................................................................... 140

Truth Telling & Social Discourse ....................................................................................................... 140

Table 7. Types of Ignorance .............................................................................................................. 141

Summary ................................................................................................................................................ 142

Review Questions .................................................................................................................................. 142

To My Future Self .................................................................................................................................. 142

Application 8.3Fostering Connections .............................................................................................. 143

References ............................................................................................................................................. 144

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PREFACE

Dear Student & Faculty Scholars, This book is an introduction or primer to ethnic studies and is not a complete or comprehensive review of the literature. We identified and included major concepts, theories, perspectives, and voices in ethnic studies with research from anthropology, history, political science, psychology, and sociology to offer an inclusive approach for critical inquiry. The content was reviewed by our peers using the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges Open Educational Resources Initiative Evaluation Rubric and Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Anti-Racism (IDEA) Audit Framework. The manuscript is openly licensed to offer our readers the opportunity to revise, remix, redistribute, reuse, retain, and expand the literature to fit learning needs. We encourage you to think about and consider your own family history, stories, and traditions as you explore and build on this content.

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A NOTE TO OUR READERS

The American Dream. We are all familiar, right? Immigrants throughout our history have come to the country with the belief that the opportunities are endless. For the founding fathers, it was the “pursuit of property.” For John O’Sullivan it was the right “to [the] possession of the homes conquered from the wilderness of their own labors and dangers,” and for Franklin D. Roosevelt, it was the “Four Freedoms” – Freedom of Speech and worship, as well as freedom from want or fear. For many immigrants and people of color, this American Dream was farfetched and difficult to attain, but they continued to try – if not for themselves, but for their children. But they were met with resistance. Obstacles. Legislation. Discrimination. Hatred and violence. Who is America? This question can seem simple at first glance, but then gradually becomes more complicated as we contemplate our answer. Over the course of its history, the people of America have changed drastically, diversifying extensively. Each group that has contributed to this diversity has a story - a history that is both unique and sometimes similar to other groups in America. The historical narrative presented here seeks to illustrate the people often overlooked for their contributions to the nation that we call home. The historical narrative was written under the framework of a few concepts. First, we followed a general timeline that is covered in most U.S. history survey courses. The timeline allows the reader to find some familiarity with the narrative that they have already learned in formative years. This approach might also serve as a refresher for some students. Secondly, while the traditional narrative and timeline was followed, some key events were given less attention, or left out altogether. This was a choice made to diversify the historical narrative and expand the perspectives of the traditional description to include Black, Brown, Asian, and Indigenous peoples’ voices. Lastly, this is a primer in ethnic studies, and should serve as an opening to widen one’s scope of knowledge with inclusivity and equity in mind. Historically, some language used to label or categorize groups covered in this book has been problematic. Labels and identity are deeply personal to most people and should be respected. With those notions in mind, we have aligned our terminology with the generally accepted academic terms of racial groups, along with current trends in accepted language. The historical narrative presented in this book is meant to assert voices once unheard, voices that believed and continue to believe in the possibilities of the American Dream, voices that embody a fierce spirit of freedom and opportunity. Together, they have been an integral part of the forging of this country. These are their stories.

OUR LIVES: AN ETHNIC STUDIES PRIMER x

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Vera Guerrero Kennedy was born and raised in San Joaquin Valley, California. She received a B.A. in sociology (1995), M.P.A. in political science with an emphasis in public administration (1999) from Fresno State and a doctorate in education (Ed.D.) with an emphasis in curriculum and instruction from Argosy University (2012). Vera is a tenured faculty at West Hills College Lemoore and Lecturer at Fresno State. Her publications include The Influence of Cultural Capital on Hispanic Student College Graduation Rates (2012), Critical Thinking

about Social Problems (2017), Beyond Race: Cultural Influences on Human Social Life (2018), and A Career in Sociology (2020). She is also faculty for the 2021-2022 American Association of Colleges & Universities Institute on Open Educational Resources and recently completed appointments as the Distance Education Program Coordinator & Pedagogical Coach at West Hills College Lemoore (2020-21) and OER Fellow at Fresno State (2019). Before teaching full-time, Vera was the Juvenile Justice Services Coordinator for the Fresno Superior Court and assisted in the establishment facilitation of the Juvenile Mental Health Court for Fresno County. She served on the Board of Directors for Comprehensive Youth Services, a child abuse prevention agency, and was appointed by the Fresno County Board of Supervisors to serve on the Fresno County Foster Care Oversight Committee for six years. She and her husband, Greg, reside in Fresno, California with their Pomeranian, Otter.

Rowena Bermio is the child of Filipino immigrants that came to California in the early 1980s. She received her master’s degree in history from California State University Fresno and also retains a degree in art history. For the last six years, she has taught U.S. and world history for Fresno State, West Hills College Lemoore, and other community colleges in the Central Valley. At West Hills, Rowena is an active member of the Social Justice and Equity Task Force, aiding in efforts to enhance inclusivity and equity at

the college. She has given several lectures on culture and diversity on campus with task force goals in mind. Rowena currently lives and teaches in the Central Valley with her partner Margaret, and their pets Shane, Tig, and Mad Max.

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Guadalupe Capozzi is a native of the Central Valley and teaches criminal justice at West Hills College Lemoore. She started her career as a Correctional Officer for the California Department of Corrections, California Correctional Facility for Women in Chowchilla, California then promoted to a Correctional Counselor at the Substance Abuse and Treatment Facility in Corcoran, California. In 2003 she transitioned to a Parole Agent. Most recently, she has managed two parole units in Kings and Tulare Counties including Coalinga State Hospital. Guadalupe earned her B.A. in criminal justice with an emphasis on restorative

justice from Fresno Pacific University in Fresno, California. She teaches Principled Policing, Family Systems, Staff Suicide Awareness, and Diversity in the Workplace at the Basic Parole Agent Academy and is the assistant training coordinator for the district. She previously worked as a Communicable Disease Consultant and Investigator with the State Department of Health. Guadalupe serves on the board of Champions Recovery of Kings County and is a member of the Women’s Ministry at her church. She and her four children live in Lemoore, California.

Silas Cha holds a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from the University of California, Berkeley and a Master of Arts in international relations from California State University, Fresno. He teaches political science and ethnic studies at the community college and cross-cultural job training and business ethics at Fresno Center for New Americans, a non-profit organization. While serving as the associate director of the non-profit organization, Silas conducted research on Hmong, Lao, Cambodian, and Vietnamese resettlement patterns in the Central Valley as related to education, social and race relations, health, housing, and economic

development. In addition, Silas served as an advisory member for Valley Health Policy Institute at Fresno State and The Fresno Bee, where he published monthly articles as a guest columnist. Many of the issues in his columns were on cross-cultural nuances, race relations, religious and medical conflicts, and social justice. He is married to a wonderful wife and has two daughters.

Daryl Johnson has a master’s degree in public administration and human resources from Gate University, San Francisco, California. He also holds an M.A. in education from Fresno Pacific University, Fresno, California. He grew up in Washington State and received his undergraduate degree in communications from the University of Washington in Seattle and possesses California state certifications as a teacher performance assessor, ESL instructor, and community college speech instructor. He currently serves as Lead Instructor for the Fresno Pacific University Teacher Preparation Program and is a

communications instructor at West Hills College Lemoore. Mr. Johnson is a former USAF officer and civil servant, with service in Korea, Germany, and stateside. He designed the compensatory education program for NATO Base Geilenkerchen, Germany’s military dependent children, and worked for NATO as an ELD instructor. He and his family currently live in Hanford, California.

OUR LIVES: AN ETHNIC STUDIES PRIMER 1

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MODULE 1. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF ETHNIC STUDIES LEARNING OBJECTIVES At the end of the module, students will be able to: 1. understand the difference between race and ethnicity 2. discuss the social construction of race 3. explain racial framing 4. compare intergroup relations in terms of racial-ethnic group conflict and tolerance 5. assess systemic racism and structural explanations for racial and ethnic inequality 6. evaluate the intersectionality of race, ethnicity and other social categories on systems of

oppression 7. provide examples of racial-ethnic stratification and inequality 8. define majority (dominant) and minority groups (subordinate) 9. interpret social indicators and data on racial and ethnic inequality in the United States KEY TERMS & CONCEPTS

Achieved Status Ascribed Status Competition Dominant Group Double Consciousness Egocentric Ethnicity Ethnocentrism Fluid Competitive Race Relations Genocide Internal Colonialism Intersectionality Labels Macro-level Micro-level Minority Groups Multiculturalism

Otherness Paternalistic Pattern Patterns of Intergroup Relations Pluralism Population Transfer Race Racial Disparities and Inequality Racial Formation Rigid Competitive Pattern Segregation Social Status Sociocentrism Status Shifting Stratification Subordinate Group Systemic Racism Unequal Power

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INTRODUCTION

Have you ever had your experience or story misrepresented or retold in an inaccurate way? Has anyone ever taken something of value from you without asking or providing compensation? The feelings and thoughts you hold about these questions are not different from other people in the United States, particularly those who were forcible driven from their homeland, smuggled into this country from another place, stripped of their identity, exploited for their resources and labor, or those who have been killed or murdered for being different. The most disturbing part of our history and the characterization of these incidences is the ongoing denial, recognition, and reparations for the people who today remain inflicted by the misrepresentation and injustice of our social structures, institutions, and ideologies. No one likes their history or experience retold through fallacies, stereotypes, or lies. No one likes their life or way of living taken from them involuntarily. Technology and social media have made it easy to block out and change what we hear and think about each other, our experiences, and our stories. Ironically, these tools have also made it easier to share our lives and bring others into our world without time or borders. Why is it important to share your experience or tell your story in an honest and accurate way? What is the value in sharing your experience or story? By telling our stories and sharing our experiences, we acknowledge our existence and humanity. Because we have not retold or allowed some people to share their stories and experiences, we deprive them of this acknowledgement. We make some people less than human and justify it by keeping truths and facts hidden. This book examines race and ethnicity as understood through our history and the experiences of major underrepresented racial groups including African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinx Americans, and Native Americans in the United States. We will explore a broad range of sociocultural, intellectual, and historical experiences that form the construction and intersectionality of race and ethnicity in the United States by applying macro and micro perspectives of analysis. Furthermore, we will examine the cultural and political contexts behind the systems of power, privilege, and inequality impacting Americans of color. Emphasis is placed on racial and social justice with methods for building a just and equitable society.

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APPLICATION 1.1 ACKNOWLEDGING INDIGENOUS PEOPLE’S LAND

Goal

To illustrate and compose a method for acknowledging Indigenous people’s land to recognize its connection to our lives and country.

Instructions

1. Honor Native Land

Acknowledgement is a simple, powerful way of showing respect and a step toward correcting the stories and practices that erase Indigenous people's history and culture by inviting and honoring the truth. Naming is an exercise in power. Who gets the right to name or be named? Whose stories are honored in name? Whose are erased? Acknowledgement of traditional land is a public statement by naming the traditional Native inhabitants of a place. It honors their historic relationship with the land.

We are introducing the practice of land acknowledgment to create greater public consciousness of Native sovereignty and cultural rights, a step toward equitable relationship and reconciliation. Join us in adopting, calling for, and spreading this practice. To participate in this activity, take a moment to research and identify the traditional inhabitants of the land you are on today.

Here are some resources you may view online:

Wikipedia - Entries on many cities document some history of Indigenous inhabitation. Cross-check what you find to verify accuracy.

Native Land (https://native-land.ca/) - The website provides educational resources to correct the way that people speak about colonialism and indigeneity, and to encourage territory awareness in everyday speech and action.

Native Languages (http://www.native-languages.org/) - The resource offers a breakdown by state, with contact information for local tribes.

2. Amplify Your Acknowledgement

Take a moment to acknowledge the traditional inhabitants of the land you are on today. Post an image or story about this class activity on social media where your acknowledgement was offered and tag it #HonorNativeLand to inspire others.

3. Honor Native Land Guide

#HonorNativeLand (https://usdac.us/nativeland) This resource provides individuals and organizations a guide on how to open public events and gatherings with acknowledgment of the traditional Native inhabitants of the land.

4. Develop Your Acknowledgement

Formulate a statement of acknowledgment you may share at the beginning of class meetings, campus events, or public gatherings. Craft yours after considering several levels of detail you might introduce as illustrated on page 6 of the Honor Native Land Guide (https://usdac.us/nativeland). Be prepared to share your acknowledgment with other scholars in class meetings.

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UNDERSTANDING RACE

There are two myths or ideas about race. The first suggests people inherit physical characteristics distinguishing race. The second insinuates that one race is superior to others or that one “pure” race exists. Scientific research mapping of the human genome system found that humans are homogenous (Henslin, 2011). Race is truly an arbitrary label that has become part of society’s culture with no justifiable evidence to support differences in physical appearance to substantiate the idea that there are a variety of human species. Scientific data finds only one human species making up only one human race. Evidence shows physical differences in human appearance including skin color are a result of human migration patterns and adaptions to the environment (Jablonski, 2012). These data underline the fact that the concept of race is socially constructed.

Society chooses to define the basis and classification of physical characteristics. Racial terms classify and stratify people by appearance and inherently assign individuals and groups as inferior or superior in society based on their physical traits (Kottak & Kozaitis, 2012). This classification and social status of race and racial groups change over time and varies from one society to another as viewpoints, perspectives, and knowledge adapts and evolves. People use physical characteristics to identify, relate, and interact with one another.

APPLICATION 1.2 BREAKING THE ILLUSION OF SKIN COLOR

Goal

To understand the influence of the atmosphere, environment, and adaptation on skin color.

Instructions

Watch the TED-Ed video Breaking the Illusion of Skin Color presented by Nina Jablonski (https://ed.ted.com/lessons/nina-jablonski-breaks-the-illusion-of-skin-color). Answer the following questions about skin color and adaptation:

1. Why does Dr. Jablonski study NASA satellite data? 2. Why and how did lightly pigmented skin develop? 3. What are the potential health problems for darkly pigmented people living in low-UV areas of the

world? 4. According to Dr. Jablonski, where did Charles Darwin go wrong?

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In this book, we will discuss and use the terms race and racial group interchangeably. Even though the concept of race is not biologically sound, people do identify with the term and are often grouped based on the socially constructed concept of race. In reality, race and racial group classification influences people’s life experiences and choices (Farley, 2010; Winant, 1994; Taylor, 1998; Duster, 2001).

The social process of recognizing and defining racial characteristics, labels, and groups is known as racial formation (Omi & Winant, 1994). This process solidifies how race is understood and is propelled by political interests. The results directly impact the social and political consequences of people’s lives, and it is the primary reason society recognizes race as an important classification and why its definition and meaning transform over time (Farley, 2010). Powerful and influential people use race to create divisions or bring people together, whichever serves their interests. Ethnicity refers to the cultural characteristics related to ancestry and heritage. Ethnicity describes shared culture such as group practices, values, and beliefs recognized by people in and the group itself (Griffiths et al., 2015). People who identify with an ethnic

group share common cultural characteristics (i.e., nationality, history, language, religion, etc.). Ethnic groups select rituals, customs, ceremonies, and other traditions to help preserve shared heritage (Kottak & Kozaitis, 2012). Lifestyle and other identity characteristics such as geography and region influence how we adapt our ethnic behaviors to fit the context, environment, or setting in which we live. Culture is also central in determining how humans grow and develop including diet, food preferences, and cultural traditions promoting physical activities, abilities, well-being, and sport (Kottak & Kozaitis, 2012). A college professor of Mexican decent living in Central California will project different behaviors than someone of the same ethnic culture who is a housekeeper in Las Vegas, Nevada. Differences in profession, social class, and region will influence each person’s lifestyle, physical composition, and health though both may identify and affiliate themselves as Mexican. The ethnicity of parents largely determines the ethnicity of offspring through socialization. Ethnicity is a social characteristic, like race, that is passed from generation to generation (Farley, 2010). For example, the California natives of the San Joaquin Valley known as Yokuts, meaning people, were divided into true tribes each with their own name, language, and territory (Tachi Yokut Tribe, 2021). Learning cultural traits and characteristics are important for developing identity and ethnic group acceptance. Cultural socialization occurs throughout one’s life course.

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Not all people see themselves as belonging to an ethnic group or view ethnic heritage as important to their identity. People who do not identify with an ethnic group either have no distinct cultural background because their ancestors come from a variety of cultural groups and offspring have not maintained a specific culture, instead have a blended culture, or they lack awareness about their ethnic heritage completely (Kottak & Kozaitis, 2012). It may be difficult for some people to feel a sense of solidarity or association with any specific ethnic group because they do not know where their cultural practices originated and how their cultural behaviors adapted over time. What is your ethnicity? Is your ethnic heritage very important, somewhat important, or not important in defining who you are? Why?

RACE-ETHNIC RELATIONS TODAY

At present, people of color are now more than 80% of the world’s population and becoming the demographic majority (Feagin, 2014). The U.S. population is more diverse than ever in its history, and it is projected that by the year of 2040 Whites will become the statistical minority in the United States. With these demographic changes, Americans of color will become more influential in politics, economics, and increase societal pressure to them with greater equity and justice. Intergroup relations between racial-ethnic groups are complex. Because racial-ethnic group creation is politically motivated, people of color often experience frustration, anger, and trauma from ongoing conflict, discrimination, and inequality (Farley, 2010). Our race and ethnic heritage shapes us in many ways and fills us with pride, but it is also a source of conflict, prejudice, and hatred. There are seven distinct patterns of intergroup relations between majority (powerful) and minority (subordinate) groups influencing not only the racial and ethnic identity of people but also the opportunities and barriers each will experience through social interactions. Maladaptive contacts and exchanges include genocide, population transfer, internal colonialism, and segregation. Genocide attempts to destroy a group of people because of their race or ethnicity. “Labeling the targeted group as inferior or even less than fully human facilitates genocide” (Henslin, 2011, p. 225). Population transfer moves or expels a minority group through direct or indirect transfer. Indirect transfer forces people to leave by making living conditions unbearable, whereas direct transfer literally expels minorities by force. Another form of rejection by the dominant group is a type of colonialism. Internal colonialism refers to a country’s powerful dominant group exploiting the low-status, minority group for

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economic advantage. Internal colonialism generally accompanies segregation (Henslin, 2011). In segregation, minority groups live physically separate from the dominant group by law. Three adaptive intergroup relations include assimilation, multiculturalism, and pluralism. The pattern of assimilation is the process by which a minority or less powerful group assumes the attitudes and language of the dominant or mainstream culture. An individual or group gives up its identity by taking on the characteristics of the dominant culture (Griffiths et al., 2015). For example, the original language, cultures, and family ties of African Americans were destroyed through slavery, and any wealth or resources gained since have been challenged or taken through White-on-Black oppression. When minorities assimilate by force to dominant ideologies and practices, they can no longer practice their own religion, speak their own language, or follow their own customs. In permissible assimilation, minority, low-status groups adopt the dominant culture in their own way and at their own speed (Henslin, 2011). Multiculturalism is the most accepting intergroup relationship between the powerful dominant and subordinate minority. Multiculturalism or pluralism encourages variation and diversity. Multiculturalism promotes affirmation and practice of ethnic traditions while socializing individuals into the dominant culture (Kottak & Kozaitis, 2012). This model works well in diverse societies comprised of a variety of cultural groups and a political system supporting freedom of expression. Pluralism is a mixture of cultures where each retains its own identity (Griffiths et al., 2015). Under pluralism, groups exist separately and equally while working together such as through economic interdependence where each group fills a different societal niche then exchanges activities or services for the sustainability and survival of all. Both the multicultural and pluralism models stress interactions and contributions to their society by all ethnic groups. Intergroup conflict has many social and political consequences affecting the life of every American (Farley, 2010). The most unsettling aspect is the inability or unwillingness of Whites to see and understand the racist reality in the United States. Many Whites continue to deny histories of racism, believe racism is a thing of the past, and do not acknowledge contemporary racial framing and discrimination (Feagin, 2014). Whites perpetuate the ideology of “intergroup conflict and relations” to establish the perception that all racial groups have equal impact or resources. This corroborates an image of a level playing field among all racial groups rather than the reality of a White-dominated and controlled systemic structure. To give an example, for over four centuries African Americans have been subordinated and exploited for their labor. Racial oppression has reinforced anti-Black practices, political-economic power of Whites, racial and economic inequality, and racial framing to legitimize White privilege and power in economic, political, legal, educational, and other institutions (Feagin, 2014).

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People of color experience the social world differently from Whites. The life chances and opportunities for Americans of color are restricted in many ways, such as, who they can marry, where they can live, what they wear or eat, who is a member of their school’s student body, what curriculum and instruction they receive, what jobs or careers they can obtain, how they pray, who they pray to, who represents their political interests, and what, if any, healthcare they receive (Feagin, 2014). The institutions and services that are readily available to Whites are not the same or always accessible for Americans of color. The few opportunities gained by some people of color because of circumstance or chance, does not mitigate the inequities and injustice most Americans of color live and experience. The White majority speaks about equality but does not practice it across racial groups. Unaddressed inequities result in continued turmoil between the majority and minority groups in the United States.

RACE-ETHNIC GROUP PERCEPTIONS All Americans are indoctrinated in the patriotic principles of our nation’s history and the ideologies of equality and freedom; however, these ideologies as defined by the founding fathers and the United States Constitution are largely free of critical examination or criticism (Parenti, 2006). Racial framing people of color dates back to our early history of colonialism and slavery which established the foundation for White-dominated policies and institutions that today continue to legitimize and encourage racists practices. In the United States, racist

APPLICATION 1.3 LEADERSHIP THROUGH INTERGROUP DIALOGUE

Goal

To recognize the skills needed to successfully lead or be part of a diverse team.

Instructions

1. Listen to perspectives on intergroup dialogue from students at Syracuse University (https://youtu.be/TZaoRNsNDJI).

2. Review quotes from “Bridging Differences Through Dialogue” by Ximena Zúñiga.

• “Intergroup dialogue is face-to-face facilitated conversation between members of two or more social identity groups that strives to create new levels of understanding, relating, and action.”

• “Intergroup dialogue encourages direct encounters and exchange about contentious issues, especially those associated with issues of social identity and social stratification” (the hierarchy or division of society based on status, rank, or class).

• “Dialogue that build dispositions and skills for developing and maintain relationships across differences and for taking action for equity and social justice.”

3. Read the following article:

Nagada, B. (Ratnesh) A. (2019). Intergroup dialogue: Engaging difference for social change leadership development. New Directions for Student Leadership, 2019(163), 29-46.

4. Identify and create a list of skills someone can develop by facilitating and participating in intergroup dialogue.

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thought, sentiments, and actions are structured into everyday life such that large portions of the White population do not view racists words, imagery, or commentary as serious (Feagin, 2014). Racial framing is concrete and advantageous for Whites, while it constructs obstacles and is painful for Americans of color. Everyone is directly and indirectly impacted by racial framing. Systemic racism in our institutions by its very definition creates and maintains racial oppression. In the United States, systemic racism is the “culture.” The policies and norms created by the racist system is socially reproduced like any other form of culture. What Americans call collective culture is selective transmission of elite-dominated values (Parenti, 2006). We are socialized to understand and maintain the ideologies of our ancestors even if we are the racial-oppressed or the racial oppressors (Feagin, 2014). The culture is embedded in our systems we live in (e.g., economy, politics, education, religion, family, etc.) so it becomes unconscious in our everyday lives and practices. Not everyone is aware of or sees racism because it is a social norm. This systemic structure of racism embodies other forms of societal differences and establishes norms within those social categories as well. This includes formal and informal norms around (dis)ability, age, gender, sexuality, social class, among others. These categories are interconnected and apply to individual and group systems of disadvantage and discrimination. The intersectionality of social categorizations creates overlapping and interdependent systems of oppression. For example, the social markers of “Black” and “female” do not exist independently in one’s life experience. It is the intersection of these categories that influences the life’s opportunities or challenges, such as Black women earning $0.62 for every $1.00 by men of all races (Center for American Progress, 2018; U.S. Census Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2019).

The ongoing denial of systemic racism has resulted in racial disparities and inequality among Americans of color including voter discrimination, racial profiling and police brutality, school segregation, housing discrimination, inequity and intolerance in college and professional sports, discrimination against faculty and administrators in higher education, and pro-White favoritism in top-level employment sectors and boards of directors (Feagin, 2014). The denial of racism stems from the ideologies of our founding fathers designed during the 1787 Constitutional Convention. Many

convention delegates of the time were anti-democratic in their thinking fearing the “masses.” At least 40% of the delegation were slaveowners and many others were merchants, shippers, lawyers, and bankers who profited from commerce in slave-produced products or supplies (Feagin, 2014). The founding fathers were aware of how they profited from slavery, and despite this understanding would describe their own sociopolitical condition with England as “slavery by taxation without consent.” To this end, the Constitutional Convention built a new nation to

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protect the wealth of our founding fathers and those like them by defining rights using social labels and categories such as Americans from Africa as “slaves by natural law,” indigenous peoples as “separate nations,” or altogether excluding people, like women, by directly avoiding inclusion. These policies and ideologies have become the foundation of American tradition. The creation of a national racial order established at the Constitutional convention has ensued severe consequences for centuries and yet remains the United States moral foundation. At no point has a new Constitution or convention been held by representatives of all people to delete the original text of racist provisions or eradicate the institutions that continue to hold Americans of color in bondage (Douglas, 1881; DuBois, 1920; Feagin, 2014). The Constitution created and maintained racial separation and oppression that has ensured White, elite men would rule for centuries. Ordinary and poor Whites, even today, accept racialized order because a White ruling class benefits White Americans and creates a positive image of Whiteness. Most recently, social scientists, analysts, and a new generation of Americans have argued that there has been little attention on the racial histories, policies, and discrimination of people of color in the United States (Feagin, 2014). There have been a variety of amendments and resolutions by the U.S. government to acknowledge the racial injustice of our past such as the 2009 non-binding apology on the injustice of slavery and Jim Crow laws. However, these acts do not provide real commitments or congressional actions to address the long-term impacts of racial oppression or reduce contemporary racial discrimination (Feagin, 2014). Considering the recent, high-profile incidents of police violence against African Americans, what is the likelihood of racial change in the United States? Will contemporary racial issues and social awareness change the way Americans think? According to a Pew Research Center survey by Horowitz, Parker, Brown, and Cox (2020), approximately 76% of Americans note a major or minor change in the way they think about race and racial inequality, but only 51% believe there will be major policy changes to address racial inequality. Results from the same survey found African Americans (86%), Asian Americans (56%), Latinx Americans (57%), and Whites (39%) believe when it comes to giving Black people equal rights with White people, our country has not gone far enough. Approximately 48% of these respondents say more people participating in training on diversity and inclusion would do a lot to reduce inequality.

EXPLANATIONS OF RACIAL INEQUALITIES

Social scientists use theories to study people. Theories help us examine and understand society including the social structure and social value people create and sustain to fulfill human needs. Theories provide an objective framework of analysis and evaluation for understanding the social structure including the construction of the cultural ideologies, values, and norms and

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their influence on thinking and behavior. Macro-level analysis studies large-scale social arrangements or constructs in the social world. The macro perspective examines how groups, organizations, networks, processes, and systems influences thoughts and actions of individuals and groups (Kennedy, Norwood, & Jendian, 2017). Micro-level analysis studies the social interactions of individuals and groups. The micro perspective observes how thinking and behavior influences the social world such as groups, organizations, networks, processes, and systems (Kennedy et al., 2017). To understand the inequities in power and resources between racial-ethnic groups, we must understand the social, political, and economic structure of society. A macro-level perspective helps us understand the effect the social structure has on our life chances, opportunities, and challenges. Whereas a micro-level perspective focuses on interpreting individual or personal viewpoints and influences. Using only a micro-level perspective to understand racial-ethnic inequality leads to an unclear understanding of the world from singular bias perceptions and assumptions about people, social groups, and society (Carl, 2013). To study race and ethnic relations and inequality, we must analyze groups and societies not simple individuals. Race and ethnic identity influence social status or position in society. Social status serves as a method for building and maintaining boundaries among and between people and groups. Status dictates social inclusion or exclusion resulting in stratification or hierarchy whereby a person’s position in society regulates their social participation by others. Racial-ethnic inequality is a circumstance of stratification where inequality is based on race and ethnic composition of the individual or group. There are several structural factors that shape social stratification and intergroup relations in society. According to Farley (2010), there are seven characteristics of a society that effect majority-minority relations. The major influences include economics, politics, institutions, social and cultural characteristics, and history.

Table 1. Structural Factors of Social Position and Intergroup Relations

Structural Factor Description

Economic System Type of economy (i.e., capitalist, feudal, socialist, etc.) including methods of income and wealth distribution

Economic Production Labor, capital, goods and services to create and distribute products

Political System Type of politic structure, power relationships between groups, and degree of political freedom

Fundamental Institutions Characteristics of major institutions including family, education, and religion

Dominant Culture Controlling and imposed ideologies and value system

Cultural & Social Characteristics of Groups

Customs, lifestyles, values, attitudes, aesthetics, language, education, religion, formal and informal rules, social organization, and material objects of each group

Historical association Past contact and interactions between racial-ethnic groups (i.e., voluntary or involuntary immigration, colonialism, segregation, etc.)

This material (Table 1) developed from concepts introduced by John E. Farley (2010) in Minority-Minority Relations (6th ed.) published by Prentice-Hall.

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People may occupy multiple statuses in a society. At birth, people are ascribed status in alignment to their physical and mental features, race, and gender. In some societies, people may earn or achieve status from their talents, efforts, or accomplishments (Griffiths et al., 2015). Obtaining higher education or being an artistic prodigy often corresponds to high status. For example, a college degree awarded from an “Ivy League” university social weighs higher status than a degree from a public state college. Just as talented artists, musicians, and athletes receive honors, privileges, and celebrity status. In addition, the social, political hierarchy of a society or region designates social status. Consider the social labels within class, race, ethnicity, gender, education, profession, age, and family. Labels defining a person’s characteristics serve as their position within the larger group. People in a majority or dominant group have higher status (e.g., rich, White, male, physician, etc.) than those of the minority or subordinate group (e.g., poor, Black, female, housekeeper, etc.). Overall, the location of a person on the social strata influences their social power and participation (Griswold, 2013). Individuals with inferior power have limitations to social and physical resources including lack of authority, influence over others, formidable networks, capital, and money.

Minority groups are defined as people who receive unequal treatment and discrimination based on social categories such as age, gender, sexuality, race and ethnicity, religious beliefs, or socio-economic class. Minority groups are not necessarily numerical minorities (Griffith et al., 2015). For example, a large group of people may be a minority group because they lack social power. The physical and cultural traits of minority groups “are held in low esteem by the dominant or majority group which treats them unfairly” (Henslin, 2011, p. 217). The dominant group has higher power

and status in society and receives greater privileges. As a result, the dominant group uses its position to discriminate against those that are different. The dominant group in the United States is represented by White, middle-class, Protestant people of northern European descent (Doane, 2005). Minority groups can garner power by expanding political boundaries or through expanded migration though both efforts do not occur with ease and require societal support from both minority and dominant group members. The loss of power among dominant groups threatens not only their authority over other groups but also the privileges and way of life established by this majority. People sometimes engage in status shifting to garner acceptance or avoid attention. DuBois (1903) described the act of people looking through the eyes of others to measure social place or position as double consciousness. His research explored the history and cultural experiences of the American slavery and the plight of Black folk in translating thinking and behavior between racial contexts. DuBois’ research helped social scientists understand how and why

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people display one identity in certain settings and another in different ones. People must negotiate a social situation to decide how to project their social identity and assign a label that fits (Kottak & Kozaitis, 2012). Status shifting is evident when people move from informal to formal contexts. Our ethnic or cultural identity and practices are very different at home than at school, work, or church. Each setting demands different aspects of who we are and our place in the social setting.

There are three major patterns of race and ethnic relations which influence the system of stratification in the United States. The paternalistic, rigid competitive, and fluid competitive intergroup relationships affect social status and life chances (Van den Berghe, 1958, 1978; Wilson, 1973, 1978; Farley, 2010). The first paternalistic pattern is ascribed at birth, based on racial composition, and determines one’s social status for life. Under this pattern, the roles and status of majority and minority groups are understood and supported through a system of “racial etiquette” with frequent contact between groups but the contact itself is unequal (Farley, 2010). In this relationship, the minority group is dependent on the majority, and there is no racial conflict or competition. Individuals who do not cooperate or break the norms are severely penalized. The second rigid competitive pattern is also ascribed at birth, based on race. However, under this pattern majority and minority members compete in areas such as work and housing, and racial groups are segregated. As competition threatens the majority group, discrimination against the minority or subordinate group increases as well as intergroup conflict to instill power and assertiveness among the majority (Farley, 2010). Lastly, in fluid competitive race relations, majority and minority group members are ranked on their own skills and abilities and able to pursue all in life. This pattern results in frequent interracial contact in work and business settings though groups live separately primarily among their own racial groups (Farley 2010). Nonetheless, most minorities have fewer resources to start and compete with majority group members as a result of historic racism and discrimination. The majority group dominates and controls the main systems and institutions to

APPLICATION 1.4 INTERGROUP DIALOGUE & SOCIAL CHANGE

Goal

To identify the function of intergroup dialogue in justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion.

Instructions 1. Read the following article:

Ford, K. A., & Lipkin, H. J. (2019). Intergroup dialogue facilitators as agents for change. New Directions for Student Leadership, 2019(163), 47-56.

2. Explain how intergroup dialogue promotes communication and understanding about and across social categories such as race, ethnicity, gender, and other social group distinctions.

3. Describe the ways intergroup dialogue can improve interracial interactions, relations, and social justice.

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serve their own interests (Farley, 2010). In addition, competition and racial group conflicts increase when fewer resources such as jobs are available. Even when members of a minority group attain high status, racial stratification remains present within and outside the subordinate group. According to Noel (1968), ethnocentrism, competition, and unequal power lead to racial-ethnic stratification. Ethnocentrism evaluates people and their culture from the perspective of one’s own cultural life. People tend to believe their life and way of living is the norm and judge others from that perspective. This attitude and mindset lend itself to categorizing people or assigning status based on the closeness and comfort to one’s own culture. The opportunity to exploit a group by another in competition over resources further creates a framework for social inequality. A competitive environment or atmosphere provides the opportunity for one group to benefit from the subordination of another (Farley, 2010). When a group is powerful enough to dominate or subordinate others, inequality further develops. A social structure of unequal power allows the control of one group over another solidifying racial-ethnic stratification. The natural propensity of human behavior is to focus on self and those around us (Paul & Elder, 2005). However, people do not always value others as they value self. Without guidance and support to appreciate and respect all humans, people lose concern for others. For example, a stratified society fortifies an egocentric ideology to win or survive at any cost. In the plight to obtain wealth or achieve success (i.e., education, health, resources, or money, etc.), people strategize and fight for an advantage. This thinking legitimizes prejudice, self-justification, and self-deception driven by ideas such as “I’m right,” “I need to earn a living,” “I work hard,” “I deserve it,” “I’m not hurting anyone,” “they don’t matter,” or “they don’t deserve it,” “they’re worthless,” and “they don’t belong here.” A person’s reasoning or problem-solving skills is only as strong as their experience with an issue, topic, or situation. Life experience plays a significant role in the ability to critically think about issues of race and ethnicity. If you have limited experiences, your thought processes will be limited. If you are unaware or have limited knowledge about race, ethnicity, and the social world, then much of your thinking will have a focus on self or ego which lends itself to egocentric, ethnocentric, and sociocentric attitudes and behaviors. Assessing other people and our surroundings is necessary for interpreting and interacting in the social world. When we think of only ourselves, without regard for the feelings and desires of others, we are egocentric or self-centered. The inability to understand another person’s view or opinion may be different than your own is egocentric. This cognitive bias is inflated when we judge others using our own cultural standards. The practice of judging others through our own cultural lens is called ethnocentrism. This practice is a cultural universal meaning the behavior is common to all known human cultures throughout the world. People everywhere think their culture is true, moral, proper, and right (Kottak & Kozaitis, 2012). By its very definition, ethnocentrism creates division and conflict between social groups whereby mediating differences is challenging when everyone believes

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they are culturally superior, and their culture should be the standard for living. People justify or validate egocentric and ethnocentric thinking and behavior by reaffirming they are simply concerned with or centered on their own social group which is sociocentrism. Overall, the ego emphasizes self and the cultural superiority of one’s social group.

APPLICATION 1.5 SOCIAL DISTANCING BY RACE & ETHNICITY

Goal

To build knowledge of and make connections about the attitudes of people towards different racial and ethnic groups and reflect on our own perceptions.

Instructions

1. Study the Bogardus Social Distance Scale (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogardus_social_distance_scale)

2. Use the scale from 1 to 7 to show how close you feel to the different racial-ethnic groups listed below.

1 = as close relatives by marriage

2 = as your close personal friends

3 = as neighbors on the same street

4 = as coworkers in your occupation

5 = as citizens in your country

6 = as only visitors in your country

7 = you would exclude them from your country

• Africans

• African Americans

• Americans (White)

• Arabs

• British

• Canadians

• Chinese

• Cubans

• Dominicans

• Dutch

• Filipinos

• French

• Germans

• Greeks

• Haitians

• Indians (Asians)

• Indians (Native Americans)

• Irish

• Italians

• Jamaicans

• Japanese

• Jews

• Koreans

• Mexicans

• Muslims

• Other Latinos (exc. Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Dominicans)

• Polish

• Puerto Ricans

• Russians

• Vietnamese

3. Compare your results to the sample of 2,916 college students who completed a similar study by Parillo and Donaghue (2005). A link to the research article is available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/223343787_Updating_the_Bogardus_social_distance_studies _A_new_national_survey

4. Which groups do most people surveyed feel closest? Why do you think people feel close to these groups?

5. Which groups do people feel most distant? Why do you think people feel distant to these groups?

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REALITY OF INEQUALITY By studying the structure of social institutions, we understand how race, ethnicity, and other social categories work as systems of power. The social world we live in is supported by ideological beliefs that make existing power structures and discrimination appear normal (Andersen & Collins, 2010). However, the social categories we use to label or identify people are socially constructed and developed through historical processes and intergroup relations. Additionally, these constructs are defined in binary terms of “either/or” (e.g., Black/White, female/male, poor/rich, gay/straight, alien/citizen, etc.) which create “otherness” stigmatizing minority or subordinate groups as out-groups by the majority or powerful (Andersen & Collins, 2010). Otherness directly relates to the advantages and disadvantages of individuals and groups based on their status or location in the stratified society. Because racial formation and racism shape everyday life, we find significant indicators of inequity for Americans of color in family income, poverty, home ownership, education level, and employment.

Table 2. Indicators of Racial-Ethnic Inequity in the United States 1

Population Income Poverty Home Ownership 2

Racial-Ethnic Group % of U.S.

Population

Median Family Income

($)

% Below 100% of

Poverty

% Home Ownership

(2020)

African American 13.4 58,518 18.8 45.3

Asian American 5.9 112,226 7.3 60.3

Latina/o/x 18.5 60,927 15.7 50.1

Native American 1.3 54,920 3 23.0 3 54.0

White 76.3 $89,663 7.3 71.3

1 Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, 2020 Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS ASEC). 2 Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey/Housing Vacancy Survey, March 9, 2021. 3 Source: 2019 American Community Survey 2019: 1-Year Estimates Selected Population Profile in the U.S.

Table 3. Indicators of Racial-Ethnic Inequity in the United States 1

Years of School Completed Employment 3

Racial-Ethnic Group %

High School Diploma

% Bachelor’s

Degree

% Graduate

Degree Employed

Unemployment Rate

African American 30.5 18 9.9 57.0 7.7

Asian American 15.8 34.2 26.9 63.6 3.5

Latina/o/x 28.1 14.4 6. 5 64.3 5.1

Native American 31.5 2 10.4 2 5.7 2 53.5 8.0

White 24.3 25.6 15.7 60.0 3.9

1 Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, 2020 Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS ASEC). 2 Source: 2019 American Community Survey 2019: 1-Year Estimates Selected Population Profile in the U.S. 3 Source: 2019 American Community Survey 2019: 1-Year Estimates Selected Population Profile in the U.S.

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In the United States, under tribal sovereignty, indigenous tribes have the inherent authority to govern themselves within the nation’s borders. The U.S. recognizes tribal nations as domestic dependent nations and reaffirms adherence to the principles of government-to-government relations (The United States Department of Justice, 2020). As a result, the U.S. Census Bureau has challenges in conducting and collecting accurate data in American Indian and Alaska Native areas as available data for Native Americans is presented in Table 2. Estimates conducted by the American Community Survey administered by the U.S. Census Bureau (https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/about/acs- and-census.html) are shown for indicators where current data is not available. To help us understand the impact of systemic racism of Americans of color, let’s explore the data collected and published by the U.S. Census Bureau.

1. According to Table 2, which racial-ethnic groups have the lowest median family incomes?

2. In the same table, which groups have the highest poverty rates? 3. Which groups have the lowest homeownership rates? 4. According to Table 3, which groups complete the highest levels of education? Which

groups achieve the lowest levels? 5. In the same table, which groups obtain graduate (i.e., Master’s, professional, or

doctorate) degrees? 6. Which groups have the highest unemployment numbers? How does unemployment

correspond to population size by racial-ethnic group? 7. Review your analysis of the data presented in Table 2 and 3. What racial-ethnic group

patterns do you find? Data and factual information provide relevant context to understanding racial-ethnic relations and inequality in our social world. We cannot develop the capacity to recognize, appreciate, and empathize with each other if we do not know all the facts of our country’s history and experiences of all people living in it. Current psychological research has found that knowledge of historical racism is related to own’s ability to understand contemporary racism (Feagin, 2014). Data and factual information are critically important to helping us make connections that lead to insights and improvements in the quality of life for all Americans and all of humanity. Everyone has an important role to play in the future of our country and our lives together.

Image by Michael Anthony, Pexels is licensed under CC BY 4.0

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SUMMARY In Module 1, we explored race as a social construct and ethnicity as a matter of cultural group identity. We learned that racial formation compels how race is understood and driven by historical, social, political, and economic interests. You were asked to demonstrate greater consciousness about the significance of naming, land acknowledgement, and the value of intergroup dialogue. We also examined patterns of intergroup relations and conflict between Americans of color and the White majority. And lastly, we analyzed the racial reality of the U.S. including racial oppression, inequality, systemic racism, and White power and privilege. REVIEW QUESTIONS 1. Describe the terms race and ethnicity. 2. Discuss racial framing and its influence on constructing ideas and perceptions about race. 3. Explain racial-ethnic group relations in the United States. Identify maladaptive and adaptive

interactions between majority and minority groups and the three major patterns of race and ethnic relations influencing the system of stratification in the United States.

4. Use data and factual information to illustrate the impact of racial framing, intersectionality, otherness, and systemic racism on racial and ethnic oppression and inequality.

5. Explain why we need to participate in open and honest conversation about race and ethnicity.

TO MY FUTURE SELF From the module, what information and new knowledge did I find interesting or useful? How do I plan to use this information and new knowledge in my personal and professional development and improvement?

APPLICATION 1.6 HOUSING DISCRIMINATION

Goal

To understand how housing and geographic location shape one’s life chances and opportunities.

Instructions

1. Research and define redlining. 2. Analyze Adam Ruins Everything – The Disturbing History of the Suburbs (https://youtu.be/e68CoE70Mk8)

to illustrate systemic housing discrimination. 3. Research and define wealth and wealth inequality. 4. Analyze the socioeconomic data across racial demographics in Tables 2 and 3. 5. How do you think the differences in access to homeownership and home equity between Black and White

households contribute to the wealth inequality we see today? 6. Why do you think there is a relationship between historic redlining and neighborhood health today? 7. What inequalities exist now because of neighborhood segregation? 8. Using your new knowledge about wealth inequality, how does where you live influence how you live?

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REFERENCES Brink, S. (2016). How is the world treating people with disabilities? National Public Radio.

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/12/18/504964701/how-is-the- world-treating-people-with-disabilities

Carl, J. D. (2013). Think social problems. (2nd ed.). Pearson Education, Inc. Doane, A. W. (2016). Dominant group ethnic identity in the United States: The role of ‘hidden’

ethnicity in intergroup relations. The Sociological Quarterly, 38(3), 375-397. Douglass, F. (1881). The color line. North American Review, 132(295). DuBois, W.E.B. 1903. The soul of Black folk. Dover Publications. DuBois, W.E. B. 1920. Dark water: Voices from within the veil. Washington Square Press. Duster, T. 2001. Buried alive: The concept of race in science. Chronicle of Higher Education, 48,

3. Farley, J. E. 2010. Majority-minority relations. (6th ed.). Prentice Hall. Feagin, J. R. 2014. Racist America. Routledge. Griffiths, H., Keirns, N., Strayer, E., Cody-Rydzewsk, S., Scaramuzzo, G., Sadler, T., Vyain, S., Byer,

J., & Jones, F. (2015). Introduction to sociology 2e. OpenStax College. Griswold, W. (2013). Cultures and societies in a changing world. (4th ed.). Sage Publications, Inc. Henslin, J. M. (2011). Essentials of sociology: A down-to-earth approach. (11th ed.). Pearson. Horowitz, J. M., Parker, K., Brown, A., & Cox, K. (2020). Amid national reckoning, Americans

divided on whether increased focus or race will lead to major policy change. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/10/06/amid- national-reckoning-americans-divided-on-whether-increased-focus-on-race-will-lead-to- major-policy-change/

Jablonski, N. (2012). Living color: The biological and social meaning of skin color. University of

California Press. Kennedy, V. (2018). Beyond race: Cultural influences on human social life. West Hills College

Lemoore. Kottak, C. P. & Kozaitis, K. A. (2012). On being different: Diversity and multiculturalism in the

north American mainstream. (4th ed.). McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

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Noel, D. L. (1968). A theory of the origin of ethnic stratification. Social Problems, 16, 157-172. Omi, M. and Winant, H. (1994). Racial formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the

1990s. (2nd ed.). Routledge. Parenti, M. (2006). The culture struggle. Seven Stories Press. Tachi Yokut Tribe. (2021). About. Tachi Yokut Tribe. https://www.tachi-yokut-nsn.gov/about Taylor, R. L. (1998). On race and society. Race and Society, 1, 1-3. U.S. Census Bureau of Labor Statistics. 2019. Women in the labor force: A databook. BLS

Reports. https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/womens-databook/2019/pdf/home.pdf Van den Berghe, P. L. (1958). The dynamics of racial prejudice: An ideal-type dichotomy. Social

Forces, 37, 138-41. Van den Berghe, P. L. (1978). Race and racism: A comparative perspective. (2nd ed.). Wiley. Wilson, W. J. (1973). Power, racism and privilege. Free Press. Wilson, W. J. (1978). The declining significance of race: Blacks and changing American

institutions. University of Chicago Press. Winant, H. (1994). Racial conditions: Politics, theory, comparisons. University of Minnesota

Press.

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MODULE 2. OUR POWER & IDENTITY LEARNING OBJECTIVES At the end of the module, students will be able to: 1. explain the influence of culture on collective and self-identity 2. discuss how personal, social, and cultural identities shape perceptions 3. illustrate the relationship between social labels and categories on status and stratification 4. evaluate the intersectionality of race and other forms of identity 5. assess the impact of technological advances and innovation on identity 6. understand the connection between identity and the reproduction of inequality KEY TERMS & CONCEPTS

Adaptive Culture Affinity Groups Alternative Subculture Anomie Cancel Culture Code-switching Coercive Organizations Collective Consciousness Collective Identity Cultural Capital Cultural Change Cultural Generalities Cultural Patterns Cultural Traits Cultural Universal Cybersocial Interactions Defensive Othering Dropping Out Gatekeepers Global Electronic Cultural Communities Globality Globalization Group Group Dynamics Heterogenization Homogenization Hustling Ideal Culture Identity

Idioculture Implicit Othering International Culture Intersectionality Looking Glass Self Maladaptive Culture Mechanical Solidarity Model Minority Multiple Identities National Culture Normative Organizations Oppressive Othering Organic Solidarity Organization Organizational Culture Othering Power for Patronage Primary Groups Racial Trauma Sanctions Secondary Groups Shared Culture Socializing Agents Subcultures Symbolic Power Transnational Communities Transnationals Two-ness Utilitarian Organizations

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INTRODUCTION

Socialization and culture shape who we are and how others perceive us. The history and experiences of our lives are directly related to our identity. Our personal and social identity have a major impact on the opportunities, challenges, and inequities we face in everyday life.

COLLECTIVE CULTURE

Among humans, there are universal cultural patterns or elements across groups and societies regardless of racial-ethnic composition. Cultural universals are common to all humans throughout the globe. Some cultural universals include cooking, dancing, ethics, greetings, personal names, and taboos to name a few. Can you identify at least five other cultural universals shared by all humans? In thinking about cultural universals, you may have noted the variations or differences in the practice of these cultural patterns or elements. Even though humans share several cultural universals, the practice of culture expresses itself in a variety of ways across different social groups and institutions. When different groups identify a shared culture, we often are speaking from generalizations or general characteristics and common principles shared by humans. The description of cultural universals speaks to the generalization of culture such as in the practice of marriage. Different social groups share the institution of marriage but the process, ceremony, and legal commitments are different depending on the culture of the group or society. Cultural generalities help us understand the similarities and connections all humans have in the way we understand and live even though we may have particular ways of applying them. Some cultural characteristics are unique to a single place, culture, group, or society. These particularities may develop or adapt from social and physical responses to time, geography, ecological changes, group member traits, and composition including power structures or other phenomena. In further examining the cultural universal of marriage, we may find commonalities in ceremony and celebration but identify differences in the language or presentation of the marriage ceremony and the ways and methods marriage is celebrated. Even though many of us socially relate to understanding the concept of marriage and have seen depictions of it in our own families and the media, it is our differences about marriage that tend to influence our social perceptions, attitudes, and interactions with married couples. For example, interracial couples prompt social attitudes and practices including racial boundaries directly impacting racial-ethnic relations. Interracial couples, because of their racial-ethnic composition, often witness or face racialized responses from people within their own groups and others (Childs, 2005). Needless to say, interracial couples create multiracial families thus changing

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the racial dynamic of the family as an institution which in itself is the source of hostility for some toward interracial relationships. Social & Cultural Bonds By living together in society, people “learn specific ways of looking at life” (Henslin, 2011, p. 104). Through daily interactions, people construct reality. The construction of reality provides a forum for interpreting experiences in life expressed through culture. Minimizing the experiences and contributions of African American, Asian American, Latinx American, and Native American communities in the United States communicates that their lives are insignificant to the history and culture of our country (Anderson & Collins, 2010). This ongoing practice of excluding the lives and experiences of people of color from social, political, and historical narratives legitimizes and justifies racial-ethnic conflict including the former enslavement of African Americans, genocide of Native Americans, and laws restricting refugee status to Asian Americans and Latinx American people. Omitting the work and involvement of people of color in the construction of America denies equity and inclusion “as citizens” guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution while further instilling and propagating racial prejudice and discrimination against these groups. Emile Durkheim (1893, 1960) believed social bonds hold people together. When people live in small, integrated communities that share common values and beliefs, they develop a shared or collective consciousness. Durkheim referred to this type of social integration as mechanical solidarity meaning members of the community are all working parts of the group or work in unity creating a sense of togetherness forming a collective identity. In this example, members of the community think and act alike because they have a shared culture and shared experiences from living in remote, close-knit areas. As society evolves and communities grow, people become more specialized in the work they do. This specialization leads individuals to work independently in order to contribute to a segment or part of a larger society (Henslin, 2011). Durkheim referred to this type of social unity as organic solidarity meaning each member of the community has a specific task or place in the group in which they contribute to the overall function of the community that is spatial and culturally diverse. In this example, community members do not necessarily think or act alike but participate by fulfilling their role or tasks as part of the larger group. If members fulfill their parts, then everyone is contributing and exchanging labor or production for the community to function as a whole.

Both mechanical and organic solidarity explain how people cooperate to create and sustain social bonds relative to group size and membership even among diverse racial-ethnic groups. Each form of solidarity develops its own culture to hold society together and function. However, when society transitions from mechanical to organic solidarity, there is chaos or normlessness. Durkheim referred to this transition as social anomie meaning “without law” resulting from a lack of a firm collective consciousness. As people transition from social

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dependence (mechanical solidarity or collective support) to interdependence (organic solidarity or dissociation), they become isolated and alienated from one another until a redeveloped set of shared norms arises. We see examples of this transition when there are changes in social institutions such as employment, marriage, and religion. For example, transitions in employment across America have shown a lack of jobs that pay a living wage; as a result, some people become homeless or turn to criminal behavior to earn a living, both are forms of anomie, as they move from social dependence to interdependence. Social bonds are only formed through social acceptance and appreciation. How have people of color garnered social acceptance even though their work and contributions have been historically unappreciated, ignored, and rejected by American society? Is it possible to strengthen social bonds and acceptance between people of color and White Americans when human life in America is not equally valued? What happens to society if people continue to perpetuate prejudice and discrimination based on racial-ethnic composition?

People develop an understanding about their culture, specifically their role and place in society through social interactions. Charles Horton Cooley (1902, 1964) suggested people develop self and identity through interpersonal interactions such as perceptions, expectations, and judgement of others. Cooley referred to this practice as the looking glass self. We imagine how others observe us, and we develop ourselves in response to their observations. The concept develops over three phases of interactions. First, we imagine another’s response to our behavior or appearance, then we envision their judgment, and lastly, we have an emotional response to their judgement influencing our self-image or identity (Griswold, 2013).

Interpersonal interactions play a significant role in helping us create social bonds and understand our place in society. The looking glass self reflects the accepted norms and roles for people to occupy within social contexts. For people of color, the looking glass self establishes the self-consciousness of “two- ness” or a dual identity, one accepted by the dominant group and its culture, and the other embraced by their own native or indigenous culture (DuBois, 1903). It is through this social development that people of color learn code-switching or double consciousness where they anticipate accepted norms and roles based on the social setting and power dynamics of those they will be interacting and change the way they speak, appear, behave, and express themselves. Research shows code-switching generates hostility from in-group members for “acting White,” depletes cognitive resources from performing or trying to avoid true culture, and reduces authentic self-expression (McCluney et al., 2019). What social image do you visualize when you think of yourself as an American? What social image do people of color have to reference or emulate to develop social bonds with White Americans? What racial-ethnic behaviors, appearances, and interactions are accepted in the dominant culture? Which ones are rejected?

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BIOGRAPHICAL REFLECTION 2.1

WHEN DID YOU BECOME BLACK?

This picture makes me smile. I love my twin brother. Through the challenges of our childhood, it was a blessing to have a twin. Our father is African-American and Italian, and our mother is Mexican. As a result, our racial identity was ambiguous. Many times, as children, my twin brother and I would be in public together and people would comment on the disparity of our looks. As you can see by the photo, my twin brother is very fair in comparison to me. People would comment, “He is adorable with his curly hair and big eyes, and what happened to her?” To say I felt ugly is an understatement. I hated being dark. How could a four-year-old already feel this way? Four-year-old children are the

cutest and sweetest people walking the planet. I felt that way because I was constantly bombarded with the White America standard of beauty. A standard that even the Hispanic community adopted- light skin, light eyes, and blond hair, was beautiful. As a child, I strictly identified with being Mexican as coached by my maternal grandfather and my mother. He would say in a demanding tone, “You are NOT Black, you are Hispanic. Your skin is dark, but there are lots of dark Mexicans, and your hair is not kinky, you have Mexican hair.” I would adopt this message as my own, and I would not tell people that I was African-American until I developed a deep sense of who I really was. I left California and went to Alabama A&M University (a Historical Black College) for a year. It was the biggest culture shock of my life, in the most beautiful way. I loved the African American culture: the food, the music, the soul, the faith, and the deep sense of community. The Southern African American culture was very different than my limited experience with the African American community in California. Most of my professors were African- American and my best friend, Bonita, had a sister who is a dentist. It was stunning to see progressive, educated, faith filled, illustrious of people who embraced me as beautiful. According to their standard of beauty, I fit in. My Spanish professor, Senor Goggins, was funny, smart, world traveled, and a kind man. He was not what I was socialized to believe that African-Americans were, none of my newfound community was. I found faith at this point in my life. The kind of faith that sees the beauty in all people. I learned how broken people are and how what you see in others reveals so much about who you are. When I came back to California, my mother could not stand that I had a new identity that included embracing being an African American as well as a Latina. “When did you become Black?” she asked. It would take years before I could answer this question in a way that she could understand. Today, I identify with being an African-American, Latina. I have a deep love affair with culture of all kinds. My family is a multi-racial family that embraces every aspect of who we are. We go to church on Sunday and make tamales for the holidays and gumbo for the New Year. We listen to Los Tucanes de Tijuana and Aretha Franklin. I was recently having lunch with a group of girlfriends that I’ve been friends with for over 35 years. We were discussing what we love the most about each other. Then the question became, what physical characteristic do you like about yourself the most? My answer… “My skin.” This story “When Did You Become Black?” by Guadalupe Capozzi is licensed under CC BY NC ND 4.0

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Levels of Culture There are three recognized levels of culture in society (Kottak & Kozaitis, 2012). Each level of culture signifies particular cultural traits and patterns within groups. International culture is one level referring to culture that transcends national boundaries. These cultural traits and patterns spread through migration, colonization, and the expansion of multinational organizations (Kottak & Kozaitis, 2012). Some illustrations are evident in the adoption and use of technology and social media across continents. For example, computers and mobile devices allow people to live and operate across national boundaries enabling them to create and sustain an international culture around a common interest or purpose (e.g., Olympics, United Nations, etc.). In contrast, cultural traits and patterns shared within a country are national culture. National culture is most easily recognizable in the form of symbols such as flags, logos, and colors as well as sound including national anthems and musical styles. Think about American culture, which values, beliefs, norms, and symbols are common only among people living in the United States? How is national culture developed? Which social group has the status and power to create and sustain U.S. culture? How does this group maintain its power and influence? Subcultures, another level of culture, are subgroups of people within the same country (e.g., doctors, lawyers, teachers, athletes, African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinx Americans, Native Americans, White Americans, etc.). Subcultures have shared experiences and common cultural distinctions, but they blend into the larger society or cultural system. Subcultures have their own set of symbols, meanings, and behavioral norms, which develop by interacting with one another. Subcultures develop their own idioculture or self-culture that has significant meaning to members of the group and creates social boundaries for membership and social acceptance (Griswold, 2013). Think about social cliques whether they be categorized as jocks, nerds, hipsters, punks, or stoners. Each group has a particular subculture from the artifacts they wear to the values and beliefs they exhibit. All groups form a subculture resulting in group cohesion and shared consciousness among its members. Groups and Organizations The term group refers to any collection of at least two people who interact frequently and share identity traits aligned with the group (Griffiths et al., 2015). Groups play different roles in our lives. Primary groups are usually small groups characterized by face-to-face interaction, intimacy, and a strong sense of commitment. Primary groups remain with us throughout our lifetime (Henslin, 2011). Secondary groups are large and impersonal groups that form from sharing a common interest.

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Different types of groups influence our interactions, identity, and social status. George Herbert Mead (1934) suggested specific expectations of influential people in a person’s life are conceptualized as “significant” others, and common social expectations by being a member of a group as termed “generalized” others. Mead’s theories explain that primary groups or significant others develop specific expectations or roles for us to learn for social acceptance. Whereas secondary groups define general expectations for acceptance. Someone who identifies as African American may be expected to acknowledge and celebrate Kwanzaa (primary group norm) and Christmas (secondary group norm). Different types of groups influence our interactions, identity, and social status. Group dynamics focus on how groups influence individuals and how individuals affect groups. The social dynamics between individuals play a significant role in forming group solidarity. Social unity reinforces a collective identity and shared thinking among group members thereby constructing a common culture (Griswold, 2013). Commonalities of group membership are important for mobilizing individual members. When people attempt to create social change or establish a social movement group, solidarity helps facilitate motivation of individuals and framing of their actions. The sense of belonging and trust among the group makes it easier for members to align and recognize the problem, accept a possible solution, take certain actions that are congruent and complementary to the collective identity of the group (Griswold, 2013). People accept the group’s approach based on solidarity and cohesiveness that overall amplifies personal mobilization and commitment to the group and its goals.

An organization refers to a group of people with a collective goal or purpose linked to bureaucratic tendencies including a hierarchy of authority, clear division of labor, explicit rules, and impersonal (Giddens et al., 2013). Organizations function within existing cultures and produce their own. Formal organizations fall into three categories including normative, coercive, and utilitarian (Etzioni, 1975). People join normative or voluntary organizations

APPLICATION 2.1 YOUR REGIONAL CULTURE

Goal

To connect socio-cultural identities with uniform characteristics of a geographic region.

Instructions

The place someone lives influences his or her value system and life. Describe the geographic location you live and the culture of your community. What values and beliefs do the social norms and practices of your neighborhood instill or project among residents? What type of artifacts or possessions (i.e., truck, luxury car, recreational vehicle, fenced yard, swimming pool, etc.) do people living in your community seek out, dismiss, or condone? Do you conform to the cultural standards where you live or deviate from them? Explain how the place you live influences your personal and social perceptions, choices, and life.

Source

Kennedy, V. (2018). Beyond race: Cultural influences on human social life. West Hills College Lemoore.

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based on shared interests (e.g., club or cause). Coercive organizations are groups that people are coerced or forced to join (e.g., addiction rehabilitation program or jail). People join utilitarian organizations to obtain a specific material reward (e.g., private school or college). When we work or live in organizations, there are multiple levels of interaction that effect social unity and operations. On an individual level, people must learn and assimilate into the culture of the organization. All organizations face the problem of motivating its members to work together to achieve common goals (Griswold, 2013). Generally, in organizations small group subcultures develop with their own meaning and practices to help facilitate and safeguard members within the organizational structure. Group members will exercise force (peer pressure and incentives), actively socialize (guide feelings and actions with normative controls), and model behavior (exemplary actors and stories) to build cohesiveness (Griswold, 2013). Small groups play an integral role in managing individual members to maintain the function of the organization. Think about the school or college you attend. There are many subcultures within any educational setting and each group establishes the norms and behaviors members must follow for social acceptance. Can you identify at least two racial-ethnic subcultures on your school campus and speculate how members of these groups are pressured to fit in to the dominant culture?

On a group level, symbolic power matters in recruiting members and sustaining the culture of a group within the larger social culture (Hallet, 2003). Symbolic power is the power of constructing reality to guide people in understanding their place in the organizational hierarchy (Bourdieu, 1991). This power occurs in everyday interactions through unconscious cultural and social domination. Like in society, the dominant group of an organization influences the prevailing culture and provides its function in communications forcing all groups or subcultures to define themselves by their distance from the dominant culture (Bourdieu, 1991). The

instrument of symbolic power is the instrument of domination in the organization by creating the ideological systems of its goals, purpose, and operations. Symbolic power not only governs the culture of the organization but also manages solidarity and division between groups. We see examples of symbolic power in U.S. institutions (i.e., banks, schools, prisons, military, etc.), and each has a hierarchy of authority where administrators serve as the dominate group and are responsible for the prevailing culture. Each institution socializes members according to their position within the organization to sustain the establishment and fulfill collective goals and maintain functions. There are external factors that influence organizational culture. The context and atmosphere of a nation shapes an organization. When an organization’s culture aligns with national ideology, they can receive special attention or privileges in the way of financial incentives or policy changes (Griswold 2013). In contrast, organizations opposing national culture may face suppression, marginalization, or be denied government and economic support. Organizations

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must also operate across a multiplicity of cultures (Griswold, 2013). Culture differences between organizations may affect their operations and achievement of goals. To be successful, organizations must be able to operate in a variety of contexts and cultures. Griswold (2013) suggested one way to work across cultural contexts is to maintain an overarching organizational mission but be willing to adapt to insignificant or minor issues. Financial and banking institutions use this approach. Depending on the region and demographic composition, banks offer different cultural incentives for opening an account or obtaining a loan. In the state of Michigan, affluent homeowners may acquire a low interest property improvement loan, while low-income homeowners are restricted to grants for repairing, improving, or modernizing their homes to remove health and safety hazards.

Working across organizational cultures also requires some dimension of trust. Organizational leaders must model forms and symbols of trust between organizations, groups, and individuals (Mizrachi et al., 2007). This means authority figures must draw on the organization’s internal and external diversity of cultures to show its ability to adapt and work in a variety of cultural and political settings and climates. Organizations often focus on internal allegiance forgetting that shared meaning across the marketplace, sector, or industry is what moves understanding of the overall system and each organization’s place in it (Griswold, 2013). The lack of cultural coordination and understanding undermines many organizations and has significant consequences for accomplishing their goals and ability to sustain themselves. Doing Culture All people are cultured. You have culture. Social scientists argue all people have culture comprised of values, beliefs, norms, expressive symbols or language, practices, and artifacts. This viewpoint transcends the humanities perspective that suggests someone must project refined tastes, manners, and have a good education as those exhibited by the elite class to have culture. The perspective of social scientists reinforces the ideology that culture is an integrated and patterned system and not simply desired characteristics of the ruling or dominant group. Cultural patterns are a set of integrated traits transmitted by communication or social interactions (Kottak and Kozaitis, 2012). Consider the cultural patterns associated with housing. Each cultural group or society maintains a housing system comprised of particular cultural traits including kitchen, sofa, bed, toilet, etc. The cultural traits or each individual cultural item is part of the home or accepted cultural pattern for housing. Not only do people share cultural traits, but they may also share personality traits. These traits are actions, attitudes, and behaviors (e.g., honesty, loyalty, courage, etc.). Shared personality traits develop through social interactions from core values within groups and societies (Kottak

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and Kozaitis, 2012). Core values are formally (legally or recognized) and informally (unofficial) emphasized to develop a shared meaning and social expectations. The use of positive (reward) and negative (punishment) sanctions helps in controlling desired and undesired personality traits. For example, if we want to instill courage, we might highlight people and moments depicting bravery with verbal praise or accepting awards. To prevent cowardness, we could show a deserter or run-away to depict weakness and social isolation.

Doing culture is not always an expression of ideal culture. People’s practices and behaviors do not always abide or fit into the ideal ethos we intend or expect. The Christmas holiday is one example where ideal culture does not match the real culture people live and convey. Christmas traditionally represents an annual celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ; however, many individuals and families do not worship Christ or attend church on Christmas day but instead exchange gifts and eat meals together. The ideal or public definition of Christmas does not match the real or individual practices people express on the holiday. Throughout history, there have always been differences between what people value (ideal culture) and how they actually live their lives (real culture) regardless of racial-ethnic background. IDENTITY FORMATION & POLITICS Trying to figure out who you are, what you value and believe, and why you think the way you do is a lifelong process. In the first chapter of Thinking Well, Stewart E. Kelly (2000) suggests, “we all have lenses through which we view reality, and we need to know what our individual lens is composed of and how it influences our perception of reality.” Take a moment to reflect and hypothetically paint a picture of yourself with words. Try to capture the core of your being by describing who you are. Once you have formulated a description of yourself, evaluate what you wrote. Does your description focus on your personal characteristics or your socio-cultural characteristics you learned from other people in your life (i.e., family, friends, congregation, teachers, community, etc.)?

Identity, like culture itself, is a social construct. The values, beliefs, norms, expressive symbols, practices, and artifacts we hold develop from the social relationships we experience throughout our lives. Not only does personal identity make us aware of who we are, but it also defines what we stand for in comparison to others. Identity is relational between individuals, groups, and society meaning through culture people are able to form social connections or refrain from them. It is real to each of us with real social consequences. We develop our identity through the process of socialization and enculturation. Socializing agents including family, peers, school, work, and the media transmit traditions, customs, language, tools,

and common experiences and knowledge. The passage of knowledge and culture from one generation to the next ensures sustainability of a particular way of life by instilling specific

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traits, attitudes, and characteristics of a group or society that become part of each group member’s identity. Identity shapes our perceptions and the way we think about and categorize people. Our individual and collective views influence our thinking. Regardless of personal, cultural, or universal identity people naturally focus on traits, values, attitudes, and practices or behaviors they identify with and dismiss those they do not. Generations have collective identity or shared experiences based on the time period the group lived. Consider the popular culture of the 1980s to today. In the 1980s, people used a landline or fixed line phone rather than a cellular phone to communicate and went to a movie theater to see a film rather than downloaded a video to a mobile device. Therefore, someone who spent his or her youth and most of their adulthood without or with limited technology may not deem it necessary to have or operate it in daily life. Whereas someone born in the 1990s or later will only know life with technology and find it a necessary part of human existence.

Each generation develops a perspective and identifies from the time and events surrounding their life. Generations experience life differently resulting from social and cultural shifts over time. The difference in life experience alters perspectives towards values, beliefs, norms, expressive symbols, practices, and artifacts. Political and social events often mark an era and influence generations. The ideology of White supremacy reinforced by events of Nazi Germany and World War II during the 1930s and 1940s instilled racist beliefs in society. Many adults living at this time believed the essays of Arthur Gobineau (1853-1855) regarding the existence of biological differences between racial groups (Biddis, 1970). It was not until the 1960s and 1970s when philosophers and critical theorists studied the underlying structures in cultural products and used analytical concepts from linguistics, anthropology, psychology, and sociology to interpret race discovering no biological or phenological variances between human groups and finding race is a social construct (Black & Solomos, 2000). Scientists found cultural likeness did not equate to biological likeness. Nonetheless, many adults living in the 1930s and 1940s held racial beliefs of White supremacy throughout their lives because of the ideologies spread and shared during their lifetime. Whereas modern science verifies the DNA of all people living today is 99.9% alike and a new generation of people are learning that there is only one human race despite the physical variations in size, shape, skin tone, and eye color (Smithsonian, 2018). Intersectionality As we explore the aspects of identity formation, it becomes evident that we are more than our racial-ethnic composition. By examining the influence of culture on our lives, we can understand how other identity labels or categories operate together in people’s lives and affect our values, attitudes, norms, and practices. There are many elements of our identity that work simultaneously and intersect that impact our understanding of ourselves and others as well as influence our experiences, social interactions, and relationships.

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Race-ethnicity with class, gender and other identity labels or categories of sexuality, religion, spirituality, national origin, immigration or refugee status, ability, tribal citizenship, sovereignty, language, and age intersect within a social context creating stratified social arrangements and systems of power. The interconnected nature of social categories overlap and have a cumulative effect on our lives. Your identity or social location in a society can shape what you know, what others know about you, how you are treated, and how you experience life (Anderson & Collins, 2010). Social labels and categories we use to define identity such as race, ethnicity, class, and gender matter because they are and continue to be the basis for systems of power and inequality. As people are stratified into social categories along identity lines, the persistent reality of inequality is evident. The dominant group has historically served as the gatekeeper to resources, opportunities, and knowledge in the United States. Intersectionality exists within a matrix of domination or social structure with multiple, interlocking levels of power and control that stem from race-ethnic relations, gender, class and other social categories (Anderson & Collins, 2010). Those who identify and are accepted as members of the dominant group have access and privileges associated with their power and status, whereas others do not.

Examine each of the identity labels or social categories that intersect in our lives, are you able to determine which label or identity-type is associated with dominance, power, and status? For instance, explore gender identity. Describe the power and status of those who identify as male in comparison to those who identify as female? Now, evaluate the identity label for those who are non-binary. How is power and status different for non-binary people as compared to those who identify as male or female? How is social dominance, power, and inequality apparent and

APPLICATION 2.2 THE PRIVILEGE & OPPRESSION OF INTERSECTIONALITY

Goal

To summarize the concept of intersectionality and articulate your own intersectional identities.

Instructions

Please take a moment to view Kimberlé Crenshaw's TED Talk, The Urgency of Intersectionality (https://youtu.be/akOe5-UsQ2o). This video introduces the concept of intersectionality. As you watch the video, think about the different ways your identities intersect and how this impacts your ability to reach your educational and life goals. Once you have viewed and reflected on the video, answer the following questions:

1. What does intersectionality mean in simple words? What is an example of intersectionality? 2. How does social and cultural context influence our perceptions of identity? 3. How do your social identity labels or categories intersect and overlap? How do these labels or categories

empower and/or oppress your life experience? 4. Do you think about social identity, privilege, and oppression often? Why or why not?

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under CC BY 4.0

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understood based on gender identity? How are life experiences different based on gender identity? Now consider gender and race. How is dominance, power, and status understood and how do gender and race labels intersect to influence life experience? Globalization and Identity With the advancements in technology and communications, people are experiencing greater social forces in the construction of their cultural reality and identity. The boundaries of locality have expanded to global and virtual contexts that create complexities in understanding the creation, socialization, adaptation, and sustainability of culture. Globalization is typically associated with the creation of world-spanning free markets and the global reach of capitalist systems resulting from technological advances (Back et al., 2012). However, globalization has the unintended consequences of connecting every person in the world to each other. In this era, everyone’s life is connected to everyone else’s life in obvious and hidden ways (Albrow, 1996). Globalization lends itself to cultural homogenization that is the world becoming culturally similar (Back et al., 2012). However, the cultural similarities we now share center on capitalist enterprises including fashion and fast food. Social researchers also recognize patterns of cultural heterogenization where aspects of our lives are becoming more complex and differentiated resulting from globalization. Our social relationships and interactions have become unconstrained by geography (Back, et al.). People are no longer restricted to spatial locales and are able to interact beyond time and space with those sharing common culture, language, or religion (Giddens, 1990; Kottak & Kozaitis, 2012). People can travel across the globe within hours but also connect with others by phone or the Internet within seconds. These advancements in technology and communications alter what people perceive as close and far away (Back et al., 2012). Our social and cultural arrangements in an era of globalization are adapting and changing the way we think and act. Globalization also influences our identity and affinity groups. Technology allows us to eliminate communication boundaries and interact with each other on a global scale. Today people are able to form and live across national borders. Advances in transportation and communications give people the opportunity to affiliate with multiple countries as transnationals. At different times of their lives or different times of the year, people may live in two or more countries. We are moving beyond local, state, and national identities to broader identities developing from our global interactions forming transnational communities. A key cultural development has been the construction of globality or thinking of the whole earth as one place (Beck, 2000). Social events like Earth Day and the World Cup of soccer are examples of globality. People associate and connect with each other in which they identify. Today people frame their thinking about who they are within global lenses of reference (Back et al., 2012). Even in our global and virtual interactions, people align themselves with the affinity groups relative to where they think they belong and will find acceptance. Think about your global and virtual friends and peer

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groups. How did you meet or connect? Why do you continue to interact? What value do you have in each other’s lives even though you do not have physical interaction? With the world in flux from globalization and technological advances, people are developing multiple identities apparent in their local and global linkages. Identity is becoming increasingly contextual in the postmodern world where people transform and adapt depending on time and place (Kottak & Kozaitis, 2012). Social and cultural changes now adapt in response to single events or issues. The instant response and connections to others beyond time and place immediately impacts our lives, and we have the technology to react quickly with our thoughts and actions. People can now live within global electronic cultural communities and reject cultural meta- narratives (Griswold, 2013). Postmodern culture also blurs history by rearranging and juxtaposing unconnected signs to produce new meanings. We find references to actual events in fictional culture and fictional events in non-fictional culture (Barker & Jane, 2016). Many U.S. television dramas refer to 9/11 in episodes focusing on terrorists or terrorist activities. Additionally, U.S. social activities and fundraising events will highlight historical figures or icons. The blurring of non-fiction and fiction creates a new narrative or historical reality people begin to associate with and recognize as actual or fact. Identity Today All forms of media and technology influence identity including values, norms, language, and behaviors by providing information about activities and events of social significance (Griffiths et al., 2015). Media and technology socialize us to think and act within socio-cultural appropriate norms and accepted practices. Watching and listening to people act and behave through media and technology shows the influence this social institution has on things like family, peers, school, and work on teaching social norms, values, and beliefs. Technological innovations and advancements have influenced social interactions and communication patterns in the twenty-first century creating new social constructions of reality. These changes, particularly in information technology, have led to further segmentation of society based on user-participant affinity groups including racial-ethnic groups (Kottak & Kozaitis, 2012). The internet and web-based applications link people together transecting local, state, and national boundaries centered on common interests. People who share interests, ideas, values, beliefs, and practices are able to connect to one another through web-based and virtual worlds. These shared interests create solidarity among user-participants while disengaging them from others with differing or opposing interests meaning racial-ethnic groups can easily develop cohesion among like members across borders and inflate antagonism for others. Cybersocial interactions have reinforced affinity groups creating attitudes and behaviors that strongly encourage tribalism or loyalty to the social group and indifference to others.

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Even though there are so many media, news, and information outlets available online, they are homogenous and tell the same stories using the same sources delivering the same message (McManus, 1995). Regardless of the news or information outlets one accesses, the coverage of events is predominantly the same with differences focusing on commentary, perspective, and analysis. Shoemaker and Vos (2009) found this practice allows outlets to serve as gatekeepers by shaping stories and messages into mass media-appropriate forms and reducing them to a manageable amount for the audience. Fragmentation of stories and messages occurs solely on ideology related to events rather than actual coverage of accounts, reports, or news.

People no longer form and take on identity solely from face-to- face interactions; they also construct themselves from online communication and cybersocial interactions. Approximately 73 percent of adults engage in some sort of online social networking extending their cultural identity to virtual space and time (Pew Research Center, 2011). Technological innovations and advancements have even led some people to re-construct a new online identity different from the one they have in face-to-face contexts. Both identities and realities are real to the people who construct and create them as they are the cultural creators of their personas. Technology like other resources in society creates inequality among social groups (Griffiths et al., 2015). People with greater

access to resources have the ability to purchase and use online services and applications. Privilege access to technological innovations and advancements depend on one’s age, family, education, ethnicity, gender, profession, race, and social class (Kottak & Kozaitis, 2012). Signs of technological stratification are visible in the increasing knowledge gap for those with less access to information technology. People with exposure to technology gain further proficiency that makes them more marketable and employable in modern society (Griffiths et al., 2015). Inflation of the knowledge gap results from the lack of technological infrastructure among races, classes, geographic areas creating a digital divide between those who have internet access and those that do not. CULTURAL CHANGE & ADAPTATION People biologically and culturally adapt. Cultural change or evolution is influenced directly (e.g., intentionally), indirectly (e.g., inadvertently), or by force. These changes are a response to fluctuations in the physical or social environment (Kottak and Kozaitis 2012). Social movements often start in response to shifting circumstances such as an event or issue in an effort to evoke cultural change. People will voluntarily join for collective action to either preserve or alter a cultural base or foundation. The fight over control of a cultural base has been the central conflict among many civil and human rights movements. On a deeper level, many of these movements are about cultural

Image by Marcus Aurelius, Pexels is licensed under CC BY 4.0

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rights and control over what will be the prevailing or dominant culture. For example, the cancel culture or call-out movement aims to ostracize individuals out of social and professional circles as a form of boycotting or shunning someone who has acted or spoken in an unacceptable manner. Individuals ostracized call out the expression “cancel culture” or “cancelled” to protest their free speech and censorship. The “call-out” culture developed in 2014 as part of the #MeToo movement and gave victims of sexual abuse and harassment the ability to publicly call out their abusers and be heard particularly for sex crimes committed by powerful individuals. The Black Lives Matter movement applied the same method to call-out police who killed Black men to highlight the racism and discrimination against Black communities by law enforcement. The hashtag “#cancel” was inspired by activist Suey Park when she called out the Twitter account of The Colbert Report for a racist tweet about Asians. The use of the hashtag generated outrage and debate, and the practice became widespread on Black Twitter to stop supporting a person or work. By 2019 the phrase “cancel culture” became popular to recognize accountability for offensive conduct. Recently, political conservatives in the United States have adopted the term to deflect reactions or judgements for using politically incorrect speech. Changes in culture are either adaptive (better suited for the environment) or maladaptive (inadequate or inappropriate for the environment). During times of distress or disaster such as the COVID-19 pandemic, people made cultural changes to daily norms and practices such as wearing a mask and getting vaccinated for health, safety, and survival. The pandemic forced adaptive cultural changes in medicine (vaccines), healthcare (emergency preparedness), and online sectors and services (videoconferencing and education). However, not all cultural changes were helpful or productive such as social distancing and the lockdowns during COVID. These changes resulted in maladaptive behaviors and financial stress. Many people continue to suffer mental health and substance issues as a result of social isolation during the pandemic and the economy remains in recovery from government, business, and school closures during peak waves of illness. People adjust and learn to cope with cultural changes whether adaptive or maladaptive in an effort to soothe psychological or emotional needs.

Though technology continues to impact changes in society, culture does not always change at the same pace. There is a lag in how rapidly cultural changes occur. Generally, material culture changes before non-material culture. Contact between groups diffuses cultural change among groups, and people are usually open to adapt or try new artifacts or material possessions before modifying their values, beliefs, norms, expressive symbols (i.e., verbal and non-verbal language), or practices. Influencing fashion is easier than altering people’s political or religious beliefs. OTHERING & BELONGING Like racial formation, identity labels and categories are socially constructed by the dominant group. Othering is the process of inventing labels and defining characteristics of people into inferior group categories (Schwalbe et al., 2000). Symbolic language is directly and indirectly

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used to label and categorize inferior group members who form their own collective identity of belonging. The dominant group defines the existence of inferior groups by practicing othering in three forms. Oppressive othering occurs when the dominant group seeks advantage by defining a group as morally and/or intellectually inferior (Schwalbe et al., 2000). Race classification schemes are an example of oppressive othering by overtly or subtly asserting racial difference of non-White as a deficit. Implicit othering uses dramaturgical fronts of power where White elites or would-be elites take on or portray powerful self-images and implicitly create inferior others (Schwalbe et al., 2000). Politicians and corporate executives often engage in implicit othering by shaping their public personas and performances to show strength and masculinity. Defensive othering is practiced by individuals seeking belonging into the dominant group or by those wanting to deflect stigma experienced by the inferior or subordinate group (Schwalbe et al., 2000). This type of othering involves accepting the devalued identity imposed by the dominant group reproducing social inequality. When inferior group members seek safety or advantage by othering those within their own group, the dominant group’s claim to superiority is reinforced by their actions. Cultural attributes within social networks build community, group loyalty, and personal and social identity. People must learn to develop the social and cultural knowledge they need to belong, garner support, and feel embraced by their community and society at large. A person’s social status or composition dictates one’s admittance into a group or society to access cultural knowledge, information, and skills. Sociologists find cultural capital or the social assets of a person (including intellect, education, speech pattern, mannerisms, and dress) promote social mobility (Harper-Scott & Samson, 2009). People who accumulate and display the cultural knowledge of a society or the dominant group may earn social acceptance, status, and power. Bourdieau (1991) explained the accumulation and transmission of culture is a social investment from socializing agents including family, peers, and community. People learn culture and cultural characteristics and traits from one another; however, social status effects whether people share, spread, or communicate cultural knowledge to each other. A person’s social status in a group or society influences their ability to access and develop cultural capital. Cultural capital provides people access to cultural connections such as institutions, individuals, materials, and economic resources (Kennedy, 2012). Status guides people in choosing who and when culture or cultural capital is transferable. Bourdieu (1991) believed cultural inheritance and personal biography attributes to individual success more than intelligence or talent. With status comes access to social and cultural capital that generates access to privileges and power among and between groups. Individuals with cultural capital deficits face social inequalities

Image by Armin Rimoldi, Pexels is licensed under CC BY 4.0

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(Reay, 2004). If someone does not have the cultural knowledge and skills to maneuver the social world they occupy, then they will not find acceptance within a group or society to access support and resources.

BIOGRAPHICAL REFLECTION 2.2

ONE TIME THREE EQUALS ONE Being a person of color in particular African-American, does carry a social imbalance on the ladder to success. Educated in Middle-class, Catholic schools in the sixties and seventies for my entire first 12 years of school, I had to learn through the years that being Black meant that I was to be seen by others in ways I was unaware of, ways that signified that I was seen differently than my Caucasian counterparts. I really had no idea how true that came to be. In 1968 I was a high school freshman at one of those aforementioned Parochial schools, and I received my first lesson in ethnic studies from a most unlikely mentor. His name was Father Kieran Cunningham, a White immigrant from Ireland. One day the two of us were out walking, and he told me of his last days in Ireland and his first moments in the airport after landing in New York. Fr. Kieran mentioned the moment he saw the first Black person in his life that first day in New York, and he related how he couldn’t keep from staring. I could only hope that the person he was eyeballing was unaware of it for both his and Father Kieran’s benefit. I honestly wasn’t sure where this conversation was going. Then Father Kieran turned to me and said a sentence that has remained with me my entire life. “Daryl, to be a success in life you are going to have to work three times harder than the average White person, do you understand that?” “No, I don’t understand that at all,” I thought. As far as I was concerned, why would I have to work harder than the next guy? But this very wise man was right, and time would prove him out. I have been successful professionally, but at times my expectation bar was higher than others. As a former Air Force officer, I was told by a superior that, in addition to showing leadership to all the 100-plus airmen assigned to me, I was to also show “Black leadership.” “What was the difference between that and regular leadership?” I thought. Later on, in my early years as an elementary educator, parents removed their children from my class roster the first day of school when they found out I was Black, and told my principal to support their decision, in not very nice words of reference to me. A student teacher requested to be removed from my supervision the minute she laid eyes on me and realized I was not her race. She refused to be mentored by me. Some of my own students sent racial slurs my way when I corrected them for misbehavior. It was of course unpleasant, but I also wondered why pre-teen kids thought they had license to address their adult teacher in that manner. I was a bit naïve then, even I will admit. And yes, Fr. Kieran was right, there were certain challenges that, as an African American I experienced that let’s face it—were due to the fact that I am African American. And it remains almost surreal to me that I first heard of this inequity not from a fellow African American, but a wise, well-meaning white immigrant from Ireland. I don’t know if I have had to work two, three, or four times harder than Caucasians to achieve the same goal, but I will admit with some regret, that part of my success as a professional has been because I have been seen as a “specially gifted African American,” and not simply a gifted man, period. And as long as one needs to stand out from within an ethnic group, that individual will always begin from a starting point of deficit. Do you think Fr. Kieran had a right to tell the writer what he told him? Did it help the writer, or maybe cause more harm? Do you believe that minorities really have to work harder than whites, in the same situation? Have you felt that you were seen as a “special” member of your demographic group, that deserved more than the “average” member of your group? This story “One Times Three Equals One” by Daryl Johnson is licensed under CC BY NC ND 4.0

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Obtaining social and cultural acceptance for people of color in the U.S. often results in mental and emotional injury from living in a system of White supremacy where historically racists ideas, norms, and practices have been passed down through generations. On a daily basis, people of color face racial bias, microaggressions, ethnic discrimination, racism, and hate crimes. This racial trauma or race-based traumatic stress (RBTS) lead to symptoms like those of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) such as depression, anger, reoccurring thoughts related to a traumatic event, physical ailments, hypervigilance, low self-esteem, and psychological distancing from traumatic events (Mental Health America, 2021).

Ellis Cose (1993) illuminated the experiences of successful African Americans in their struggle with issues of racial fairness. His work documents the anger and pain associated with those who pursued and obtained the American dream. Regardless of how similar backgrounds and personal attributes align, Blacks and Whites live fundamentally different lives (Cose, 1993). Middle-class Blacks have been labeled a model minority or law-abiding productive citizens, but they have not garnered the same socio-economic respect and treatment as middle-class Whites. For model minorities, success does not carry the same social meaning or equal the same life experiences and opportunities as Whites.

APPLICATION 2.3 THE MEANING & IMPACT OF YOUR STORY

Goal

To access how identities inform our experiences, values, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors to understand diversity and make connections with others.

Instructions

The primary dimensions of identity including age, race, ethnicity, disability, gender, sexual identity, social class, and religion serve as core elements and shape our self-image and perspective. They help form our core expectations of others in our personal and professional life. The secondary dimensions of identify including education, income, beliefs, relationship/parental status, geographic location, and work experience serve as independent influences on our self-esteem and self-definition. This influence varies with who we are, our stage of life, and changes we have experienced. These dimensions of identity affect the way we view and interact with the world, but we rarely take time to carefully examine them. When we tell our own story, we have a powerful sense of agency. Too often, however, the stories we hear about others are not individual stories, but rather dominant stereotypes that subtly shape our ideas about groups of people. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice -- and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding. Please watch The Danger of a Single Story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (https://youtu.be/D9Ihs241zeg). As you watch this video think about the ways you diminish some people to a single story. Think of five dimensions that highlight your identity. Review the primary and secondary dimensions above for ideas.

1. Write a story about who you are that reflects the dimensions you identified. 2. Describe which identities are the least comfortable for you to share with others. 3. Discuss the identities you are most conscious or mindful about and explain why. 4. Analyze what your responses to items # 1 thru 3 mean to you. 5. Reflect and explain how the information you learned about in this exercise impacts you, your social

interactions, and relationships with others.

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African Americans continue to face the burdens of racial discrimination regardless of social status and wealth. The most common issues experienced by people of color in achieving social and economic success are the inability to fit in, lack of respect, low expectations, faint praise, maintaining true racial-ethnic identity, self-censorship on sensitive race topics not to upset Whites, collective guilt for lack of achievement of those within our own race, and exclusion from the dominant or ruling class group (Cose, 1993). The experiences of being a model minority show people of color must acculturate and develop cultural capital for social mobility and success but still face discrepancies in earning recognition and achievement in comparison to Whites.

There are four distinct ways inferior groups or people of color adapt to inequality. One way is trading power for patronage or simply stated accepting it for recompense. This method gains compensatory benefits from relationships with dominant group members by accepting their demeaning and disempowering practices in exchange for approval, protection, compensation, or autonomy from close supervision and control (Schwalbe et al., 2000). People who share inferior status sometimes collaborate to create alternative subcultures outside the fringes of mainstream or dominant culture including the urban drug trade. Schwalbe et al. (2000) found alternative subcultures to be simultaneously subversive and

APPLICATION 2.4 PRIVILEGE & LIFE CHANCES

Goal

To analyze and evaluate the influence of socio-cultural identity and experiences on quality of life.

Instructions

1. Research You-Tube user-created videos on privilege and life chances such as the following:

• What is Privilege by BuzzFeedYellow (https://youtu.be/hD5f8GuNuGQ)

• Recognizing Privilege: Power to All People by Michael Yates (https://youtu.be/t2-RvClIZdE) 2. Complete the Test Your Life Chances exercise and answer the following questions

(https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pOTdOaqjy0LB9PkhwxIt0uBPIhBfzJYQ/view): a. What barriers or issues are you able to identify with after completing the exercise? b. What advantages or opportunities are you able to distinguish about yourself? c. Were there any statements you found more difficult or easier to answer? Explain. d. Were there any challenges or obstacles that you have faced that are missing in the exercise? Explain. e. Were there any life privileges you have experienced that are missing in the exercise? If so, explain. f. Did you answer untruthfully on any of the statements? If you are comfortable sharing, explain which

one(s)? Why did you not answer truthfully? g. How do barriers and opportunities influence people's lives? What connections do you see among

success and identity (i.e., racial-ethnic, gender, class, disability, language, and sexuality)?

Source

Kennedy, V. (2018). Beyond race: Cultural influences on human social life. West Hills College Lemoore.

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reproductive of inequality by creating their own hierarchies, forms of power, and ways to earn a living. A problem with seeking success outside of the mainstream is the conflict generated with the dominant group making success economically, politically, and psychologically tenuous. Some inferior group’s members adapt or survive inequality by hustling or exploiting the vulnerable such as the jobless, elderly, uneducated, and addicted (Schwalbe et al., 2000). Other people of color respond to inequality by dropping out of mainstream society such as the homeless. Research shows inferior groups and people of color undergo a variety of strategies to cope with the deprivations of othering, racial trauma, and inequality. BIOGRAPHICAL REFLECTION 2.3

SINGLE MOTHER GETS A BAD RAP

The role of being a single mother has moments of pride. Pride in knowing that I worked hard in providing a loving, safe, and faith filled environment for my children. It also has its moments of insecurities. Insecurities of being seen as having a life that statistically suggests that I’m broke and unhappy. Why would I feel so insecure about this subject? I am a strong, proud, Latin/African American woman that feels confident in the roles that I embody. The uneasiness is directly related to the overwhelming feeling I get when discussions about roles of women in communities of color come up. I read data that points to single motherhood as the culprit for delinquency of children and ultimately their life of crime. Being a single mother of color often comes with treatment that is less than respectful with a stigma that pins us as “contributing to the degradation of society.” I contribute to society. I have never been on welfare as an adult. I was not going to be a statistic, and I was going to provide the best life possible for my children. I have been gainfully employed my entire adult life and sometimes have worked two full time jobs. I am educated, pay taxes, care for my children, volunteer my time for my church, and sit on the board of a local non-profit drug treatment program, while being a single mother. I didn’t choose the life of being a single parent; somehow it feels like it chose me. The insecurity of being a woman of color who is a single mom fueled me to lean in and make sure that my sons had a parent that was visible. There were so many times that I was dealing with coaches that did not extend the same respect and consideration to me and my child as they did to the athletes who had fathers present. I think of the dichotomy in the way single fathers are embraced. They experience hero status when they announce that they are single dads who have primary custody of children. When asked by other parents at sporting events or performances, “You’re a single mom?” I answer, “Yes.” Then there is a drag that I feel in my chest as if though I’m a victim in some way, and my life is incomplete. The truth is my family and I have a beautiful life. Single motherhood is not the culprit. This story “Single Mother Gets a Bad Rap” by Guadalupe Capozzi is licensed under CC BY NC ND 4.0

SUMMARY

In Module 2, we examined the influence of culture on collective and individual identity. We learned how identity shapes our perceptions including the way we think about and label people. You were asked to consider how your identity informs your experiences, values, beliefs, attitudes, behaviors and connections to others. We also explored intersectionality as a source

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for systems of power and inequality. And lastly, we considered the impact of othering on racial trauma and the ongoing reproduction of inequality. REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. Discuss how culture and identify shape people’s observations and assessments about others.

2. Describe the ways intersectionality of race and other forms of identity persuade people’s perceptions, status, and access to resources in society.

3. Explain the influence of technology on collective and individual identity.

4. Analyze the impact of social labels and categories on identity, racial trauma, othering, and inequality.

5. Why might people of color keep certain aspects of their identity private? What aspects of your identity do you hide or change to fit in or be accepted by others?

TO MY FUTURE SELF From the module, what information and new knowledge did I find interesting or useful? How do I plan to use this information and new knowledge in my personal and professional development and improvement?

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Cultural sociology: An introduction. Wiley-Blackwell. Barker, C. and Jane, E. A. (2016). Cultural studies: Theory and practice. (5th ed.). Sage

Publications Ltd. Beck, U. (2000). What is globalization? Polity Press. Biddiss, M. D. (1970). Father of racist ideology: Social and political thought of Count Gobineau.

Weybright and Talley, Inc. Black, L. and Solomos, J. (2000). Theories of race and racism: A reader. Routledge. Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and symbolic power. Polity Press.

Image by Brett Sayles, Pexels is licensed under CC BY 4.0

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Childs, E. C. (2005). Navigating interracial borders: Black-White couples and their social worlds. Rutgers University Press.

Cooley, C. H. (1902, 1964). Human nature and the social order. Schocken. Cose, E. (1993). The rage of a privileged class. HarperCollins Publishers. DuBois, W.E.B. (1903). The soul of Black folk. Dover Publications. Durkheim, E. (1893, 1960). The division of labor in society (G. Simpson, Trans.). Free Press. Etzioni, A. (1975). A comparative analysis of complex organizations: On power, involvement,

and their correlates. Free Press. Giddens, A., Duneier, M., Applebaum, R. P., & Carr, D. (2013). Essentials of sociology. (4th ed.).

W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. Griffiths, H., Keirns, N., Strayer, E., Cody-Rydzewsk, S., Scaramuzzo, G., Sadler, T., Vyain, S., Byer,

J., and Jones, F. (2015). Introduction to sociology 2e. OpenStax College. Griswold, W. (2013). Cultures and societies in a changing world. (4th ed.). Sage Publications, Inc. Hallet, T. (2003). Symbolic power and organizational culture. Sociological Theory, 21, 128-149. Harper-Scott, J. P. E. & Samson, J. (2009). An introduction to music studies. Cambridge

University Press. Henslin, J. M. (2011). Essentials of sociology: A down-to-earth approach. (11th ed.). Pearson. Kennedy, V. (2012). “The Influence of Cultural Capital on Hispanic Student College Graduation

Rates.” EDD dissertation, College of Education, Argosy University. Kennedy, V. (2018). Beyond race: Cultural influences on human social life. West Hills College

Lemoore. Kottak, C. P. & Kozaitis, K. A. (2012). On being different: Diversity and multiculturalism in the

north American mainstream. (4th ed.). McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. McCluney, C. L., Robotham, K., Lee, S., Smith, R. & Durkee, M. (2019). The Costs of Code-

Switching. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2019/11/the-costs-of- codeswitching

McManus, J. (1995). A market-based model of news production. Communication Theory, 5, 301-

338.

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Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self and society. University of Chicago Press. Mizrachi, N., Drori, I. & Anspach, R. R. (2007). Repertoires of trust: The practice of trust in a

multinational organization amid political conflict. American Sociological Review, 72, 143- 165.

The National Academies Press. (1992). Democratization in Africa: African Views, African Voices.

The National Academy of Sciences. https://www.nap.edu/read/2041/chapter/4 Pew Research Center. (2011). Demographics of Internet Users. Pew Internet and American Life

Project. http://www.pewinternet.org/Trend-Data/Whos-Online.aspx Reay, D. (2004). Education and cultural capital: The implications of changing trends in education

policies. Cultural Trends, 13(2), 73-86. Schwalbe, M., Godwin, S., Holden, D., Schrock, D., Thompson, S. & Wolkomir, M. (2000).

Generic processes in the reproduction of inequality: An interactionist analysis. Social Forces, 79(2), 419-452.

Shoemaker, P. & and Vos, T. (2009). Media gatekeeping. In D. Stacks & M. Salwen (Eds.), An

integrated approach to communication theory and research (pp. 75–89). Routledge. Smithsonian Natural Museum of History. (2018). What Does It Mean to Be Human? Smithsonian

Institution. http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/genetics/one-species-living-worldwide

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MODULE 3. OUR STORY: NATIVE AMERICANS

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

At the end of the module, students will be able to: 1. summarize the development of indigenous peoples across the Americas during pre-colonial

times 2. explain the process of European contact and colonization in North America 3. explore the process of American westward expansion 4. understand the political and legal processes that Americans utilized to control and

subjugate Native Americans 5. describe aspects of the American Indian Movement of the 1960s 6. explore the issues of the late 20th and early 21st century and how they have impacted Native

Americans KEY TERMS & CONCEPTS

American Indian Movement American Indian Religious Freedom Act Americanization Bering Strait Blood Quantum Cahokia California v. Cabaz Christopher Columbus Dakota (Sioux) Uprising of 1862 Dawes Act of 1887 Doctrine of Discovery Eurocentrism Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 Indian Education Act of 1972 Indian Relocation Act Indian Removal Act of 1830

Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) of 1934 King Phillip’s War Long Walk Manifest Destiny Meriam Report Occupation of Alcatraz Proclamation Line of 1763 Pan-Indian Pequot Massacre Reconquista Red Power movement Sand Creek Massacre Seven Years’ War Trail of Tears Worcester v. Georgia

INTRODUCTION Native Americans are unique to the American story, for they were indigenous to these lands before they were even named the Americas. Once the “New World” was discovered, indigenous peoples had to grapple with foreigners colonizing their land. The Native Americans functioned in two different modes over the course of American history: by resistance to power and attempts to work within the framework of the U.S. government. This is their story.

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INDIGENOUS PEOPLES OF THE AMERICAS

The peoples of the Americas arrived approximately 12,000 years ago, during the Paleolithic Age. A “small” ice age left the Bering Strait frosted over, which allowed for people to cross from the continent of Asia into modern day Alaska. Over many decades, small groups of nomadic peoples traveled long distances and spread throughout the Americas, some migrating all the way to South America. As the decades passed, the nomadic peoples settled all throughout the lands, and began farming and sedentary living approximately 8,000 - 9,000 years ago. From there, they developed into vastly different tribal groups, some creating massive civilizations that were fairly advanced for their times. These civilizations include that of Cahokia rooted along the Mississippi river, who in the height of their power had a population of up to 30,000 and trade networks that reached modern day Mexico. For many decades, up until the arrival of Europeans, Native Americans lived in North America in relative peace and harmony. Each tribe developed a unique society based on their surrounding terrain and climate as well as familial alliances. Conflict between tribes was typically based on border disputes, but rarely large-scale political warfare.

CONTACT AND CONFLICT WITH THE “OLD WORLD”

For centuries, Native Americans lived, cultivated, and developed the lands in the Americas. The lands would not see significant changes until European contact in the late 15th century. Most readers would attribute the first European to come in contact with indigenous peoples to be renowned explorer Christopher Columbus. This is generally true, even though Norse explorer Leif Eriksson landed in Newfoundland in the 12th century. Columbus was one of many skilled explorers of the 15th century dared to venture out into open ocean, first making their way down the African coast, then planning to sail out further into the Atlantic. Columbus, although an Italian in origin, gained a commission from the Spanish monarchy to explore and colonize new lands. The Spanish were highly motivated by the Reconquista, the campaign to “reconquer” Spain from the Muslims that had occupied their native lands for decades. In 1492, they accomplished their Reconquista and were eager for more victories. Due to Ottoman expansion, historic routes to the east were no longer viable, and Europeans were looking for another access point to eastern spices and other exotic goods. Columbus was hired by the Spanish monarchs to find a new trade route to Asia in order to access highly coveted commodities. When the Spanish made landfall in the Americas, not Asia as they planned, they sought to explore the Americas, searching for gold and other lucrative natural resources. Upon discovery, the indigenous peoples were dubbed “Indians,” for Columbus and his shipmates believed that they landed in the East Indies. The Spanish utilized the papal principle of the Doctrine of

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Discovery which sanctioned the colonization of the Americas and declared indigenous peoples’ non-Christian enemies that deserved the brutal conquest of their lands. In Columbus’s journal, he recorded his observations of the indigenous people. He stated:

It appeared to me to be a race of people very poor in everything… They should be good servants and intelligent, for I observed that they quickly took in what was said to them, and I believe that they would easily be made Christians, as it appeared to me that they had no religion.... (Columbus, 1492)

Columbus shows an obvious superiority to the people he encountered by calling them poor, assuming they were without religion since they were not Christian, and declaring them to be of service to others like him. He shows intent to abuse and enslave, and this is the sentiment that many other Europeans would take as they began to colonize the Americas. From here on forward, Europeans set a precedence of Eurocentrism, the interpretation of non-European world civilizations in comparison to European culture. In these cases, European men like Columbus viewed the indigenous peoples as different and inferior, thus justifying abusive and malicious behavior. Spanish Conquistadors continued to explore in the Caribbean, Central, and South America, trading, warring, and colonizing regions. It was the Spanish who set the precedent to establish colonies in the New World for the sole purpose of monetary benefit to its mother country. Eventually they established very lucrative settlements with systems that forced indigenous peoples and imported African slaves to work against their will. Soon other Europeans ventured into the New World with the hopes of establishing their own profitable settlements.

ENGLISH COLONIAL PERIOD

English explorers intended to take the same routes into the west as the Spanish but were most successful in the settlement of North America. Two primary colonies were established in what is now the American east coast – the colonies of New England, now mainly Massachusetts, and Virginia. In each of these regions, English settlers also encountered indigenous peoples; however, the English approach was initially different than the Spanish. The English sought to forge alliances with Natives, learn the territory, and convert the Natives to Christianity. Eventually, the desire for expanding territories, along with the general beliefs of White superiority, would break down attempts of coexisting. However, we must not assume that indigenous peoples had no agency or free will. As the English began to populate North America to form colonies that would become America itself, they encountered Natives that saw opportunities for trade with the light skinned newcomers (Lepore, 1998). Evidence shows that the weapons Europeans welded were coveted by some tribes to give them power over tribal disputes. Native Americans also traded with the English for glass beads that they considered valuable, but the English viewed as meaningless. These trinkets circulated amongst the tribes as currency.

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As the English flooded into the eastern seaboard of North America, they quickly became the dominant colonial power. Settlement was difficult and intermittent conflict with Native Americans kept the English close to their fortified settlements. At times, Native Americans worked with colonists as exemplified in the story of Squanto, who was said to have been present during the first Thanksgiving feast. Squanto was a man who had already had some exposure to the English and could communicate with the colonists. This brief period of harmony would be short lived in the New World.

When the English came and settled, the fundamental changes to the land and its people were significant. First, the impact of disease has to be considered. Native Americans had no immunities to diseases that the Europeans brought with them, and their communities were tragically impacted. These diseases included smallpox, influenza, and plagues that decimated Native populations. Next, there was a culture clash that caused many problems. The English brought herding animals like cattle and sheep that were not native to the Americas and needed land to graze. These wandering animals often disrupted Native life and the forest

ecosystems. Trees were also felled to create space for planting crops, sustenance for the influx of colonists in the lands. Over time, the settlers would need more and more land to spread out, and territorial lines would be both fought over and ignored. In certain areas, finite resources and trade disputes occurred, resulting in a need for revenge and retaliation. One of the more significant was the Pequot Massacre, which occurred in May of 1637. Exhibiting the land lust of the colonists, a militia of soldiers from New England stormed into the region they referred to as Mystic and attacked the Pequots. The village was set on fire, and any Pequots attempting to escape were shot. Survivors were sold into slavery, and the whole affair was justified by the will of God, as the colonists were Christians. This was viewed as a triumph for the English, and more land was used to settle upon. Tensions continued to mount in the New England region until all-out war broke out. The body of an Englishman named John Sassamon was found and suspicion turned quickly to the Wampanoags, the prominent tribe in the area. The Native American’s men suspected of the murder were put to trial, found guilty of the crime, and executed. The Wampanoags retaliated and killed nine English colonists. This violence would escalate into a violent and bloody conflict called King Phillip’s War. The Native American leader Metacom, known to the English as King Philip, led a coalition of Natives in the attack of several Puritan townships. Metacom had previously maintained a modicum of peace, and even small conflicts were negotiated by both parties. The execution of the three Natives proved a step too far and showed that the colonists were overstepping their boundaries. The colonists, however, viewed the Native Americans as godless savages and an impediment to English success and growth in the new world. It was widely believed that natives were inferior to Europeans and were not using the land to its full

"Wampanoag" by Wikimedia is in the Public Domain, CC0

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potential. With these ideas in mind, war was easy and simple. War waged for months as the English attempted to chase Metacom and their supporters in lands they did not know well. Finally, the sachem Metacom was captured and put to death. The war was over, and the English remained dominant. One weakness in the eyes of the English was the fact that the Native Americans seemed fractured and easily manipulated. This was due to the numerous tribes that existed in North America, each with varied culture, loyalty, and territory. Although the natives might have appeared the same to the English, they were not united. These tribal differences were often exploited by the colonists, and their loyalties were traded and bought by the different groups in colonial times. This is best exemplified during the French and Indian War, sometimes also called the Seven Years’ War. In the colonies, this conflict was fought between the French and the English, each with their own Native American allies. One of the boons of this war was the area known as the “middle ground” or the Ohio River Valley territory. Again, we can observe another instance of colonists wanting to spread and continue to settle westward. The end of the war resulted in victory for the English; however, Parliament also passed the Proclamation Line of 1763, an act that prevented the colonists from settling past the territorial line along the Appalachian Mountains and the far eastern boarders of the English colonies. Essentially, the English colonists did not gain control of the Ohio Valley as they hoped. Despite the boundary set by Parliament, many colonists ignored the law. Violations were common, and even General George Washington himself crossed this territorial divide. Throughout the colonial period into the formation of the United States, Native Americans saw their lands taken over by English settlers. Once the revolution ended and the Americans achieved freedom from the British, the Americans looked to the west to expand their territories. Some attempts of pan-Indian alliances were forged to fight against the American aggressors. The term Pan-Indian refers to a coalition of Natives from different tribes working in unity against a common enemy. These attempts were led by Native Americans such as Tecumseh during the War of 1812, who sought to use force to defend and take back their lands. Tecumseh asserted that their land once “belonged to red men” and had “since made miserable by the White people” (Tecumseh, 1810). Although Native Americans were treated as sovereign nations when signing treaties, the respect for Natives was often ignored when they were regarded as inferior and unable to maintain control of their lands. The American government repeatedly reneged on treaties, and new states formed as populations expanded. When U.S. citizenship was established, Native Americans were not extended the rights of other White Americans, not for more than 100 years later.

WESTWARD EXPANSION

Most of the 19th century was a time of great turmoil and despair for Native Americans. The U.S. government approached relations with Natives in two different ways, first removal and relocation; then land redistribution and assimilation.

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Between the 1820s up through the 1880s, Native Americans were continually uprooted and relocated to reservation lands. These actions were legitimized by the passage of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, under President Andrew Jackson. This act passed with President Jackson’s approval and was later carried out under his predecessor Martin Van Buren. President Jackson claimed that Native Americans were “uncontrolled possessors” of their lands, and therefore would only be allowed to occupy lands that were given to them by their conquerors (Jackson, 1829; Richter, 2001). The act allowed for the removal of five different tribes from their ancestral lands to relocate to reservation territory in modern day Oklahoma. The former lands would later be settled by White Americans. In a shift of tactics, instead of using force to combat the removal process, one of the five tribes, the Cherokee, sought to work within the U.S. legal system to sue for their rights to their land. This was an uphill battle, especially after Georgians discovered gold in Cherokee territory in 1829, making their territory highly coveted. After tumultuous court battles, in Worcester v. Georgia, the Supreme Court upheld Cherokee rights to their lands. Unfortunately, even this court ruling was not enough to protect the tribes, and over the course of several years, the five tribes: Chicksaw, Choctaw, Seminole, Creek, and the Cherokee were forced from their homelands to a territory west of the Mississippi River. The removal process took several years and was later named the Trail of Tears. The reason for the name was because the relocated Natives took the forced journey on foot, many of them dying of exposure, disease, and starvation. Men, women, children, the elderly, the infirm – they were all forced to walk with their possessions, no wagons, no horses, tents, or provisions. One in three died on the journey, and they barely made it to their destination.

APPLICATION 3.1 SHIFTING PERSPECTIVE: CHEROKEE INDIANS

Goal

To understand the experiences of the Cherokee Indians in protesting Indian Removal policies.

Instructions

Read the Cherokee Petition Protesting Removal, 1836 (http://www.americanyawp.com/reader/manifest- destiny/cherokee-petition-protesting-removal-1836/). Answer the following questions:

1. What reasons does the speaker use to protest removal? 2. What kinds of language does the speaker use to describe U.S. policies?

"Five Civilized Tribes Portraits" by Wikimedia is in the Public

Domain, CC0

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The interactions between the Americans and Native Americans during the 19th century were justified by a concept that was coined into words by John O’Sullivan in the 1840s – Manifest Destiny. O’Sullivan successfully illustrated a concept that was already ingrained in the minds Americans since the initial settlement of this country. Manifest destiny was the belief that Americans had a destiny, a calling that could not be changed. That destiny was to inhabit the lands of North America from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific coast. Additionally, O’Sullivan was clear that this “destiny” was dictated by God, underpinning this concept with the most prevalent religion in America of the time, Protestant Christianity. By giving this concept a name, O’Sullivan gave Americans a justification to continue to settle and occupy all the lands in North America, continually pushing westward no matter what was in their way because it was their destiny. What he really conceptualized were the beliefs and desires of even the earliest colonists, who had journeyed west across the Atlantic Ocean so long before him. In this era, Manifest Destiny was not merely about colonial settlement, but American domination of land, resources, and societal order. This maltreatment continued amidst the American civil war. Even as the country was torn by armed conflict, American citizens kept a steady pace on their quest for westward expansion. In what is Minnesota today, the Dakota tribes fought for their rights to remain in control of their lands in a conflict called the Dakota (Sioux) Uprising of 1862. Because of the severe depletion of buffalo herds, which was the tribe’s main food source, the Dakota tribes resorted to farming, which was not working out well. The tribes were then forced to resort to asking the state government for aid, or buying food on credit, or else their people would starve. Local authorities refused to comply and tensions rose. A group of Dakota men killed five White settlers, and violence continued to escalate into war with the Dakotas. By the time local militias ended the violence, hundreds of Dakotas were taken prisoners and held accountable in courts of local authorities where murder, rape, and atrocities took place. Officially, 303 Dakota tribal members were sentenced to be hanged, until President Lincoln stepped in and commuted most of the sentences to 38 individuals. This was the largest mass execution by hanging in U.S. history. The remaining members of the local Dakota tribes were chased into the hills, hunted, killed, and starved out. After the events of the Dakota Uprising, more and more violent incursions occurred. In 1864, the Arapahoe and Cheyenne tribes attempted to protect their lands in Colorado. However, when gold was discovered on their lands, Americans sought to gain access. The tribes sought peace negotiations, but Colorado militiamen forged a different path. In a violent attack called the Sand Creek Massacre, a White militia openly attacked the tribes at Sand Creek, killing over 200, forcing those survivors onto reservations. In 1886, former Union soldiers forced the Navajo into a similar trek as the Five Civilized Tribes in the Long Walk, wherein thousands perished

"Portrait of Black Kettle or Moke-Tao-To & Delegation of Cheyenne & Arapaho Chiefs 28 SEP 1864" by Wikimedia is in the Public Domain, CC0

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on their way to reservation lands from their New Mexico homelands. Any tribal members that resisted were shot. Driven by a so-called campaign of peace, President Ulysses Grant attempted a different approach, closing this era of removal and relocation. In a post-war effort, Grant instituted a ‘Peace Plan’ to “conquer through kindness.” This plan was called the Dawes General Allotment Act or the Dawes Act of 1887. The goal falsely presented as a plan to redistribute and protect land rights but turned out to be another process of denial of land rights. The Dawes Act revoked collective land ownership from the tribes and redistributed the land in smaller plots to individuals within the tribes. Tribal members would be given the deed to those plots of land after they had lived on that land for 25 years. Only after the 25 years of probation would the individuals receive the land titles, and some would even be granted citizenship. This legislation had multiple issues. First, it denied the traditional communal land use that generally, Native Americans had practiced. Customarily, no individual owned land, but they utilized it as a collective unit. Second, it assumed that tribes were not capable of holding a land deed. This part of the act was intended to defend Natives from criminal land prospectors or sneaky investors, but it also assumed that tribal members were too inexperienced and unintelligent to recognize unfair deals. Next, much land was taken during the allotment era, never released by the government to Native Americans. Lastly the law withheld land titles for the span of a generation on purpose, to award the lands to the next generation of children that had most likely gone through Indian boarding schools meant to Americanize or assimilate Native American children into American culture. The last point leads to the next issue at hand – education. Native American education in the U.S. during the 19th century was similar to other marginalized groups such as immigrant communities. For Native Americans, the outcome was much more detrimental to the culture. Education for these groups was tailored towards one goal – assimilation into American culture, also known as Americanization. This is the process of deemphasizing the original culture of a group and indoctrinating students to what was generally acceptable American culture. For example, language was a prevailing tactic to shift children towards American culture by forcing children to speak English rather than their Native language. For children of immigrants, this was problematic but practical, for they could remain bilingual, speaking one language at school and another at home. For Native Americans, this was cultural erasure, for the elder tribal members were continually being eradicated through warfare and the children were being forced to forget their native language. Through the Americanization process, the loss of Native American culture and custom was paramount. There was no home country where their languages and customs still existed because they were still in it. Their culture was just simply being erased. The 19th century was extremely damaging to Native Americans – due to the breaking of treaties, erasure of culture, and outright genocide. The future of Native Americans was uncertain, and the next century would prove to be just as tumultuous.

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THE 20TH CENTURY

In the next phase of Native American history, the government took yet another approach to relations with Native Americans. This shift was likely a response to Native participation during World War I (Treuer, 2019). First came the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 which officially recognized Native Americans as citizens, even though legally, under the 14th amendment, Natives already had birthright citizenship. Next was the Meriam Report, a comprehensive evaluation of Native reservation conditions, hospitals, schools, and other agencies. The push for the report came from Native American advocates that identified the failures of Native American policies and possibilities for progress. Men such as Peter Graves and John Collier called out the policy issues of the Dawes Act as well as the denial of religious freedoms that Natives endured. Progress during the 1930s was difficult, especially during the economic crisis of the Great Depression. Nevertheless, Collier was able to negotiate the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) of 1934, sometimes also called the Indian New Deal, because it was passed under President Roosevelt and his New Deal agenda. This act allowed for Native American lands to remain in their control and distributed amongst tribal members as well as the ability to self-govern. Although this was a step towards granting of freedoms, the IRA was problematic within Indian reservations for ambiguities. Along with the IRA came the reintroduction of a colonial practice called blood quantum. This was known as the process of determining the fraction of Indian blood or ancestry. For instance, if one of your grandparents was full blood Choctaw, that made you ¼ Choctaw. This practice was reintroduced to verify access to tribal land ownership under the IRA. Blood quantum is still used today to determine tribal membership, although the requirements vary depending on the tribe. Then, in 1956, the government took a different tactic in the implementation of the Indian Relocation Act. This legislation was passed to encourage young American Indians to leave reservations for urban areas to further the assimilation into American society. Financial assistance, vocational training, and other support was guaranteed for those that took up the opportunity. The result was often disastrous because the support that was guaranteed under this legislation was not consistently fulfilled. Many suffered from culture shock, homelessness, and poverty due to the failures of the policy.

While the IRA improved the lives of Native Americans to some degree, Native Americans still endured racial discrimination and hardships due to decades of mistreatment in America. The civil rights movements of the 1960s inspired many groups to push for equality and among those rose the Red Power movement. The movement was led by mostly young American Indians that sought policies to bring aid to Native American communities, maintain and protect land ownership, and

"Flag of the American Indian Movement V2" by Wikimedia is in the Public Domain, CC0

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reverse the termination of tribal recognition. Taking the cue of the African American protests of the time, participants of the Red Power movement engaged in non-violent protests and demonstrations to bring attention to their cause. Additionally, the American Indian Movement (AIM) was founded in 1968. The supporters of this movement were largely the results of the failures of relocation. These Native Americans banned together in cities to create pan-Indian groups, this one growing into AIM. In November of 1969, AIM and other supporters carried out a 19-month long Occupation of Alcatraz. The federal facility lay dormant since 1963, and in a symbolic protest, Native American protesters made landfall on the island, claiming the land theirs for the taking, much like the European colonizers of the distant past. Occupants and supporters felt that reclaiming federal land from the government sent a clear message to the American public. For months, numerous Natives occupied the island, contacting the mainland primarily through a supply ship that would ferry people and supplies back and forth during occupation. Eventually the occupation ended due to the government forcing their removal, but the movement caught the brief attention of the media lending sympathy towards their cause. To this day, the graffiti on walls and structures painted by the occupants is still present.

By the 1970s and 80s, some real changes were on the horizon. This began with the Indian Education Act of 1972 that granted funds to increase graduation rates, curricular issues, and support services of Native Americans. These policies continued to expand, exemplified in the establishment of the first tribal college in the nation, the Navajo Community College. Some schools even began to implement lessons on Native American culture and history. Additionally, the American Indian Religious Freedom Act was passed in 1978 under the Carter administration. For so long, Native Americans were compelled to suppress their culture and

APPLICATION 3.2 SHIFTING PERSPECTIVE: ALCATRAZ PROCLAMATION

Goal

To examine a Native American protest statement during the 1960s.

Instructions

Read the Alcatraz Proclamation (https://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=ALCATRAZ_Proclamation). Answer the following questions:

1. What is the tone of the Proclamation?

2. How does the speaker define “Indian Reservation”?

3. Were the actions of the Native American occupiers illegal, or justified?

"Alcatraz Occupation Welcome to Indian Land graffiti" by Wikimedia is in the Public Domain, CC0

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assimilate into American society. Those that chose to hold on to religious traditions had to do so in secret (Treuer, 2019). After this act was passed, Native Americans not only practiced their beliefs in the open but were able to pass their traditions down to the youth who never experienced them.

THE RECENT PAST Beginning in the 1980s, the pseudo-reparations that Native Americans were awarded by the government came in the form of Indian Gaming operations. In a landmark case, California v. Cabazon, the Cabazon and Morongo Mission Indians won the right to run gaming facilities on tribal lands. After this ruling, gambling operations arose in other reservation lands across the nation. The late 80s witnessed legislation to tax and regulate Indian gaming, but otherwise,

APPLICATION 3.3 OUR FIRES STILL BURN

Goal

To develop knowledge and appreciation for indigenous people and the intrinsic relationship between social movements and social change.

Instructions

1. Read the film review of Our Fires Still Burn: The Native American Experience.

(https://ijme-journal.org/index.php/ijme/article/download/999/988)

2. Watch the film Our Fire Still Burn: The Native American Experience: The Native American Experience Dance Performance, Film Screening, and Panel Discussion.

(https://youtu.be/46jMgKMgQaI)

In preparation for class discussion, answer the following questions:

a. In what ways do you think the loss of Native American culture has directly or indirectly contributed to the current social issues and conditions in Native Nations (ex. diabetes, heart disease, suicide rates, and addiction)? Discuss actions Native people are taking today to reverse the effects of this cultural loss?

b. A section of the film examines the economic changes that were brought to the Isabella Indian Reservation by introducing casinos and Indian Gaming. The pros and cons of this subject are debated across Native Nations. Explore and discuss what you think the pros and cons are.

c. Levi Rickert says it is important for Native Americans to tell their own stories since their history and stories are important to all individuals. As a class we will conduct our own oral history project. Use their phone recorder or computer to interview a family member and gather a story. Then write a short response paper on what you learned and how it your own understanding or perspective about your family, culture, community, or racial-ethnic group.

Source

Adapted from Lee, J. (2014). Our fires still burn: The Native American experience viewer discussion guide. Vision Maker Media funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. https://visionmakermedia.org/wp- content/uploads/2021/04/edu_vdg_ofsb.pdf

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these establishments allowed tribes to generate wealth for their communities. Profits and distribution of profits vary from tribe to tribe. Currently, blood quantum continues to be the defining factor of tribal membership and to be a member after the rise of Indian gaming carried much more significance. The 21st century continued to bring more cultural awareness to Americans. The myth of Columbus and his “discovery” has been broken, and the violence and political policies of the 19th and early 20th centuries are included in the historical narrative. Indigenous Day has been added to the calendar, the rediscovery of American Indian culture continues, and stereotypes of Native Americans are disappearing from logos and mascots. However, there is still much progress to be made. Native Americans still have remarkably low degrees in higher education, and an average low median income compared to other racial and ethnic groups. COVID-19 severely impacted reservation communities. Chief Joseph, a leader of the Nez Perce once said, "Good words do not last long unless they amount to something." As Americans, it is important that we stand by the promises of the Declaration of Independence, equality, life, liberty, and happiness. SUMMARY Native Americans once lived relatively peaceful. Once Europeans made initial contact, they identified indigenous peoples as inferior, savage, and unworthy of the land they cultivated for countless years. Once the U.S. was established, Americans embarked on a campaign of conquest, removal, and relocation of Native Americans. After tribes were decimated by disease and war, the U.S. government shifted policies to assimilation. Now, in the modern era, Native Americans are attempting to recover their culture and heritage, still working within U.S. institutions to reclaim tribal land and wealth. REVIEW QUESTIONS 1. What kinds of societies existed in the Americas in pre-colonial times? 2. Describe the initial interactions between Europeans and indigenous peoples. Where they

positive or negative? Who benefitted from these interactions? 3. How did American westward expansion impact Native American populations? 4. What ways did Native Americans assert their civil liberties during the civil rights protests of

the 20th century? 5. How has the government sought to repair and restore relations with Native Americans in

modern times? TO MY FUTURE SELF From the module, what information and new knowledge did I find interesting or useful? How do I plan to use this information and new knowledge in my personal and professional development and improvement?

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REFERENCES Columbus, C. (1492). Journal of Christopher Columbus, 1492. The American Yawp Reader.

http://www.americanyawp.com/reader/the-new-world/journal-of-christopher- columbus/

Foner, E. (2014). Voices of freedom: A documentary history: Volume 1. (4th ed.). W.W. Norton &

Company. Foner, E. (2014). Voices of freedom: A documentary history: Volume 2. (4th ed.). W.W. Norton &

Company. Lee, J. (2014). Our fires still burn: The Native American experience viewer discussion guide. Vision

Maker Media funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. https://visionmakermedia.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/edu_vdg_ofsb.pdf

Lepore, J. (1998). The name of war: King Philip’s war and the origins of American identity.

Vintage. Locke, J. & Wright, B. (2019). The American yawp. Stanford University Press.

http://www.americanyawp.com/index.html. Richter, D. K. (2001). Facing east from Indian country: A native history of early America. Harvard

University Press. Rothenberg, P. S. (2016). Race, class, and gender in the United States: An integrated study.

(10th ed). Macmillan. Takaki, R. (1993). A different mirror: A history of multicultural America. Back Bay Books. Treuer, D. (2019). The heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the present.

Riverhead Books.

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MODULE 4. OUR STORY: AFRICAN AMERICANS

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

At the end of this module, students will be able to: 1. describe the transatlantic slave trade and formation of the colonial slave system in North

America 2. explore the development of the U.S. economy in terms of its reliance and use of slave labor 3. identify justification of Black slave labor from the Antebellum period to the Civil War 4. examine the effects of the Reconstruction period and the rise of the Lost Cause ideology 5. describe the 19th and 20th century development of segregation, Jim Crow laws, and

racialized violence 6. explain key people and events of the civil rights movement in the 1960s 7. explore the issues and impact of the late 20th and early 21st century on African Americans KEY TERMS & CONCEPTS

Abolitionists Abraham Lincoln American Colonization Society Bacon’s Rebellion Booker T. Washington Brown v. Board of Education Civil Rights Act Of 1964 Claudette Colvin Congress of Racial Equity (CORE) Colonization Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dred Scott v. Sanford Emancipation Proclamation Executive Order 8802 Freedom Riders Great Migration Harlem Renaissance Harriet Beecher Stowe Indentured Servants Jim Crow John Rolfe Juneteenth Ku Klux Klan Lost Cause Lynching Manumission

March on Washington D.C. Massive Resistance Minstrel Shows National Association for The Advancement of

Colored People (NAACP) Non-Violent Protests Paternalism Plessy v. Ferguson Popular Sovereignty Redlining Rosa Parks Sarah Keyes Separate but Equal Sit-In Protests Slave Codes Slave Resistance Slavery Stono Rebellion Three-Fifths Clause Transatlantic Slave Trade Tulsa Massacre Of 1921 Underground Railroad William Lloyd Garrison Watts Riots Of 1965 W.E.B. Dubois Voting Rights Act

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INTRODUCTION The history of people of African descent in this country is complex and long, dating back to the foundations of this country. For most of that history, the lives of African Americans have been wrought with oppression and racism, but despite countless barriers, have contributed so much to the nation’s history and its development. The major events of African American history are best told in different phases – colonial America to 1877, and 1877 to present – similar to how the study of U.S. history is structured in schools. The historical narrative is also broken down into subphases, the Civil Rights era into the 1990s, then the most recent past. This is intentional, since Black history is very much American history, just as most other racial and ethnic groups. This is their story. COLONIAL PERIOD TO RECONSTRUCTION Most historians begin the discussion of Black history in 1619 when the first slaves were sold in Virginia. However, it is more effective to begin this history with the moment when free people of African descent arrived in the Americas. Spanish colonizers arrived with the first free Africans in 1492. Free Blacks existed in the Americas before enslaved ones did. In North America, the first recorded peoples of African descent arrived in Jamestown in 1619. These men and women were sold by Dutch traders as slave laborers to English settlers. Slavery, the practice of forced labor without pay, was not a practice exclusive to the New World, or even to Europeans. Slave labor had been utilized in many civilizations over the course of human history. However, the system of colonization and the trans-Atlantic trade changed the practice of slave labor for the next few centuries. Colonial Virginia was in its early stages of development in 1619. When Virginia was settled, the colony struggled with acclimation, starvation, and population growth. But things started to take a turn for the better when John Rolfe brought tobacco planting to the colony. This crop was the colony’s saving grace, for it became the cash crop upon which to build a powerful nation. Tobacco was a difficult crop to harvest. Typically, the arduous labor required for this crop was carried out by indentured servants - poor White contract laborers who obtained their ticket to the new world by signing away 7-10 years of their life to investors in the colonies. But over time, circumstances changed, and the White laborers proved to be problematic, provoking a shift to African slave labor. The change in circumstances including general human progress towards individual freedoms and the need to fulfill goals of opportunity and land ownership that were typical of voluntary transatlantic migrants. In these early colonial times, there were no clear rules as to how to regard Black slaves, nor was the concept of race clearly defined. Generally, there was little regard for people of African descent, and Black slaves were treated as less than human.

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In the early 15th century, Portuguese explorers established “slave factories”, or trading centers on the western coasts of Africa, and began exchanging goods with African leaders for slave laborers. Approximately four million Africans were transported and sold from the western coast across the Atlantic for labor, forming the transatlantic slave trade. Slave traders justified their practice of human trafficking by treating these men, women, and children not as human beings, but as chattel, mere commodities to be sold for a profit. Slave ships were outfitted to maximize profits, by chaining up the slaves laying down, side-by-side with little room to move or even breathe. When Olaudah Equiano recalled the Middle Passage, the name for the journey across the Atlantic, he recounted feeling “suffocated,” laying in “filth” and “horror” (Equiano, 1789). Many of the enslaved peoples perished during the long and arduous journey from disease, starvation, or even suicide. Tightly packed in the bowels of ships, Africans were dehumanized, fed only enough to stay alive on the journey across the Atlantic, which could take anywhere from 4 to 8 weeks (Foner, 2020). Many of these individuals were sold into the Caribbean and South America, and only a small percentage would be sold into North America. As Virginia continued to develop into a successful and lucrative colony due to tobacco, English settlers started to get restless. They wanted to continue to expand westward, but English authorities had signed treaties with nearby Native American tribes preventing them from infringing on their territory. A new settler, Nathaniel Bacon, harnessed the discontent of the White settlers to wage a rebellion against the local leadership spearheaded by William Berkeley. Bacon’s rebellion uncovered many class issues of the colony, including the discontent of poor Whites and former indentured servants. After months of protest and armed conflict, Bacon was dead, his supporters hanged, and Jamestown was burned to the ground. The groups that were the most disadvantaged after the conflict were the Native Americans, whose lands were continually taken away from them, and Black slaves, who would be utilized for labor more heavily than White European settlers, regardless of class. While Bacon’s rebellion helped define colonial settlers need for manual labor, early slave codes were responsible for definition of people of African descent in the colonies. The earliest colonial years would experience some ambiguity between poor Whites and Black colonists – some colonists even married and had biracial children. But as concepts of race were being further defined by scholars and society in general, Virginia again was at the forefront of creating legal parameters of race relations. Virginia established the first Slave Codes, a list of laws and regulations to define punishments, legal status, and property rights regarding Black slaves. These codes were most likely created because of problems that arose due to the lack of precedence for racialized slave labor in European colonies. Most of these codes were written to regulate crime and punishments, but one very pivotal code created the basis for the institution of slavery in America for the next few hundred years. That 1662 code stated “that all children borne in this country shall be held bond or free only according to the condition of the mother.” This legal definition created the rule that made the condition of slavery one that was acquired at birth. Over the course of human history, in many of the civilizations that practiced slavery, the condition of slavery was not genetic, nor acquired at birth. Slaves were typically prisoners of war or working off debt. At this point in colonial

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Virginia, English colonists created a new precedent for slave laborers that would be explicitly tied to Black slave laborers. Individuals were born into slavery, and it was rare to escape slavery. The enslaved experience also varied depending on region, period, and owner; but typically, slaves’ lives were harsh with meager living provisions and physical punishments if a slave disobeyed orders. Slaves were considered the property of slave owners, property that could be bought, sold, punished, or even killed. Colonies each had different codes and laws to dictate slaves’ lives, but there were few, if any limits to regulate the physical abuse or even murder of slaves. The narrative of the enslaved peoples has gotten very much distorted over the course of American history. Some students wonder why they were complacent to forced labor, and for much of this nation’s history, many people believed the Blacks were simply incapable of resisting. This is simply not true. Slave resistance sometimes occurred even aboard the dreaded slave ships. Many slaves were shipped off to the Americas because they were prisoners of tribal war conflicts in Africa. Resistance on slave trade ships proved futile, but it still occurred. Upon arrival in the Americas, many different modes of resistance were common. Some were subtle, like working slow or feigning sickness. Others were more overt like running away from their captors. See the advertisement below meant to help the slave owner “find” their runaway slave.

1769 Virginia Gazette Advertisement

Ad placed in the Virginia Gazette in 1769. RUN away from the subscriber in Albemarle, a Mulatto slave called Sandy, about 35 years of age, his stature is rather low, inclining to corpulence, and his complexion light; he is a shoemaker by trade, in which he uses his left hand principally, can do coarse carpenters work, and is something of a horse jockey; he is greatly addicted to drink, and when drunk is insolent and disorderly, in his conversation he swears much, and in his behaviour is artful and knavish. He took with him a white horse, much scarred with traces, of which it is expected he will endeavour to dispose; he also carried his shoemakers tools, and will probably endeavour to get employment that way. Whoever conveys the said slave to me, in Albemarle, shall have 40 s. reward, if taken up within the county, 4 l. if elsewhere within the colony, and 10 l. if in any other colony, from THOMAS JEFFERSON

"1769 Virginia Gazette Advertisement" by Wikimedia is in the Public Domain, CC0

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Running away was the most common form of resistance to slave owners, and one that they vehemently tried to fight against, whether by physically punishing slaves or creating laws to sanction that violence. The other form of resistance that was much feared by slave owners was armed rebellion. While this was not very common, when it occurred, armed rebellion was met with harsh punishments and severe consequences. The earliest organized rebellion to take place in North America was the Stono Rebellion. During this rebellion, slaves that had military experience were able to coordinate this rebellion through their training and shared language. They killed several White colonists in the process and conspired to make their way to Spanish controlled Florida, where there were Indians who harbored escaped slaves. One important detail is that as the slave rebels were briefly free, they moved about the town by shouting, “Liberty!” Up to this point, English authorities characterized enslaved Blacks as if they were incapable of understanding concepts of freedom and liberty like those that were so popular in the age of revolution. This incident in South Carolina proved contrary to their beliefs, reinforcing fears of slave rebellion on the scale of that that had just occurred in the nearby nation of Saint Domingue, now a free Black nation known as Haiti. From that point on, slave rebellion would be the most feared circumstances that slave owners could imagine, and they would do anything in their power to stop one from occurring. As a reaction to this rebellion, harsher codes were established, ones that would prevent a future rebellion. New slave codes were introduced such as preventing slaves from leaving the property, congregating in groups, or even learning how to read and write. All of these were established, reinforced, and adopted in similar slave-based economies in southern colonies in order to control slave populations.

For most of the colonial period, contributions of those of African descent to the historical narrative was mostly tied to slave labor. There were few outliers to the story of hardships, racial violence, and victimization. However, men like Benjamin Banneker should be highlighted. He

APPLICATION 4.1 SHIFTING PERSPECTIVE: BENJAMIN BANNEKER

Goal

To understand the perspective of an intelligent, free Black man of the early republic.

Instructions

Read Black scientist Benjamin Banneker demonstrates Black intelligence to Thomas Jefferson, 1791 (http://www.americanyawp.com/reader/the-early-republic/black-scientist-benjamin-banneker-demonstrates- black-intelligence-to-thomas-jefferson-1791/). Answer the following questions:

1. Why is Banneker eager to prove his intelligence to Thomas Jefferson? 2. How does Banneker use language to convey his intelligence to Jefferson? 3. Was Banneker successful in asserting his intelligence?

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was born free and self-educated and managed to catch the attention of Thomas Jefferson in an exchange of letters. There is also the early case of Elizabeth Key, who was born of an interracial union and sued for her freedom and inheritance from her White kin. Hers was one outlying story of success where others were not as fortunate. Also notable are the individuals who fought in the American Revolution. After the British openly recruited Black slaves to fight for the Crown to gain their freedom, General Washington was urged to open enlistment for Black soldiers in the Continental Army. This is one instance of early American history wherein Blacks and Whites fought in integrated regiments against a common enemy. America would not see this level of integration until the Vietnam War, nearly 200 years later. These are the real stories of Americans, who impacted American history small and big ways, notable against much adversity. After the American revolution, as the early republic of America ratified the constitution and created its foundational laws, southern lawmakers saw fit to include provisions to ensure their interests would be protected. In doing so, these lawmakers also redefined the legal parameters of Blacks in America. As a compromise to include Black slave populations in the count to determine representation in Congress, the founding fathers included the Three-Fifths Clause in the Constitution. This law determined that for every five White men, three Black men would be counted in the state’s population. Southern lawmakers advocated for this clause to ensure maximum political representation on a federal level, while still diminishing Black slaves as property, not free citizens of the country. At this point in the nation’s history, citizenship was defined as your ability to vote, which was exclusively granted in most states to only White, property-owning men. As North America continued to be organized into states, a delicate balance was established. Agriculturally based economies of the south allowed the practice of slavery in their states, which garnered the label “slave state.” In the north, where states later focused on industrial development, mostly outlawed slavery. These states were called “free states.” The U.S. government made the choice to keep a balance of both free and slave states as they continued to expand westward, to keep a balance of different political ideologies and economic interests were represented in government. The African American experience from colonial times to the 1850s varied depending on region, time period, and of course slave or free status. Different factors over time, including ambiguity in colonial laws and manumission – the practice of voluntarily releasing one’s slaves from ownership, led to a significant number of free slaves in America by the mid-19th century. The majority of these former enslaved resided in northern states, but there were some in the south as well. Virtually all African Americans, whether enslaved or not, suffered racial discrimination. Years and years of Eurocentrism and White supremacy created an environment of racial oppression regardless of being “free.” Despite these hardships, being a free Black person in America was certainly preferable to being enslaved.

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Despite the transatlantic slave trade being closed to the U.S. in 1808, slave populations continued to grow exponentially in the south. This was largely due to the precedent of the slave code of passing the condition of slavery through the matrilineal line. As Americans continue to expand into the west, slave population did as well, continuing to labor away on plantations across the south. Initially, colonial Americans held slaves in bondage as a necessity, a labor force that aided in building wealth and stability in the country. By the 1830s, use of Black slave labor was an integral part of the economy in the U.S. Between slave traders, auctioneers, investment bankers, and the planters themselves, most parts of the U.S. economy relied on the continued use of Black slave labor. By the early 19th century there were a variety of ways slave owners justified continuing the practice. First, slave owners used the concept of paternalism to keep the practice. This concept argued that Black slaves were simply mentally incapable of taking care of their own well-being, therefore must remain in the care of their owners, who gave themselves the role of parent or guardian to a Black slave. George Fitzhugh, a pro-slavery advocate, claimed that “slaves are all well fed, well clad, have plenty of fuel, and are happy” (Fitzhugh, 1854). He asserted that without the efforts of slaver owners, “crime and pauperism” would increase; therefore, slave owners were also doing a service to the nation. Paternalism not only reinforced ideas of White superiority but masked the institution with the idea that slave owners were carrying out a noble service to the country. Other justifications of continuing the use of Black slave labor included references to Biblical passages that referred to social hierarchy and obedience as well as references to ancient societies. For instance, because ancient peoples like the Romans practiced slavery, Americans remarked that they built that empire and their advancements in arts and sciences because they were not occupied with difficult labor that the slaves were doing for them.

APPLICATION 4.2 SHIFTING PERSPECTIVE: JUSTIFYING SLAVERY

Goal

To explore the ways in which pro-slavery advocates justified the continued use of slave labor. Instructions

Read Slavery a Positive Good by John C. Calhoun (https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/slavery-a- positive-good/). Answer the following questions:

1. List the reasons that Calhoun provides to assert that slavery is a “positive good.” 2. Why would Calhoun write this statement to defend his position?

"Cotton Plantation on the Mississippi_ 1884" by Wikimedia is in the Public Domain, CC0

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Although there were many Americans that advocated for the continued use of slave labor, some decided that the enslaved should be set free. Abolitionists were people that believed that slavery should be legally abolished and rose out of an era of reform movements of the early 1800s. Abolitionists gained much support from the most pious individuals; many of which believed that the progression of America was inextricably tied to social reforms. Most abolitionists believed in ending the practice of slave labor altogether. However, there were some that believed in the concept of colonization. Colonization was the idea that Black slaves would be freed, but they could not remain in the U.S. In 1816, the American Colonization Society was formed to carry out this plan. A track of land called Liberia was purchased in Africa. This region would be the place that the freed slaves would be transferred to, instead of living free in America. This concept reflected the inherent racism that ran deep within American society, since even though they rejected the practice of forced labor, they still denied African Americans a place in society. Certainly, equality for Black men and women that were born in the country and participated and contributed to the nation was not an option for many Americans at this time. Although support for colonization was not widespread, there were still a few thousand Blacks that were freed and moved to Liberia under this plan. Famous abolitionists during this period ranged from men and women, both White and Black. One of the most notable White abolitionists was William Lloyd Garrison, who published an abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator, which communicated the ideals of emancipation and freedom to the public. Similarly, a woman named Harriet Beecher Stowe published a book called Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a narrative based loosely on a slave’s life. Both individuals used their voices to carry a message to the American public about the moral wrongs of slavery and its continued use in the U.S. Even more significant were the Black abolitionists voices of the time. Fredrick Douglass was perhaps one of the most notable of the time, for he was a self-educated runaway slave. A skilled orator, Douglass spoke passionately about many issues plaguing the U.S. of the time, chief of which was slavery. Most Americans would also recognize the name Harriet Tubman, for she was known not only as a runaway slave, but a woman who helped many others runaway from enslavement and hide in the North. To her own risk, Tubman made several trips back and forth over the Underground Railroad, a nickname for a series of trails and safehouses that led slaves to safety in the North. While Tubman successfully traveled from Maryland into Pennsylvania, the Underground Railroad network had routes into other areas in the North and also Canada and even Mexico. By the 1850s, the political debate regarding the institution of slavery had affected lawmakers in significant ways. First, after the Mexican American War, the U.S. acquired a wide swath of land – land that would eventually be organized into states. The potential for additional states in the Union meant the disruption of the delicate balance of free and slave states. The debates that raged amongst lawmakers was how to determine the status of these states. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 stated that any territory above the 36 30 parallel could not be designated slave states. However, some politicians argued that new territories petitioning for annexation

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as a state should utilize popular sovereignty for determining status. Popular sovereignty meant that the residents of a state should vote on whether the state enters the Union as ‘free’ or ‘slave.’ Again, this meant the potential disruption of balance between free and slave states, also tipping the balance of power in Congress.

Additionally, a pivotal case was tried in the courts in 1857. Dred Scott v. Sanford regarded a slave who was petitioning for his freedom. Dred Scott was a slave that was relocated with his owner to the state of Illinois, a free state. Scott believed that since he was living for several years in a free state that must mean he was no longer a slave. However, the U.S. Supreme court ruled against Scott. In his statement after the ruling, Chief Justice Taney declared that Scott was not a U.S. citizen; he was property, “not entitled as such to sue in its courts,” and that his lawsuit was invalid. Additionally, Chief Justice Taney made statements regarding the inferiority of Black slaves, and that the “negro…be reduced to slavery for his benefit....” The decision of the court determined the legality of ‘free’ and ‘slave’ state distinctions. Effectively, Taney’s statement made it unconstitutional to ban slavery in any state, inflaming the slavery debate across the country, and deepening the sectional divide of the time (Taney, 1857).

To further deepen divisions in the U.S., a presidential election was at hand in 1860. South Carolina leaders went public with statements threatening to secede from the Union if candidate Abraham Lincoln was to become president. Southern political leaders feared that if the Republican party lead by Lincoln was to gain more power, the party would threaten states’ rights to uphold the institution of slavery. Once Lincoln was elected, southern states one by one voted to secede from the Union. Only after civil war would the country become whole once again. The American Civil War continued to stretch the limitations of race relations in America. As the Confederacy pitted itself against the Union, thousands of Americans were killed. Initially, African Americans from all over the nation were eager to join the fight. White Union soldiers joined the fight for many reasons - abolition, draft, patriotic duty and more. For Blacks, joining in the war effort meant that they were fighting for their freedom. However, for the initial years of the war, Blacks were prevented from enlistment. Only after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued were Blacks allowed to fight. Even when enlisted, these men were segregated from White soldiers, trained and led by White men, and paid less than their White counterparts at the same ranks. Contrary to popular belief, the proclamation did not free all the slaves. The Emancipation Proclamation freed the enslaved who resided in states that had seceded from the Union. There were still some slave states where slavery remained untouched. Slavery would not be officially abolished in America until the passage of the 13th amendment in 1865. As President Lincoln promised, a “new birth of freedom” (Lincoln, 1863) was made possible after the dust settled from the Civil War. The Reconstruction era promised much hope for

"Dred Scott Oil Canvas by Louis

Schultze" by Wikimedia is in the Public Domain, CC0

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newly emancipated slaves. Although slavery was officially abolished in January of 1865 and war ended in April of the same year, Juneteenth – June 19, 1865, is traditionally the day that was declared Freedom Day for African Americans in the U.S. For the formally enslaved, freedom did not just mean the end of slavery, but it meant the opportunities that most did not have access to before 1865. First and foremost, Black communities wanted access to land and voting rights. Since the revolution, these have been the hallmarks of American freedom. Other freedoms came with being newly freed in the U.S. like being reunited with lost loved ones after being sold away, access to education and medical care, the ability to buy a weapon, and for some, even running for political office. Only these freedoms were not guaranteed in the era of Reconstruction. Although the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments protected the rights of most African Americans, this legislation was not easily accepted by southerners who sought to maintain White supremacy. Very quickly, vigilante groups were formed to prevent Blacks from Constitutional freedoms, especially those that attempted to run for office, buy land, and even cast their votes. Groups like the Ku Klux Klan formed to enact violence and intimidation in communities that attempted to exercise their rights. Eventually, Congress issued measures to allow military occupation of former confederate states to protect Black communities. Additionally, legislation was enacted to root out and suppress KKK and other vigilante groups from operating. Eventually, political pressures led to a compromise that ended military occupation in the south as well as drawing back on pressures to maintain peace. During the election of 1876, Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes’s victory was at question due to a very narrow margin of victory. In order to secure enough support to maintain a Republican in the White House, political leaders made a compromise to secure Hayes’s victory but vowed to withdraw federal troops from southern territories. Effectively, Northerners waning interest in supporting measures of racial equality in the U.S., coupled with a danger of political power, equaled the end of Reconstruction.

1877 TO WWII

After the failures of Reconstruction, the southern leaders reasserted their White supremacy in politics and society. As the south began to industrialize, agriculture remained at the center of most state economies. Tenant farming or sharecropping was one of the ways to suppress the economic progress of southern Blacks. Banks, politicians, and others worked together to prevent Blacks from purchasing land for farming, whether it be with aggressive intimidation or simple denial of bank loans (Coates, 2017). Relegating Blacks to sharecropping kept them under the control of White landowners, while also preventing economic growth. Other forms of oppression included voter suppression. Measures were adopted in many counties across the south to prevent African Americans from registering to vote. These measures included poll taxes and literacy tests. Most of these measures were directed solely to African American communities.

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Post-Reconstruction, the so-called New South also adopted a concept called the Lost Cause. This concept rewrote the events of the Civil War for southerners, elevating and romanticizing the war to make former Confederate soldiers’ heroes to their cause – defenders of the south and states’ rights. Monuments were built to glorify southern military leaders, Confederate flags were flown on state buildings, all meant as a reminder of the glorified Confederate past. Many regarded these actions as a reinforcement of White supremacist power in the south (Kytle & Roberts, 2018). This was a reinforcement of racial hierarchy and each symbol of the Confederacy signaled fear and intimidation in the hearts and minds of African Americans for several more generations. Additionally, in 1890, a monumental case was tried in the supreme court that would impact the south for the next few decades. This case regarded a man who was descended from both White and Black ancestry named Homer Plessy. Plessy was arrested for sitting in a rail car designated for only Whites according to the Louisiana Separate Car Act. After the case was tried in the U.S. Supreme Court, the justices ruled that the segregation law was constitutional, and from then on, the “separate but equal” clause established racial segregation laws in many southern states. This clause meant that if separate facilities for Whites and Blacks were deemed “equal,” but only designated for use by skin color, racial segregation was Constitutional. Plessy v. Ferguson became the basis for racial segregation in state institution and public places like schools, restaurants, water fountains, and more. The Plessy verdict marked the beginning of an era known as the Jim Crow South, an era that would not end until the 1960s. Any state that adopted racial segregation laws after the Plessy verdict was considered a Jim Crow state. Jim Crow refers to a character portrayal of a Black slave from the mid-19th century. This caricature was often found in minstrel shows, racist shows that contained skits and mini plays that portrayed the Black slave as unintelligent, subservient, lazy, and almost clown like. Usually, White performers would wear blackface – painting their faces black to play these roles. These types of shows continued in popularity well into the 20th century. Along with Jim Crow laws arose an unspoken code of racial norms that were adopted in much of the south. These racial norms stemmed from the slave to master relationship of the distant past. These societal rules dictated that African Americans should always show deference to Whites in society, regardless of age, sex, or any other differential factors. Examples of this deference would be offering a White person a seat on public transportation, moving aside to let a White person pass, or even avoiding eye contact with a White person. Another element of White supremacy and reinforcement of power in the Jim Crow South was racialized violence in the form of lynching. Lynching was the act of carrying out extralegal punishments on individuals without fair trial. These violent, racial attacks were mostly doled out to Black men under the suspicion of

"Ida B. Wells-Barnett Photograph by Mary Garrity

from c. 1893" by Wikimedia is in the Public Domain, CC0

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violating social norms. Many of these public executions were provoked by the supposed attack or offense to a White woman. The range of violence in lynching was wide, some public hangings, others included harsh corporal punishments and torture, often committed by multiple individuals. Some lynching acts were carried out as spectacles, wherein the victim of the punishments was held until a crowd could build up in number to watch. This vigilante justice maintained the structure of White power especially in the deep south for much of the early 20th century. Despite all the elements of subjugation that the African American communities throughout the nation endured, many notable figures prevailed in uplifting and advocating for Black civil rights. For instance, Booker T. Washington was born from slavery but still advocated for Black rights. Washington believed that African Americans should support each other in building businesses and wealth within their own communities. This would be accomplished by becoming educated, especially in a trade skill. Washington sought to work within White systems and institutions to accomplish his goals. W.E.B. DuBois was another man who pushed the envelope further. DuBois believed in pushing against the status quo by challenging racial inequalities in America. It was DuBois that helped established the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909.

Because of the increased racial violence and discrimination in the Jim Crow South, many African Americans fled from the deep south for larger more metropolitan cities like New York City, Detroit, and Chicago. Beginning in about 1916, this movement of African Americans was called the Great Migration. Moving out of the rural deep south not only meant distance from racial segregation laws but more job opportunities. In New York during the 1920s, African Americans thrived during a period dubbed the Harlem Renaissance. The arts, in different forms, music, literature, poetry, and more were cultivated and explored by Black artists during this time period of explosive creativity. Jazz music as well as blue is attributed to Black communities. Notable authors like Langston Hughes and Alain Locke inspired one another as well as other writers in the community.

APPLICATION 4.3 SHIFTING PERSPECTIVE: WHAT IS RACE?

Goal

To recognize Dubois’s opinion of race and race relations during his lifetime. Instructions

Read The Conservation of Races (https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/the-conservation-of-races/). Answer the following questions:

1. How does Dubois define race? 2. What is the significance of race according to Dubois?

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And although the 1920s was a thriving post- war period of culture and wealth, Black communities were never far from racial violence and oppression. In 1921, Tulsa, Oklahoma saw one of the most violent attacks motivated by race in the country. The Black community of Greenwood was a thriving, economically successful community. This area was known as the “Black Wall Street” due to its economic success. The Tulsa Massacre of 1921 was inspired by an alleged attack upon a White woman named Sarah Page by Dick Rowland.

Rowland was taken into custody and a lynching was said to have been planned. Members of the Black community attempted to stop this lynching, and a violent altercation erupted into a riot. This riot devolved into a full-fledged massacre and destruction of Greenwood. Bands of White attackers descended into Greenwood to attack and kill Black men of the community, as well as loot and burn businesses. This attack only ended when state authorities instituted martial law. The details of this attack had been obscured over the years, mostly downplayed by White authorities. There was little to no justice served for any of the crimes committed. The number of deaths is still unknown and property damage was extensive. Wartime, for African Americans, provided opportunities for people of color who would not normally have opportunities. Depending on the period of history, war provided Blacks the opportunity to express patriotism, earn a fair wage, or participate as an American, even when they were not granted the rights and privileges of other Americans. African Americans fought in every armed conflict in this nation’s history, beginning with the American Revolution. By WWI, Blacks continued to serve in the military, despite being paid less, being segregated from Whites, and disrespected as returning veterans. World War II signaled a different opportunity for African Americans. As the working class was drafted into war, factories were left to hire amongst the pool of Americans that were left. This meant employment opportunities for those who did not have prior access to well-paying industrial jobs – people like women and African Americans. However, racial discrimination still provoked companies from allowing Blacks access to these jobs. Only after A. Phillip Randolph threatened a large-scale protest in Washington D.C. did President Roosevelt issue Executive order 8802. This order prohibited employers from racial discrimination when hiring employees in defense industry jobs. Although this was a wartime provision, this order opened the door for African Americans to continue their push for racial equality in the near future. Gainful employment and better wages during and just after the war only meant incremental changes for African Americans. To uphold the status quo of White superiority, the practice of redlining became common in the U.S. Redlining is the discriminatory practice of denial of services, usually bank loans, to individuals that lived in areas deemed “hazardous” or poor.

"Tulsa Aftermath" by Wikimedia is in the Public Domain, CC0

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These redlined areas were usually populated with people of color. In practice, this was the prevention of allowing African Americans and other racial minorities from leaving these redlined areas, despite their financial status. This denial of opportunity was often extended to other areas such as better education and health care. CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT OF THE 60S & 70S The Cold War era is the period that further inspired African Americans to mobilize against issues of racial segregation and demand racial equality. The end of WWII left the U.S. promising to promote self-determination of politically weak nations and the protections of humanitarian rights throughout the world. But if Americans could uphold these commitments for foreigners, what about the inequities at home? African Americans and other racially minoritized groups were asking these questions, which led to the civil rights movement of the 1960s. There were many hallmarks of the African American civil rights movement, and here are just a few significant events. The first hurdle to cross for the movement was to undo the years of segregation laws that prevented African Americans from exercising their fundamental rights as citizens of this country. The monumental court case to overturn racial segregation began with children attending schools, specifically Oliver Brown and his daughter Linda. She had to walk six blocks to catch a bus to attend an all-Black school; however, a White school was located much closer to their residence. Brown and other parents formed a class action lawsuit against the Board of Education to challenge segregation in schools. This case made it to the U.S. Supreme court, and the result was monumental. Brown v. Board of Education both gave momentum to the civil rights movement and took a great step forward in the fight for racial equality. In a single opinion statement given by Chief Justice Earl Warren, the court overturned the “separate but equal” clause of 1890, ending racial segregation in schools. Read the monumental decision below. Other strides were made to challenge segregation laws in Jim Crow states. To challenge segregation in public transportation, individuals like the infamous Rosa Parks, Claudette Colvin, and Sarah Keyes either refused to give up their seats, or remained sitting in ‘White’ sections of the bus until they were arrested. The consequential Montgomery Bus Boycott left buses in Alabama vacant for months, until racial segregation on buses was declared a violation of civil rights under the law. Later, the Freedom Riders, both Black and White members of the Congress of Racial Equity, or CORE, continued this work by checking the compliance of desegregation on buses. The activists that defied long held racial norms were met with strong opposition, often turning brutally violent. Eventually, the Interstate Commerce Commission complied with desegregation laws. Beginning in 1960, more young organizers staged sit-in protests in restaurants and diners. Again, the sit-ins were meant to challenge segregation laws in these businesses that separated White and Black customers. Sit-in protesters would sit in ‘Whites only’ sections, attempting to be served. Again, the sit-in activists were subject to taunts, food thrown at them, and even

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beatings by Whites who wanted to maintain the dominant power structure. These protests began in North Carolina and later spread to other major cities. Regarding racial protests and organizing, there were no other famous figures of the Black civil rights movements other than Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. King was key to grassroots organizing in this era, forming the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, or the SCLC. King and his supporters committed to non-violent protests – civil disobedience. The strategy was to create social change by disrupting civil order but also rejecting violent acts of opposition. King staged many marches and protests using this strategy, including the famous March on Washington D.C. in August of 1963. The “I have a dream” speech has been made famous since, but in the moment, inspired many to support racial equality.

Eventually, all this organizing and demonstrating would result in legislative change. Under President Johnson, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. This act outlawed all discrimination in public facilities based on color, religion, sex, and national origin. Later, after further demonstrations that unraveled into violence, the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965, outlawing the denial of suffrage to African Americans through literacy tests, poll taxes, or any other means of disenfranchisement. Voting rights, a touchstone of American democracy and freedom, was finally within the reach of Black voters, with legislative measures to protect their rights as American citizens. Despite these various strides forward in the civil rights movement, at every step participants were met with aggressive and oftentimes violent opposition. The Freedom Rider buses were attacked and firebombed. Marchers in Alabama were met with attack dogs, fire hoses, and arrests despite their commitment to non-violence and the presence of children. In a devasting bombing of the historic Black church, the 16th Street Baptist Church was attacked, resulting in numerous injuries and the tragic deaths of four young girls. During the efforts to integrate

APPLICATION 4.4 SHIFTING PERSPECTIVE: LETTER FROM BIRMINGHAM

Goal

To understand Dr. King’s stance on social reform. Instructions

Read the Letter from Birmingham Jail (https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/letter-from- birmingham-city-jail-excerpts/). Answer the following questions:

1. How does Dr. King define a “non-violent campaign”? 2. Why does Dr. King emphasize the concept of waiting?

"Bloody Sunday Officers Await Demonstrators" by Wikimedia is in

the Public Domain, CC0

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schools, children were met with organized opposition in the Massive Resistance movement. Southern White politicians, school boards, and White parents worked together to stop desegregation. In some cases, they even closed schools down to prevent schools from becoming integrated. By the end of the decade, the movement became somewhat fragmented. With the assassination of Dr. King in 1968, and numerous other protests and domestic turmoil throughout the nation, the movement lost some focus. In the case of the Watts Riots of 1965, a traffic stop of a Black man devolved into days long riots in the Los Angeles area resulting in numerous deaths and millions in property damage. The end of the decade found conservative lawmakers characterizing the civil rights movement as part of a nationwide issue of unrest and the rise of criminal behavior. The push for law and order, as well as the rise of the conservative right brought the civil rights era to a definitive close with the election of Reagan in 1980.

THE RECENT PAST

In the final decades of the 20th century, African Americans continued to push against racial oppression. They continued to face issues like wage inequality, racial profiling, general racial discrimination and more. Measures like affirmative action attempted to address racial inequities but were debated and rejected. Jesse Jackson was heralded as a symbol for change as he embarked on a Democratic Presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988. Numerous other Black politicians entered public service offices. Of course, the most recent and notable Black politicians in American history is Barack Obama, who was voted president in 2008 and served until 2017. Popular entertainment would also see the successes of comedians like Eddie Murphy and Whoopie Goldberg, actors like Denzel Washington and Viola Davis, musicians like Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston, and of course, Oprah as an arbiter of culture. Despite these successes, the underbelly of race relations in the U.S. is exemplified in the various deaths of many Black men and some women, mostly at the hands of the police or White citizens. Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Philando Castile – as well as most recently Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and George Floyd are just some of the names of controversial deaths in recent years. The Floyd murder at the hands of the police spurred another surge in the social movement Black Lives Matter, a movement that advocates against police brutality and racially motivated violence. In 2020, protests erupted nationwide objecting to systemic racism that permeates American society. Supporters of the movement seek to undo racial inequities in education, employment, and other walks of American life. Although the debates for racial justice, solutions for racial inequities are still ongoing, there is much to learn and reevaluate about African American historical narratives. African American history is American history as much as any other racial and ethnic group in this country and should be recognized for the role and place they have in the nation’s history.

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BIOGRAPHICAL REFLECTION 4.1

A PROUD AMERICAN OR A PROUD AFRICAN AMERICAN?

That is a question for the ages. We all have an identity. The question is, is the identity framed from within, or is it assigned to us? I think about that a lot, and I believe I have come to an answer of sorts, even if not all will agree with me. As a man of color in America, I am also an American who incidentally happens to be a man of color. What’s the difference you say? Well, read on friend, then you can tell me. I grew up in a mixed neighborhood, where all the primary races were present within a three-block radius, any direction you looked. And I attended a parochial school where less than one percent of the student body was of color. Each day I stood and proudly said the Pledge of Allegiance. I didn’t notice that my being African-American meant anything more than the student next to me being a Caucasian-American. Race was not discussed openly. In a very real sense, I was color-blind. I was quite proud of my father who was in the Army, a veteran of both the Korean and Vietnam Wars. My mother worked as a civilian contractor for the military, at one point elevating to Regional Director for the Contracting Division in Fort Lewis, Washington. I have every reason to be proud of my parents. They served the American military community very well. They served America well. And I myself am a veteran, having served four tours as an Air Force Officer and language development instructor for military dependents. I am happy, and to be plaintive—very proud to have served the United States of America. I stand on the shoulders of men and women of color who served, died, and survived wars spanning the past 80 years. They were often mistreated by their peers and supervisors even as they served because they were people of color. They were overlooked for military honors, they were placed on the front lines of danger in disproportionate numbers, as they were considered “expendable.” Others worked hard to qualify for high-profile military positions and after qualifying, were designated as cooks or custodians. These actions were prevalent, unfair, and a shameful stain on the proud record of service that all veterans share. But it cannot be doubted that these minorities did serve America, regardless of how they were treated. I, for one, consider them proud Americans, period. Many will say to me, “What’s wrong with being a proud African- American?” My answer: not a thing. But at the end of the day, I know I still salute the American flag that I served. Oh yes, I am proud to be an African- American, but that is actually saying that there is nothing at all wrong with being an African-American. My racial pride hinges on the fact that others need to be reminded that I have nothing to be ashamed of for being Black. Being Black is not a noteworthy accomplishment, it is quite simply what I was born to be. I thank the many that have fought to preserve my racial dignity, and I will never forget what they did to pave the way for my success in life. But what I have personally accomplished in life as a military veteran, college professor, etc. is a result of living in a country that allowed me to be those things. So, for me, I am more than content to be known as an American whom God created with African ethnicity, living in this great country called America. What does the author mean by “American” as opposed to “African American?” Do you agree with the author’s point of view? Why or why not? Do you think the issue the author discussed is as important today as it was 20 years ago? This story “Proud American Or A Proud African American?” by Daryl Johnson is licensed under CC BY NC ND 4.0

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SUMMARY African Americans are an integral part of U.S. history, despite being enslaved, discriminated, abused, and disregarded for so long. They came to this country by use of force, and with their agricultural labor, built up American wealth and institutions. Despite the constraints of chains and physical abuse, they fought for their freedom and helped rebirth the nation with new ideas of liberty and democracy. However, again being suppressed and segregated in the 20th century, Black communities arose again to lead civil rights movements of the 1960s to redefine freedom once again. Now in the modern era, the fight for equity continues as racial minoritized groups continuously call out and dismantle systems of oppression, pushing for American progress. REVIEW QUESTIONS 1. How did the trans-Atlantic slave system contribute to the development of colonial America? 2. How and why did Virginia shift from indentured servitude to slavery? 3. What reasons did 19th century slave owners use to justify the use of Black slave labor? 4. Why did Reconstruction end, and what effect did it have on free Black communities? 5. What are Jim Crow laws? Why were they adopted in many southern states? 6. Explain key events and figures of the civil rights movement. How did the movement

develop? TO MY FUTURE SELF From the module, what information and new knowledge did I find interesting or useful? How do I plan to use this information and new knowledge in my personal and professional development and improvement? REFERENCES Blight, D. W. (2001). Race and reunion: The civil war in American memory. Harvard University

Press. Foner, E. (2014). Voices of freedom: A documentary history: Volume 1. (4th ed.). W.W. Norton &

Company. Foner, E. (2014). Voices of freedom: A documentary history: Volume 2. (4th ed.). W.W. Norton &

Company. Kytle, E. J. & Roberts, B. (2018). Denmark vesey’s garden: Slavery and memory in the cradle of

the confederacy. The New Press. Locke, Joseph & Wright, B. (2019). The American yawp. Stanford University Press.

http://www.americanyawp.com/index.html.

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Ortiz, P. 2018. An African American and Latinx history of the United States. Beacon Press. Rothenberg, P. S. (2016). Race, class, and gender in the United States: An integrated study.

(10th ed). Macmillan. Takaki, R. (1993). A different mirror: A history of multicultural America. Back Bay Books.

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MODULE 5. OUR STORY: ASIAN AMERICANS

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

At the end of this module, students will be able to: 1. describe the typical immigration patterns of Asians throughout U.S. history 2. identify key legislation that prevented Asians from migrating to America and accessing the

naturalization process 3. explore the various forms of xenophobic behavior of Americans regarding Asian immigrants 4. explain the civil rights efforts of the Asian American communities during the 1960s and

1970s 5. assess how globalism and warfare of the 20th century impacted Asian Americans and Asian

refugees in America 6. explore the issues of the late 20th and early 21st century and how they have impacted Asian

Americans KEY TERMS & CONCEPTS

Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 Chinese Massacre of 1871 COVID-19 Executive Order 9066 Gold Rush Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 Japanese Internment Model Minority Ozawa v. U.S. (1922) Page Act

Pull Factor Push Factor Snake River Massacre Stockton School Shooting Thind v. U.S. (1923) U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) Vincent Chin Yellow Power Xenophobia

INTRODUCTION Many Americans have little to no knowledge about the role of Asian Americans in this nation’s history. Their stories are usually left out of history books with brief mention of internment camps, WWII, and Vietnam. This oversight has occurred for two reasons. First, Asia is a vast continent that has supplied the most diverse population of American immigrants over the course of our history. To cover the history of all these immigrants would prove quite difficult in most high school or college courses. Secondly, most history books used in public schools and colleges offer little coverage of the role of Asian Americans in U.S. history. For many years, it was believed that Asian Americans had little impact in America. This is false. From China to India to the Philippines, Asians have been migrating to the U.S. in ebbs and flows since about the 19th century. Like many other immigrant groups, specifically non-Whites, Asians were largely unaccepted and at times even met with aggression by American society. Like many

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non-White immigrants, Asians were used for difficult, sometime dangerous labor, but cast aside as inferior and unable to enter the fold of American society. Asian immigrants faced numerous legal obstacles from entry to the country, to access to citizenship, to general social acceptance. When studying Asian American history, it is useful to break up the history into multiple blocks of time. Like many other diverse ethnic groups, there is not one solitary wave of immigration that occurred with Asians. We will be focusing our study of Asian Americans in three waves: the arrival of large numbers of East Asians during the American Gold Rush, aspects of mid-20th century global conflicts, and the wave of immigration that shifted the American demographic during the mid-1960s. During each of these times, the Asians were met with much adversity, but many still managed to prosper in America despite it. This is their story.

MID 1800S TO EARLY 20TH CENTURY

Europeans have had a long-held fascination with the far East due to medieval travelers and traders like Marco Polo. For much of the early modern period, Spanish and Portuguese sailors attempted to find new trade routes to access the highly coveted exotic goods of the east. By the mid-16th century, Spanish explorers had much contact with Asians, and even employed some from their colonizing efforts in places like the Philippines. The earliest Asian arrivals to the North America were Filipino crew amongst the Spanish ships that landed in Northern California in the year 1587 (Lee, 2015). Due to Spanish colonization of the Americas, a mixture of Japanese, Chinese, and Filipino peoples migrated to South America during this era. Although Asians arrived with the Spanish, generally they were treated with much derision: paid less than Spanish sailors aboard these ships, given substandard living conditions and provisions. By the early 19th century, a significant number of Asian immigrants, mostly Chinese, arrived in America. The motivation for migration was due to a variety of reasons, reasons that are called push and pull factors. A push factor would be something that compels an individual or group to leave a country, such as a political upheaval or armed conflict. A pull factor is a reason that would compel a person or group to enter a country, such as economic opportunity. The primary opportunity during this time for the Chinese to migrate to America was the Gold Rush. The Gold Rush began when a new settler to California named James Marshall found a shiny substance in a riverbed in the year 1848. Thereafter, the scramble to pan and mine for gold became a global pull factor. Immigrants flocked from around the world and the U.S. to benefit from this discovery including many Chinese. Named for the year at the height of this rush, the “49ers” established towns, businesses, and laws to support this influx of people. Asian immigrants that made landfall on the west coast came in droves, but they faced obstacles linked to their countries of origin. Racial discrimination made it difficult to capitalize on the success of gold mining and panning, compared to other Americans and White immigrants.

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The Chinese men who immigrated were immediately “othered” for their appearance. Many of them had a haircut called a que, which had a hairline shaved halfway up their scalps and worn in a long ponytail in the back. They wore clothes that appeared to be cotton pajamas to Americans, and they ate food with sticks (chopsticks) and strange sauces. These men were labeled “celestials” to complete their perception of strange and untrustworthiness. Lee Chew recounted the treatment of Chinese immigrants like himself, calling it “wrong and mean,” and that Chinese men were used only for “cheap labor.” Chew compared himself to other immigrants of the time like the Irish and Italians, and how the Chinese were unfairly denied citizenship or belonging as “law abiding, patriotic Americans” (Chew, 1882). The start of the Gold Rush occurred when California was not yet annexed as a state, meaning it had no political officials, state constitution, or organized law enforcement. This was the “wild west,” and local sheriffs and deputies were often stretched thin, and law was enforced haphazardly. Venerable groups like the Chinese were offered little protection during this tenuous time, and these “celestials” were received with fear and hatred. This type of behavior is called xenophobia, a fear or hatred of foreigners. Often, this behavior erupted into violence upon the immigrant groups. This tension would come to a head in events like the Chinese Massacre of 1871. Americans’ xenophobia led them to resort to violence to discourage the Chinese from settling permanently in America. Protests erupted in many cities to drive out these immigrants. In Los Angeles, tensions escalated into violence when Chinese men were accused to have killed two White men in the city, one of them a police officer. Chinese men were openly stalked and killed, resulting in 19 dead, and 15 later lynched by hanging. Another instance of xenophobia were the events of the Snake River Massacre of 1887 when two small groups of Chinese men obtained mining permits in Oregon. White men conspired to attack these men, tracking them through the Oregon hills and systematically murdering them. An accurate number of the men killed is unknown since their bodies were left to the elements for an extended period and their gold stolen. The White perpetrators were brought to trial and later acquitted. This violent event was one of many that exhibits open violence against Asians with little to no consequences. Despite having little success in gold mining, the Chinese found other ways to make a living in the U.S. In the 1860s, the Chinese found work mostly in the construction of railroads. These men did the most difficult and dangerous work, blasting rock with dynamite, clearing away the debris, shoveling and more. The achievement of the transcontinental railroad helped build the wealth of the U.S. during the 19th century, and 90 percent of its work was done by Chinese immigrants. When the railroad was completed in 1869, not one Chinese worker was present in the picture to commemorate the completion (Lee, 2015).

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After much violence and conflict, Americans were ready to solidify their discrimination into legislation. Beginning in the 1860s, many laws were passed at local and state levels to prevent Asian immigrants from economic advancement. This eventually led to the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, a piece of legislation that would prevent Chinese immigrants from entering the US for 10 years unless entering for temporary stays related to business or education. The Chinese were also banned from obtaining naturalized citizenship, a law that would be challenged later.

Perhaps even more damaging was the Page Act, passed in 1875, which banned Asian women from entering the country because they were suspected of prostitution. This act had two ramifications. First, there was the implication that Asian women were suspected of sex work or corruption of society with promiscuity. Many lawmakers and others argued frequently at the time that both Asian men and women posed a sexual danger to American society. Secondly, it was very common for men to immigrate first, then send for the rest of their families. If wives attempted to enter the country after their husbands settled in the U.S., they faced an additional obstacle of being suspected of prostitution upon entry. Therefore, families were prevented from uniting as a result of this act, and Chinese women were blanketed with the label of promiscuity and sexual deviancy. The Asians that were already in the country were treated with hostility and suspiciousness. The first picture identification cards were carried by the Chinese to identify them as foreign. Law makers in America then wondered, where do the Chinese and other Asians “fit” in society? Should they be Americanized, assimilated, or educated? Asian immigrants and Asian Americans tried to fit in, acclimate to American society, and “become” American in a variety of ways. Methods included learning English, changing clothing and cultural practices, marrying Americans, and more. Most importantly, Asian Americans worked within the court systems in the U.S. to assert their civil rights. The following three cases illustrate some key court battles. U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) Wong Kim Ark was an American born Chinese man. His parents were born in China, but Ark was from California. In 1894, Ark took a trip to China to visit, and when he attempted to return to his home in San Francisco, he was denied entry. Officials in California denied his citizenship

"East and West Shaking Hands at the Laying of Last Rail Union Pacific Railroad Restoration" by Wikimedia is in the Public Domain, CC0

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because his parents were ineligible for naturalization under Chinese exclusionary policies. After Ark’s case was tried before the U.S. Supreme Court, the fourteenth amendment was upheld, granting Ark birthright citizenship as being a native-born citizen. Ark’s case was monumental and would serve as a precedent for birthright citizenship, regardless of race from that point onward. Ozawa v. U.S. (1922) In the year 1922, one Japanese man decided to challenge the legality of Asian immigrants being barred from the naturalization process and American definitions of race. Takao Ozawa sought to claim his rights and access to the American dream by attempting naturalization. Ozawa felt entitled to the right, mainly by the basis of his success, contributions to society, and efforts to Americanize. The most interesting argument was the color of his skin. It appeared “White” just like many other American citizens. Ozawa attempted assimilation much like Italians and Irish had in his recent past. He said, “I am not American, but at heart I am a true American.” However, the courts declared against him, and the country would not see Japanese immigrants achieve citizenship for many years after. Thind v. U.S. (1923) Bhagat Singh Thind was a high caste Indian man who arrived in America to attend university. He served in the U.S. army during WWI and attempted to obtain citizenship. His naturalization process was denied, on the basis of his “Hindu” status, despite the fact that he was Sikh. Thind sued, on the basis that he was, in fact, Caucasian. This logic follows the anthropological distinction that classified Thind as Caucasian, since his ancestors descended from the Caucus mountains. The court ruled against him, and his citizenship was revoked, along with other East Indians that had previously been granted citizenship.

As a result of this case, many other “non-White” persons lost their citizenship. One of those men was Vaishno Das Bagai. He escaped British tyranny in India and established a successful business in San Francisco. He received his citizenship in 1921, only later to have it revoked after the Thind ruling. Bagai took his own life in 1928 and his suicide note was published in the newspaper. His words - “I came to America thinking, dreaming and hoping to make this land my home…But now they come to me and say, I am no longer an American citizen…Humility

and insults, who is responsible for all this? Myself and the American government. I do not choose to live the life of an interned person: yes, I am in a free country and can move about where and when I wish inside the country. Is life worth living in a gilded cage?”

"Wong Kim Ark" by Wikimedia is in the Public Domain, CC0

"Vaishno Das Bagai in His Store in San Francisco" by Wikimedia is in the Public

Domain, CC0

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These three court cases prove that Asian Americans were continually denied a place in American society, despite military service, economic status, or willingness to adapt to society. This precedent continued into the later 20th century; even as American society diversified even further.

GLOBAL CONFLICTS & THE 20TH CENTURY

As the U.S. propelled into the new century, so did their involvement in global affairs. We begin at the turn of the century wherein many industrialized countries were participating in “new imperialism,” efforts of colonization and imperialism in non-White countries. The U.S. was involved in armed conflicts in the western hemisphere like the Spanish-American War which ended in 1898 with U.S. control over Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. Freedom fighters led by Filipino nationalist Emilio Aguinaldo rejected U.S. sovereignty having fought side by side their American allies against the Spanish. This rejection prolonged the war, now fought between the U.S. and Filipinos until 1902. Colonization of the Philippines was characterized by President McKinley and other lawmakers as a boon to Filipinos who were believed to be too uncivilized and savage for self-rule. It was these same principles that continued to prevail foreign policy throughout most of the first half of the 20th century.

World wars during the 20th century brought Americans together with an abundance of national pride and duty to the country. At times, war also evoked feelings of anxiety and xenophobia to the nations involved in the conflict. World War II is one of those times. Just before the winter of 1941, there were about 125,000 people of Japanese descent living in America, most of them in west coast regions. Pearl Harbor was a U.S. naval station in Hawaii that was the victim of a surprise attack by the Japanese on December 7, 1941. This attack resulted in mass American casualties and was too close to the mainland for officials. As a result,

APPLICATION 5.1 SHIFTING PERSPECTIVE: SELF-DETERMINATION

Goal

To appreciate the perspective of the colonized peoples of the Philippines.

Instructions

Read Aguinaldo’s Case against the United States (http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/gilded/empire/text9/filipino.pdf). Answer the following questions:

1. What is Aguinaldo’s goal in this document? Is he clear in his message? 2. What reasons does Aguinaldo argue for Philippine self-governance?

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Americans stepped up their involvement in the war, and in February of 1942, President Roosevelt issued the Executive Order 9066. This order authorized the militarized internment of all “persons of Japanese ancestry” residing in the western regions of the U.S. The justification was that Americans suspected that anyone of Japanese ancestry could still have loyalties to their ethnic homelands and would practice espionage. There was little to no evidence to support this concept, nevertheless, many supported this order and about 110,000 Japanese, many of them citizens and American born, many of them children, were put into internment camps. Forced internment caused almost $2 billion in property loss and even more in income loss for those interned. Internment lasted until the end of the war, and some even remained in the camps post-war because they no longer had homes to return to, for they were repossessed by authorities. It was not until the 1980s when the U.S. government paid restitution to the families that were affected in the amount of $20,000 per Japanese American families that were interned.

NEW IMMIGRANTS & EXPANSION OF DIVERSITY

The end of World War II brought the U.S. a new role on the global stage. The use of nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end the war made the U.S. the most powerful country in the world, while also causing mass death and destruction in the name of democracy. The paradox of these two concepts conveyed a conflict in American ideology. In order to maintain the moral high ground, the U.S. passed new immigration policies in 1952, revising earlier immigration quotas of the 1920s. This act loosened some restrictions on Asian

APPLICATION 5.2 SHIFTING PERSPECTIVE: JAPANESE INTERNMENT

Goal

To realize the perspective of a young Japanese woman during the internment process.

Instructions

Read Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga on Japanese Internment (http://www.americanyawp.com/reader/24-world-war-ii/aiko-herzig-yoshinaga-on-japanese-internment- 1942-1994/). Answer the following questions:

1. Define Japanese internment. 2. Describe Herzig-Yoshinaga’s journey to the camp. What is her tone? 3. How would you describe her understanding of internment?

"Japanese American Owned Grocery Store Oakland California March 1942" by Wikimedia is

in the Public Domain, CC0

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nations to immigrate to the U.S., and also made naturalization possible for Japanese, Korean, and Chinese immigrants, but only from these countries of origin. The next decade brought milestones for racial minorities. These changes included legislation, social movements, and community activism that remade Asian Americans for the next few decades. First, the legislation that passed broadened the definition of Asian American and dramatically diversified America. This was the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965, also referred to as the Hart-Cellar Act. The act overturned previous legislation that granted entry into the country based on national origin. Instead, the act created preference for highly skilled immigrants and ones that already had family in the country. Policymakers did not anticipate the impact of this legislation. Immigration rates increased dramatically, and many of those immigrants came from Asian countries. Next, as the Civil Rights movement propelled equality forward for African Americans, the same call for equality was inspired in many other groups. Asian Americans took to the streets just as other racially minoritized groups demanding for equality. Asian Americans like Grace Lee Boggs participated in marches for equality on behalf of African Americans, then turned to inspire Asian communities to do the same. Philip Vera Cruz was a Filipino American who was active in promote fair labor practices for farmers in California and was instrumental in Cesar Chavez’s protest movements in Delano, California. Asian Americans formed a pan-Asian coalition nationwide of Asians that would reject discriminatory labels like “Oriental” and “yellow,” and demand equality on all fronts for Asian Americans. Like many other minoritized groups, in an effort to reclaim a once derogatory term, supporters of Asian American rights claimed Yellow Power in their rhetoric. Although the label of “Oriental” is now largely understood as inappropriate, another more nefarious label was applied to the Asian community, one that has very complex ramifications. This is the label of “model minority.” The concept of the model minority characterizes Asians as obedient, law-abiding, and submissive to authorities (Thrupkaew, 2002). It also uses three types of Asians, the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean as prime examples of what a successful immigrant should be. These three groups have had their hardships but have been able to become successful in the U.S. and statistically held jobs with higher wages and did not rely on government programs. This concept created much tension between minority groups as well as within the Asian community itself. First, the model minority paradigm was created to juxtapose the perceived success of Asians against the perceived failures of other persons of color like African Americans and Hispanic Americans who were reliant of government programs and assistance at higher rates. By upholding the Asian community as “model minorities,” the accusation on other ethnic groups was a questioning on why they also could not live up to those standards.

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Secondly, the model minority term created tensions between Asian Americans. Japanese, Korean, and Chinese immigrants had a longer history of emigrating into the U.S., and as a result were second and third or more generations of wealth by this point. Additionally, by the 1950s, preference was given to highly skilled Asians who were of these three groups to enter the country, providing a solid economic foundation from the start. And lastly, these three groups reflect a clear bias of colorism, for decedents from these groups tend to be lighter complected than newer immigrants and refugees post 1965. All of these factors created tension and resentment between Asians who either benefitted from the label or were disadvantaged as a model minority. Although the 1960s brought a push for social change in America, equality continued to be an uphill battle for Asian Americans. Further social conflicts around the globe like the Vietnam War and human rights crises brought even more Asians into the U.S., but this time as refugees. Southeast Asian groups like Vietnamese, Laos, Cambodian, and Hmong immigrants came to the U.S. and were received with fear and suspicion that heightened tensions in some pockets of the nation. Waves of new immigrants typically bring fears to Americans who anticipate a strain on resources that directly affect their livelihoods. These tensions will sometimes erupt in violence as they did in two separate cases during the 1980s. The 1980s brought an economic downturn that inflated the sense of limited community resources and employment. This anxiety is best exemplified with the murder of Vincent Chin, a Chinese man who lived in Detroit, Michigan. Economic strain was felt in blue collar jobs in this city, mainly the automobile industry. Chin was coming home from his bachelor party when he was beaten to death by two White men who claimed he was a “Jap” that was taking jobs away from Americans. These men plead guilty, but received no jail time, only probation with a $3,000 fine. In Stockton, California, at the end of the decade, 1989, another heinous act motivated by racism occurred. This Stockton school shooting marked the deadliest school shooting with the highest number of fatalities and injuries until Columbine in 1999. A White man used an AK-47 to enter Cleveland Elementary School of predominantly Asian American children and opened fire. He shot 34 people and killed 5 that were between the ages of 6 and 9. This elementary school was known to have been attended by mostly Asian students, many of them refugees from Southeast Asia. Of those children killed, all of them were Asian.

THE RECENT PAST

By the 21st century, bias and discrimination continued as a result of the historical racial discrimination of the previous decades. The model minority myth continues to be the way in which most Americans view the Asian American community. While there is some truth to the success of select Asian American groups that reside in the U.S., still many reportedly experience racial discrimination and hate crimes even to this day.

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By 2020, a global pandemic made the fears and anxieties of many Americans manifest in different ways, amplified, and proliferated by the internet and social media. Known as COVID- 19, the virus that is believed to have originated in China has affected the Asian American community in terrible ways. Since the beginning of the pandemic, Asian American Pacific Islanders (AAPI) have reported countless acts of violence against Asians every day. These acts of violence range from calling names, spitting in faces, to physical violence reigned down mostly on the elderly. Perhaps one of the more significant acts of violence occurred in Atlanta, Georgia in 2021. This incident involved a White man entering into a spa and shooting at its occupants. Eight people were killed, six of them Asian women. The shooting was the alleged result of the shooters Christian faith at odds with his sex addiction. However, the shooting exemplified another incident of anti-Asian sentiment following the tensions of the pandemic. The incident sparked protests in multiple cities against anti-Asian violence that were being reported across the country. In the 21st century, Asian Americans remain the most ethnically diverse, rapidly growing ethnic groups in America. The Democratic Presidential nominee campaign of Andrew Yang put a prominent Asian at the forefront of American politics. A Korean foreign language film, Parasite, won Best Picture at the Academy Awards with overwhelming praise. These are signals that Asian Americans are not only active and prominent members of society but have even more room to grow in the coming years. BIOGRAPHICAL REFLECTION 5.1

SOUTHEAST ASIAN REFUGEES

When Southeast Asian refugees from Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam started to flow into American cities starting in 1976 and into the 1980s, most Americans didn’t know who we were, much less what we had gone through before coming to the United States. In many ways, we were hoping no one would know who we were. Our neighbors thought we were Chinese or Japanese – after all, all Asians look alike to them, and so we must be the same. “Are you Chinese? Are you Japanese?” they asked. We knew English enough to know those questions were about who we were, but we shook our heads, saying, “No, no.” And perhaps we could’ve told our neighbors that we were Hmong, but it would be too difficult to explain why we came to the United States. Silence was the better choice. Another generation had to be immersed in the English language and culture before we could tell our story. Our story of survival and resilience and collaboration with the U.S. to fight communists simply had to wait. Among first- generation SE Asian college students, we felt the need to capture our own respective lived experiences from our own lenses rather than waiting for another non-SE Asian person to give us another watered-down version of our plight. Young scholars from the Cambodian and Vietnamese communities had already documented their own refugee experiences through various publications in recent years. In my case as a first-generation Hmong college student and now a professor of political science and ethnic studies, I’m compelled to provide my own version of the Hmong plight to the U.S. and secondary migration to the Central California. Community and social dialogues among Hmong elders revealed that the first few Hmong families to move to the Central Valley, California started in Merced in 1979. From those families, words got around to relatives across the country – wherever resettlement agencies had scattered us (Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Ohio, Tennessee, or Oklahoma) – that California’s Central Valley had fertile land for farming, the only method the Hmong had been familiar with in making a living. We came from the mountainous terrains in Laos but found the flat valley

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attractive, serving as a magnetic device that continued to pull Hmong families across the country to start their new lives in Merced and Fresno. This massive secondary migration of Hmong refugees to the Central Valley caused social workers to accuse the Hmong of taking advantage of the generous California welfare system. In 1985 the welfare dependency among the Hmong was about 75%. Our big families of 6.9 children in 1986 received more welfare cash aid than a father working $4.25 an hour minimum wage job. Though small in number, Southeast Asians in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam played a pivotal role in the Cold War, international political power jostling between the United States and the Soviet Union. For fifteen years from 1960 – 1975, Americans read in newspapers and saw the disaster of the Vietnam War unfolded on television. The political quagmire that engulfed Southeast Asia expanded over three presidential administrations – Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon - became a permanent scar on the American consciousness, a hefty price to pay both in human lives and money (more than 58,000 dead and over 300,000 wounded and $168 billion - $1 trillion in today’s money.) In part this American foreign policy (communist containment) in Southeast Asia was the core of the United States’ response to communist expansion in Asia at large. In 1949, China turned communists with Mao Zedong’s victory over the Nationalist Chinese forces. A year later with the support of the Soviet Union and China, communist North Korea invaded democratic South Korea. The conflict ended in an armistice in 1953. In Southeast Asia, the three French colonies Cambodian, Laos, and Vietnam were vying for their respective independence from France beginning in 1945. Subsequently, Cambodia and Laos were granted independence in 1953 without military conflicts. However, France would not relinquish the same to Vietnam until it was militarily defeated at the battle of Dien Bien Phu by the Vietnamese nationalist Viet Minh in 1954. The United States orchestrated the Geneva Accord of 1954 to divide Vietnam into two countries – North Vietnam, communist controlled and South Vietnam, democratic. This strategy of using South Vietnam as a buffer zone to protect Thailand and Burma was part of the “domino theory” hysteria that if one country fell to communists, then the neighboring one will also fall, and then the one after. Peace in Southeast Asia proved fragile as the power vacuum created by the departure of France resulted in the monarchies in Laos and Cambodia too unstructured to govern. Accusations of corruption and other internal conflicts ensued, creating ideological factions that could not come to political consensus. The Geneva Accord of 1962, an international agreement to establish Cambodia and Laos as neutral countries, meaning they supported neither communism nor democracy, and there were to be no foreign troops in Laos or Cambodia. But this agreement simply proved its own ineffectiveness. The regional powers like China and North Vietnam and the superpower of the Soviet Union and China never adhered to the terms. North Vietnam infiltrated to Laos and Cambodia through the Ho Chi Minh Trail that cut through eastern Laos, bordering North Vietnam and South Vietnam. Under the Kennedy administration, the CIA secretly recruited democratic leaning Hmong, Lao, and other indigenous hilltribes to fight the North Vietnamese communists on the Trail. Leading this effort was a Hmong man named Vang Pao, also known as General Vang Pao, who rose to prominence as a freedom loving fighter and staunch American ally. The primary duties of the Hmong under his command were to: 1) disrupt the flow of supplies to South Vietnam, 2) rescue downed American pilots, 3) provide strategic intelligence on enemy operations, and 4) guard satellite installations. The Hmong became the sacrificial lamb in America’s secret war to contain communists by paying with 10% of its population in Laos – 30,000 dead among 300,000. The calamity of American foreign policy in Southeast Asia created one of the largest exoduses of refugees out of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. People who had sided with the American effort were targeted for reprisals by communist forces after the war. About 200,000 Cambodians fled the terror of their own countrymen, the Khmer Rouge, which was responsible for killing over 2 million of its own population. In Laos nearly 300,000 Hmong, lowland Lao, Mien, Khmu, Lahu and other hilltribes made their own escapes to neighboring Thailand. Over a million Vietnamese fled South Vietnam to the Philippines, Indonesia, and Singapore. This tragedy of constant refugees fleeing persecution continued into the mid 2000’s, but politically speaking, people who fled Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam after 1991 were no longer categorized as refugees. This story “Southeast Asian Refugees” by Silas Cha is licensed under CC BY NC ND 4.0

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SUMMARY Like previously covered groups, people of Asian descent have been present in the Americas since the 16th century. Peoples from Asia have typically been regarded as perpetually foreign, admired for their exoticism, but devalued as too otherworldly. Asians have struggled to be accepted amongst American society, despite their contributions of labor, military service, and wealth. Even when utilizing the justice system to assert their civil rights, Asians were met with opposition and oppression. Regardless of their rejection, Asian Americans forged a place for themselves in American society, growing in number and influence as one of the most diverse and fast-growing groups in the U.S. today. REVIEW QUESTIONS 1. How did people of Asian descent make their way to the Americas during the colonial

period? 2. How were Asians generally received during the 1800s? 3. Explain some of the ways Asians attempted to assimilate into American society? 4. What political policies of the 20th century impact Asian Americans? 5. What kinds of racial discrimination did Asian Americans endure after WWII? 6. How did Asian Americans assert their civil rights during the 1960s and 70s? TO MY FUTURE SELF From the module, what information and new knowledge did I find interesting or useful? How do I plan to use this information and new knowledge in my personal and professional development and improvement? REFERENCES Fadiman, A. (1997). The spirit catches you and you fall down : a Hmong child, her American doctors,

and the collision of two cultures (1st ed.). Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.

Foner, E. (2014). Voices of freedom: A documentary history: Volume 1. (4th ed.). W.W. Norton &

Company. Foner, E. (2014). Voices of freedom: A documentary history: Volume 2. (4th ed.). W.W. Norton &

Company. Hamilton-Merritt, J. (1993). Tragic mountains: the Hmong, the Americans, and the secret wars for

Laos, 1942-1992. Indiana University Press. Lee, E. (2015). The making of Asian America: A history. Simon & Schuster.

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Locke, J. & Wright, B. (2019). The American yawp. Stanford University Press. http://www.americanyawp.com/index.html.

Rothenberg, P. S. (2016). Race, class, and gender in the United States: An integrated study.

(10th ed). Macmillan. 60 Minutes. (2015 August 13). Hmong Our Secret Army. [YouTube].

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4U2P7tsOAQ Takaki, R. (1993). A different mirror: A history of multicultural America. Back Bay Books.

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MODULE 6. OUR STORY: LATINX AMERICANS

LEARNING OBJECTIVES At the end of the module, students will be able to: 1. describe the process of exploration, contact, and colonization of Spanish explorers in the Americas. 2. explain Manifest Destiny and the American acquisition of land through war and conflict. 3. explore the role of Latinx peoples in America during WWII and after. 4. describe the contributions of progress of Latinx Americans during the civil rights era 5. explore the issues of the late 20th and early 21st century and how they have impacted Latinx

Americans

KEY TERMS & CONCEPTS

Adams-Onis Treaty Bracero program California Gold Rush

César Chávez Christopher Columbus Colonial Caste System Conquistadors Farmworkers Movement Hart-Cellar Act of 1965 Hernandez v. Texas Iberians League of United Latin American Citizens Manifest Destiny

Mendez v. Westminster Mestizo Mexican American War Monroe Doctrine Mulatto Operation Wetback Pachuco movement Reconquista Roosevelt Corollary Spanish-American War Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo Young Lords

Zoot Suit Riots

INTRODUCTION Latinx Americans have one of the more complex histories of the development of the Americas. Through contact, colonialization, and further political and social dynamics, the Latinx population has grown into a sizable and influential part of the United States today. Like other racial minorities, Latinx Americans have been exploited for their labor, discriminated by American society, and denied their civil rights despite their contributions to the nation. The Latinx identity is not considered a ‘race’ in America, but rather an ethnic distinction. Because of this ambiguous categorization, Latinx Americans have been misunderstood in political and social standards throughout history. This is their story.

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INDIGENOUS PEOPLES & COLONIZATION

In order to understand Latinx history, we have to begin with the indigenous peoples of the Americas, whose history is inextricably tied to Latinx history. As stated in Module 2, the peoples of the Americas traveled across the Bering Strait and migrated down the continents to lay their roots throughout the Americas. Over time, they constructed boats and continued to develop island civilizations in the Caribbean as well. The peoples of the Americas adapted and thrived in the environments where they settled, some creating vast and complex civilizations and even empires. When Iberians, the Portuguese and Spanish Europeans that lived on the Iberian Peninsula, started to venture out into the open ocean, they would eventually make their way across the Atlantic. The Portuguese focused on the formation trading outposts rounding the gold coast, as well as the colonization of Africa’s western coastal islands, while the Spanish funded a monumental journey that made landfall in the Caribbean. This was the journey of Genoese born Christopher Columbus. After Columbus’s contact with indigenous peoples, more and more explorers made their way across the Atlantic Ocean. Among those men were Hernan Cortez and Francisco Pizarro. Through the efforts of political maneuvering, brute warfare, and subsequent disease, Iberian conquistadors dominated the powerful empires of the Americas. These men were named for their participation in the Reconquista, or reconquest of Spain which was once ruled by Muslims during the middle ages. Cortez and Pizarro identified two goals: control the land and establish colonies for the benefit of the mother country and convert the natives to Christianity. The more souls they committed to Christianity, the more powerful they became over Muslims. With these goals in mind, the Americas were changed forever. As Iberians took over the Americas, some sought alliances with powerful families of the remnants of the indigenous empires. These alliances were mostly forged through marriage. Society was further changed by the introduction of African servants and slaves. Over time, the intermarriage of peoples created a complex and vast Colonial Caste System, or Las castas, that gave privilege and preference to European blood and ‘white’ skin tone. Categories of Las castas included mulattos, offspring of a Spaniard and African, or mestizos, a child of a Spaniard and an indigenous person. These definitions determined one’s social status and access to opportunities and resources or lack thereof. Like many other areas of the world, lighter skin tone was preferable and privileged, while darker skin tones meant inferiority and discrimination. As the years went on, the Latin American nations such as Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Cuba were formed using these racial and ethnic distinctions.

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Las castas

Casta painting showing 16 racial groupings 18th century, Museo Nacional del Virreinato, Tepotzotlán, Mexico

WESTWARD EXPANSION & WARFARE

During the colonial development of the U.S., the Spanish continued to establish settlements throughout their territories in the Americas. In North America, of the areas that would eventually become the U.S., the Spanish controlled the west, southwest, and Florida, until about the early 19th century. Spanish speakers were, in fact, some of the earliest settlers of

"Las Castas" by Wikimedia is in the Public Domain, CC0

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North America, and would remain strongly rooted in those regions throughout this nation’s history – and even today. After the American Revolution and the founding of the nation, settlers looked to the west for more room to develop and grow. The land lust of the American settlers was felt by many groups, and among those groups perhaps the ones to have been affected most were Native Americans and Latinx populations. This land lust was justified in the notion of Manifest Destiny, a term covered in more detail in Module 2. The control of lands from the Atlantic to the Pacific began first with Florida, which was acquired by John Quincy Adams through the Adams-Onis Treaty in 1819. The treaty was signed to settle a border dispute with Spain and an ongoing conflict with General Andrew Jackson and his invasion of Florida and attack on the Seminole Indians. This military action by Jackson was used as leverage over the Spanish to demand Minister Onis to control the inhabitants of Florida or cede the region to the United States. The Seminole tribe was considered disruptive to U.S. interests because they had a history of harboring fugitive slaves. As discussed in Module 3, enslaved African Americans were considered property of Americans, and therefore the Seminoles were in possession of stolen property. The treaty settled differences between the nations by Spain ceding control of all of Florida and the Pacific Northwest, while the U.S. recognized Spanish control over the region later known as Texas, clarifying the borders between New Spain and the United States. Americans soon after reneged on their promise to respect their western boundaries. By the 1820s, American farmers of the south had continued to press into western regions, growing and expanding their wealth despite what sovereign nation controlled the land. The year of 1821 was a victorious one for Mexico, for it gained its independence from their Spanish colonial masters much like Americans did in 1783. However, in forming their new nation, the Mexican government worried about their northern territories and the American influence that resided in them. The fledgling nation tightened its grip on their nation by instituting laws that would weaken the American investment farmers in the north. This legislation included the building of military forts, increasing taxes on foreigners, the abolition of slavery in 1829, and the barring of immigration across the northern border in 1830. All these actions were meant to weaken and dismantle the American influence in northern Mexico, but instead the Americans pushed back. The path the Americans chose was in line with Manifest Destiny and the American ethos of resistance. Instead of complying with the Mexican government, Americans allied with the remnants of Spanish elites and waged a revolution against Mexico. The Texas Revolution lasted several months, and in the end, Texas gained its independence from Mexico and operated as its own independent nation from 1836 until the U.S. annexed the region in 1845. The Americans continued to till their lands with the use of slave labor as an independent territory and into 1860. After Texas entered the Union, President James K. Polk set his sights towards the west, again in line with the concept of Manifest Destiny. In November of 1845, a diplomat was sent to Mexico

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to offer to buy the western territories from Mexico, and the offer was denied. But the U.S. government was relentless, and instead of cutting their losses, they claimed a border dispute to settle the matters with war. President Polk stationed a military force of 4,000 men at the disputed border line, and the Mexican government responded with its own military force. When tensions erupted and shots were fired, Americans were killed. Polk used this opportunity to declare war on Mexico, and Congress granted his request. The Mexican American war had begun. The Mexican American War was a very short-lived war, officially beginning in the fall of 1846 and only lasting about four months. The Americans had the advantage of attacking from both land and sea and quickly came to occupy the capital city of Mexico. During this occupation of Mexico City, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed. This treaty ceded about half of Mexico territory to the U.S.; territory that would eventually become California, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, and Wyoming. This vast acquisition of land would have thousands of Mexicans faced a choice of leaving their land and homes to move within the new borders of their nation or remaining where they were to become Americans. Approximately 30,000 Mexicans would stay and represent the bulk of Latinx Americans for many years, all having to adapt and mold into American society as many more would do in the years thereafter. In their efforts to adapt and assimilate into American society, they would find themselves faced with harsh discrimination, particularly in politically charged territory like California.

After the acquisition of land from Mexico, Americans had fulfilled their goal of Manifest Destiny – they now controlled North America from the Atlantic to Pacific coasts. The consequences of achieving that goal were high, for civil war was brewing. One event that accelerated the coming war came with the process of settlement of new territories, namely the state that would become California. When the precious metal known as gold was discovered in California, a rush of eager migrants flooded into the territory during the California Gold Rush to extract

the wealth that the land had to offer. As countless migrants descended on the land, a certain lawlessness was experienced by those settlers, provoking a need for structure, government, and order. Lawmakers identified a need for order and rushed into annexation and statehood. However, the delicate balance of free and slave states needed to be maintained, so a political compromise settled matters, formally called the Compromise of 1850. This negotiation contained several different concessions to satisfy differing political interests, including California accepted as a free state into the Union. During the Gold Rush beginning in 1848, and the establishment of a California state government, most non-White residents were given little consideration and rights. Generally,

"Nebel Mexican War 12 Scott in Mexico City Adolphe Jean-Baptiste bayot" by Wikimedia is in the Public Domain, CC0

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white California residents treated once Mexican citizens with disdain as they would treat most racially minoritized groups in California like the Chinese and the Native Americans. As the American Civil War raged on through the 1860s, many of society’s issues were put on hold, including Latinx American labor issues and gold rush conflicts in California. From the time of land acquisition to the 20th century, the southern border remained relatively open, and migrants openly crossed to look for work when needed. Spanish speakers from Latin America were welcomed with the same xenophobia as many other migrants of the late 19th century, but many only stayed for temporarily for work, and returned home. After the War of 1812, the U.S. had beaten the British a second time, and established itself as a fully formed nation on a global stage. Just a few years after, James Monroe issued the Monroe Doctrine, a U.S. policy that took a stand against any attempts at European colonialism in the Americas – North, Central, or South. Later, Theodore Roosevelt upheld this same policy, and reiterated the U.S. strongarm on the Western Hemisphere and the defense of any Latin American country. This policy was called the Roosevelt Corollary; and using this policy, the U.S. government intervened in many foreign affairs in countries like Venezuela, Panama, and Cuba. Under the guise of these policies, the U.S. intervened in various political conflicts throughout Latin America in the 19th and 20th centuries. As some of these Latin American regions attempted to assert their independence from their colonial oppressors, regions like Cuba found support from their American counterparts. The Cuban Liberation Movement in Cuba was supported by a newly formed Cuban Solidarity Movement in the U.S. This movement identified the themes of liberation in Cuba similar to the abolition of slavery. (Ortiz 2018). Through their efforts, the plight of Cubans gained more awareness in America, leading to U.S. intervention in 1898. The Spanish-American War of 1898 found the U.S. involved in an armed conflict that eventually helped Cuba gain its independence from Spain. This was a short-fought conflict that ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris, wherein Spain ceded control of several territories including Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. To this day, Guam and Puerto Rico are unincorporated territories of the U.S., meaning residents of the countries are American citizens but do not pay federal taxes or have voting representatives in Congress. By the 1910s, Mexico was suffering national strife during the Mexican Revolution. This conflict brought many Mexican nationals across the border looking for safety and opportunity, much like other migrants in the previous decades. This was an unwelcome shift for Americans that were used to temporary migrant laborers of the past. These settlers looking for permanent residences were met with harsh xenophobia. Many of the new migrants settled down in the southwest and California to work in expanding agricultural territories of Arizona, California, and Texas. This huge influx of migrants spawned a need for border control, which began in 1924. As a counterweight to the racial discrimination of the 1920s, an organization was founded to defend Latinx peoples from institutional discrimination. LULAC, or the League of United Latin

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American Citizens, was formed in Texas and sought to end discrimination against Latinx Americans. In a LULAC newsletter, the writer blamed “ignorance” for the treatment of Latinx communities. For example, one of their earliest high-profile cases was to sue a school district in 1930 for segregation of Mexican children; however, the case did not rule in their favor. This case would serve as an important steppingstone for a similar lawsuit in the 1950s.

LABOR & CIVIL RIGHTS

World War II opened new avenues of opportunity for ethnic minoritized groups like Latinx Americans. Approximately 400,000 to 500,000 Hispanic and Latinx Americans fought in the war. This number varies by the source because of misrepresentation or underrepresentation of groups like Afro-Latinos. Like most veterans that are people of color, they were treated badly upon return. Many were not allowed the benefits of the GI Bill, and others returned to hometowns that enforced segregation, despite service to their country. Like many minoritized groups during this era, like women and Blacks, Hispanics and Latinx Americans found new employment opportunities due to shifts in the workforce. Better paying factory jobs drove many racial minorities into cities. Some gained employment in industrialized jobs making uniforms, bullets, planes, etc. The shifts in the labor force also created a desperate need for agricultural workers. In solidarity during wartime, the U.S. government and the Mexican government signed a deal called the Bracero program. The program was used to bring Mexican agricultural laborers into the U.S. for work while guaranteeing them fair wages, adequate shelter, and food. This initial agreement was meant for wartime but was extended until 1964. The agreement sounded great on paper, but in practice had many issues. There were many accounts of “adequate” living conditions that were substandard at best, and numerous accounts of racial discrimination. Wage discrepancies, withheld pay, or inconsistent pay were common among Bracero workers. The workers had no say in the negotiations of labor contracts and were virtually powerless in the process from the beginning. Furthermore, even though the program was extended several years, Bracero workers were never given a pathway to citizenship. The whole program was inconsistent, unfair, and at times outright abusive. In 1954, after the director of the INS became alarmed by the presence of Mexican laborers in southern California, he initiated “Operation Wetback,” a program to deport illegal immigrants to Mexico. This initiative ignored the fact that many of these farmworkers came legally under the Bracero program, and some of those deported were American citizens.

"An Official Examines a Bracero's Teeth and Mouth with a Flashlight" by Wikimedia is in the Public Domain, CC0

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Meanwhile, as the Bracero workers were being mistreated in the west and southwest, Los Angles found itself in an incident of racial conflict during the Zoot Suit Riots. WWII was a global conflict that had vast effects on the home front in America, including stoking racial tensions in areas like southern California. Discrimination against Latinx communities is a concept that was common in the region even before it was a state. This all came to a head because of rationing during the war. A Zoot Suit was a type of suit that was popularized during the Harlem Renaissance. The suit included an oversized jacket with coat tails, large voluminous pants with pegged ankles, sometimes a watch chain and two-toned shoes. This look was later co-opted by the Mexican youth of the Los Angeles area. This youth culture was called the Pachuco movement. Both young men and women participated. However, to wear a zoot suit during war time and rationing was frowned upon because of its excessive fabric; and this, coupled with rising racial tensions in the area soon erupted into violence. Although many Pachucos wearing zoot suits did not fabricate or purchase them during wartime, thereby violating rationing laws, they were still targeted as being unpatriotic and un-American. The origin of the riots is hard to pinpoint, but the initial act was connected to some young Pachucos and navy servicemen in Los Angles. Because the city had a military base nearby, there were often military servicemen present. The initial altercation sparked a reaction of vengeance by those in the area, and havoc was set upon anyone in a zoot suit or who appeared to be part of this Pachuco culture.

Men, many of them enlisted men, packed into cars to descend upon the Latinx barrios of Los Angles to hunt down Zoot Suiters. The attackers used bats, chains, and other weapons to assail these young Pachucos. When the police were called, the ones put in jail were often the victims

APPLICATION 6.1 SHIFTING PERSPECTIVE: ZOOT SUIT RIOTS

Goal

To view the riots from the perspective of the Latinx community.

Instructions

Read We’re Looking for Zoot-Suits to Burn”: Mexican Americans and the Zoot Suit Riots (http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5156/). Answer the following questions:

1. What reasons did authorities give for the treatment and arrest of the young men? 2. Why did authorities behave the way they did? Were their actions justified?

"Victims of the Zoot Suit Riots” by Harold P. Matosian, Wikimedia is in the Public Domain, CC0

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of the violence, the young Latinx men. The attacks lasted for six days in the summer of 1943, and would be repeated in several other major cities, each targeting Latinx youth. After the conflicts of the WWII era, Latinx Americans, like other racial minorities questioned their value in American society. Cold War political policies sought to defend peoples abroad, but many minorities were unable to access civil rights at home. The first significant target of racial discrimination was the education system. Before the Brown v. Board decision, there was another case that challenged segregation in schools, and this was the case of Sylvia Mendez. Mendez v. Westminster (1947) In 1947, the case of Mendez v. Westminster, a class action lawsuit was brought against the city of Orange County, California for the practice of “Mexican schools.” In the city of Westminster, schools were established for children of Mexican descent because they were deemed as “special needs” since they were Spanish speakers. This case was tried in the U.S. Supreme court, and the practice of “Mexican schools” was deemed unconstitutional, for it was proven to instill a sense of inferiority amongst Mexican children forced to attend these schools. This case would pave the way for the monumental Brown v. Board decision that upended the separate but equal clause based on similar findings. Hernandez v. Texas (1954) Later, another monumental case was decided in the U.S. Supreme Court to bring clarity to the racial definition of Latinx Americans. The case of Hernandez v. Texas was litigated in 1954 by the first Mexican American lawyers to stand before the U.S. Supreme Court. Peter Hernandez was a man who was convicted of murdering another man in a fatal shooting outside a bar in Texas. The legal case was not to dispute the conviction but rather the subject of discrimination because Hernandez was denied a fair jury of his peers. Historically, Mexicans were systematically excluded from jury duty due to discrimination. However, defenders of the practice would argue that since Latinx Americans are racially categorized as ‘White’; therefore the defense claimed Hernandez was in fact fairly represented. In the end, the court ruled in favor of Hernandez because they proved that there had never been a member of a Texas jury that had a Spanish surname. The ruling found that this type of discrimination was unconstitutional. Both of these cases found that even though the law distinguished Latinx Americans under the racial category of White, overt racial discrimination occurred based on national origin or ethnicity. These cases determined that the Latinx community was afforded protections under Constitutional law. Although these cases sought to protect Latinx Americans, the end of segregation and discrimination was a work in progress.

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On the front of labor issues in the U.S., many issues needed to be addressed. The abuses of the Bracero program continued to impact Latinx communities, especially after the initiation of Operation Wetback and the deportation of many farm laborers. The work of the Farmworkers Movement grew out of the valleys of California. The famous César Chávez, a WWII veteran, rose to prominence as an activist and organizer of the National Farm Workers Association, alongside Dolores Huerta and Gilbert Padilla. This group combined forces with Philip Vera Cruz and the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee to protest the unfair labor practices of California grape growers. Their primary tactic was a consumer boycott - to refrain from buying and consuming any products that were derived from these grape farmers. Other forms of protest by the organizers included marches and Chávez’s fasting. The most notable march was led by Chávez in 1966, extending 300 miles from Delano, California to the state capital of Sacramento. In the end, labor contracts were negotiated between the growers and the farmworkers unions to increase wages and improve working conditions such as limiting the use of harmful pesticides (Ortiz, 2018).

Latinx Americans continued to participate in the civil rights movements of the 1960s in Chicago in the name of the Young Lords. This movement was led by young Puerto Ricans but also involved the participation of other Latinx groups. Their organizing focused on education and community building. The Young Lords provoked the formation of other chapters active in New York City and other areas of the eastern seaboard. In NYC, the Young Lords sought to fight inequities of the conditions of minority neighborhoods in regard to infrastructure and access to government programs. Like other civil rights movements of the late 1960s, the Brown Power, or Chicano/a movement in Southern California demanded recognition and the end of racial discrimination in the U.S.

APPLICATION 6.2 SHIFTING PERSPECTIVE: LABOR & THE STRUGGLE OF MIGRANT FARM WORKERS

Goal

To understand the perspective of Latinx farmworkers.

Instructions

Read Letter from Delano by Cesar Chavez (1969) (https://libraries.ucsd.edu/farmworkermovement/essays/essays/Letter%20From%20Delano.pdf). Answer the following questions:

1. How does Chávez describe the farm workers movement? 2. Was he effective in conveying his goals?

"Democratic Convention in New York City July 14, 1976” by Wikimedia is in the Public

Domain, CC0

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This was an extension of the farm workers movement in the California Central Valley. Additionally, the Hart-Cellar Act of 1965 opened immigration to other Latin American countries, continuing the trend of diversification of American society. Along with other racial and ethnic minorities, Latinx communities struggled with identity, discrimination, and injustice into the end of the 20th century. Despite these struggles, many achieved progress in education, gainful employment, and political representation.

THE RECENT PAST

After the tumultuous era of the 60s and 70s, Latinx Americans continued to diversify American society. However, because of racial categorization, some Latinx Americans struggled with identity. According to the last 20 years of census data, millions of Latinx Americans chose “other” as their racial category on the census. Legal precedent puts Latinx individuals under the umbrella of “White,” but many reject this distinction. To complicate matters more, colorism, or shades of skin tones also effect how Latinx Americans choose to identify and/or are labeled by appearance. Other factors such as generation, cultural traits and traditions, and language complicate Latinx identity even more (Navarro, 2012). In politics, Latinx Americans are continually confronted with issues immigration and reforms. DACA, the DREAM Act, and Latin American immigrants have sparked much controversy in recent years. Both pieces of legislation addressed the segment of Latinx Americans that were originally brought to the U.S. as children. These children lived the majority of their lives on American soil, educated in American schools, raised in American culture – making them American in all ways with the exception of a legal document. Some of these children grow up in mixed documented families. In the recent past, there have been numerous threats to deport “undocumented immigrants,” regardless of their participation within and contributions to American society. To deport any of these children, some now adults, would most likely result in separation of families and a displacement of individuals who argued that the U.S. was their rightful home, and they had no say in the original migration into the U.S. The DREAM Act, Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act, allowed these children of immigrants to gain access to education, government funding for education, and conditional residency. DACA, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Act, was passed under the Obama administration in 2012, and it allowed for minors to apply for deferment of deportation. In 2017, the Trump administration rescinded DACA in an attempt to end the program. However, since then, the act has undergone numerous legal battles that have resulted in the extension of the act. Currently, there are an approximate 700,000 DACA recipients in the U.S., and challenges to the program are still on going. Xenophobia against Latinx communities have instigated much conflict and political debate. Latinx Americans continually strive to break long held stereotypes and maintain fair representation in popular culture and media. They do this while still retaining their cultural heritage and identity, in a complicated and deeply personal expression of individual identity.

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BIOGRAPHICAL REFLECTION 6.1 A LITTLE GOES A LONG WAY

Before I began my career as a college professor, I was an elementary school teacher. Like most elementary school teachers, I have many stories to tell, and I will share one very important and special one. Entering the teaching profession in central California in the 1990s, I found myself in a world where bilingual skills were in high demand, and bilingual classes were frequently taught and common to find. I was not bilingual, and I was assigned to a class where most students were native Spanish speakers. I even asked my principal to change my assignment to English-only. His response was that he would rather have a capable non-Spanish-speaking teacher teaching a bilingual class that a lesser teacher than did speak Spanish. If you are thinking “Are you kidding me?” get in line. I thought my principal had lost it. But there I was, in a class where some of the students knew little English, and others were somewhat resentful that they had an African- American non-Spanish speaker for a teacher rather than a fluent Latino Spanish speaker. It was not an easy year, and I really didn’t know what I was doing half the time. But one thing I did was refuse to do nothing. I enrolled in a beginning Spanish class at West Hills College Lemoore. I slowly but surely acquired linguistic skills in Spanish. I learned courtesies and “survival” language of course, but at least, I could give students permission to use the restroom and go to recess, using Spanish words. I took more Spanish, and even attended a summer Spanish language seminar. Within two years I was well—far from fluent, but much better off than before. One day I was sitting in my classroom, and a monolingual Spanish-speaking parent came in my classroom. She said she needed help with understanding her son’s homework. For the next 15 minutes, I struggled with the Spanish I knew, but when she walked out, she said “Muchas gracias, Maestro.” I was practically faint from exhausting every Spanish word I knew, but that was my first successful conversation with a parent. What happened next nearly electrified me. Standing in front of my desk was a line of non-English speaking students with math books in hand, asking me for help, in Spanish. None of these students had said more than a few words to me the entire first four months of school! When they saw that I could speak some Spanish, that was all they needed to know. The door of communication had been opened. A very happy conclusion to this awakening happened several years later. One of my former Spanish-speaking second graders was the valedictorian of her eighth-grade class. During her graduation speech, she thanked me as her favorite teacher, for of all things - being the only teacher who spoke Spanish to her. Now that is incredible, considering I was not fluent in Spanish. To close, a little goes a long way. I am a strong advocate for learning a second language or at least part of a second language. It opened up doors of communication between my students and myself and gave me a respect and knowledge of a different culture that I never would have been privileged to know otherwise. What motivated the writer to learn Spanish? What were some of the rewards for the time invested in learning it? What does this story tell you about the value of knowing a second language? This story “A Little Goes a Long Way” by Daryl Johnson is licensed under CC BY NC ND 4.0

SUMMARY

Beginning in the early 16th century, Spanish speakers have inhabited North America; they created settlements and cultivated the land. Because of the complex history of colonization and intermarriage, Latinx Americans are difficult to define in racial and ethnic categories. After

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American efforts of westward expansion, many Latinx Americans found themselves citizens of the United States. Latinx communities continued to thrive in America throughout the 20th century, some settling permanently, others migrant workers. By the 1960s, many Latinx Americans joined civil rights movements, most of them concerned with labor reforms. Regardless of obstacles and discrimination, Latinx American communities continue to strive forward, determined to be recognized for their contributions to U.S. history. Like all other racial and ethnic minorities, their labor helped build this country and continues to demand progress and equity even today. REVIEW QUESTIONS 1. What factors motivated Iberians to explore and colonize the Americas in the 16th century? 2. How did westward expansion impact Spain and Mexico? 3. Define U.S. foreign policies during the 19th century regarding Latin America. How did these

policies impact Latin America? 4. What issues drove the Latinx American civil rights movement of the 1960s? TO MY FUTURE SELF From the module, what information and new knowledge did I find interesting or useful? How do I plan to use this information and new knowledge in my personal and professional development and improvement?

REFERENCES Foner, E. (2014). Voices of freedom: A documentary history: Volume 1. (4th ed.). W.W. Norton &

Company. Foner, E. (2014). Voices of freedom: A documentary history: Volume 2. (4th ed.). W.W. Norton &

Company. Locke, J. & Wright, B. (2019). The American yawp. Stanford University Press.

http://www.americanyawp.com/index.html. Ortiz, P. (2018). An African American and Latinx history of the United States. Beacon Press. Rothenberg, P. S. (2016). Race, class, and gender in the United States: An integrated study. (10th

ed). Macmillan. Takaki, R. (1993). A different mirror: A history of multicultural America. Back Bay Books.

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MODULE 7. OUR DIVISIONS LEARNING OBJECTIVES At the end of the module, students will be able to: 1. explain the implications of culture on social power and hierarchies 2. summarize the mechanisms used by dominant groups to develop and sustain power 3. understand cultural hegemony 4. identify and evaluate prejudice and discrimination 5. discuss types of racism and exploitation KEY TERMS & CONCEPTS

Acculturation Affective Form Assimilation Authoritarian personality Cognitive Dissonance Cognitive Form Color Blindness Conative Dimension Critical Race Theory (CRT) Cultural Fit Cultural Hegemony Cultural Power Cultural Relativism Discrimination Ethnocentrism Eurocentrism Fallacies Ideological Racism

In-group Individual Discrimination Institutional Discrimination Out-group Overcategorize Prejudice Racial Prejudice Racial Privilege Racism Reference Group Scientific Racism Social Location Socialization Socioeconomic Status Stereotypes Symbolic interactionism White Supremacy

INTRODUCTION

By learning the history and the experiences of African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinx Americans, and Native Americans, we are better able to understand the racial formation, racial intolerance, racial and ethnic inequalities these major underrepresented groups have faced in the United States. The histories and lives of Americans of color show courageous character and acts of valor in their fight for freedom and equality as promised in the Constitution of the United States. Ancestors of these racial-ethnic groups represent agents of change and are our role models in the fight against prejudice, racism, and discrimination.

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CULTURAL HIERARCHIES All humans are comprised of the same biological structure and matter. The unique distinctions among us stem from our culture (Kottak & Kozaitis, 2012). The differences in our values, beliefs, norms, expressive language, practices, and artifacts are which stands us apart from one another. Being culturally unique projects exclusivity that draws attention to our variations and differences. People find cultural fit or acceptance from those who share uniqueness or the same cultural characteristics. Consequently, people may find or experience intolerance or rejection from those with different cultural traits. Cultural distinctions make groups unique, but they also provide a social structure for creating and ranking people based on similarities or differences. A group’s size and strength influence their power over a region, area, or other groups. Cultural power lends itself to social, economic, and political power that influences people’s lives by controlling the prevailing norms or rules and making individuals adhere to the dominant group culture voluntarily or involuntarily.

Culture is not a direct reflection of the social world (Griswold, 2013). Humans frame culture to define meaning and interpret the social world around them. As a result, dominant groups are able to manipulate, reproduce, and influence culture among the masses or all Americans. Common culture found in society is actually the selective transmission of elite-dominated values (Parenti, 2006). This practice known as cultural hegemony suggests that culture is not autonomous, it is conditionally dictated, regulated, and controlled by dominant or powerful groups. The major forces shaping culture are in the power of elite-dominated interests who render limited and marginal adjustments to make culture appear changing in alignment with evolving social values (Parenti, 2006). The dominating cultural group often sets the standard for living and

governs the distribution of resources.

When social groups have or are in power, they have the ability to discriminate on a large scale. A dominant group or the ruling class impart their culture in society by passing laws and informally using culture to spread it. Access to these methods allows hegemonic groups to institutionalize discrimination. This results in unjust and unequal treatment of people by society and its institutions. Those who culturally align to the ruling class fair better than those who are different.

PREJUDICE

Cultural intolerance may arise when individuals or groups confront new or differing values, beliefs, norms, expressive symbols, practices, or artifacts. Think about a time when you came across someone who did not fit the cultural “norm” either expressively or behaviorally. How did

Image by ShotPot, Pexels is licensed under CC BY 4.0

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the person’s presence make you feel? What type of thoughts ran through your head? Were you compelled to understand the differences between you and the other person or were you eager to dismiss, confront, or ignore the other person? Living in a diverse society requires us to tackle our anxiety of the unknown or unfamiliar. The discomfort or cognitive dissonance we feel when we are around others who live and think differently than ourselves makes us alter our thoughts and behaviors towards acceptance or rejection of the “different” person in order to restore cognitive balance (Festinger, 1957). When people undergo culture shock or surprise from experiencing new culture or ideas, their minds undergo dissonance. Similar to a fight or flight response, we choose to learn and understand each other’s differences or mock and run away from them. People judge and evaluate each other on a daily basis. Assessing other people and our surroundings is necessary for interpreting and interacting in the social world. Problems arise when we judge others using our own cultural standards. As discussed in Module 1, we call the practice of judging others through our own cultural lens ethnocentrism. This practice is culturally universal. People everywhere think their culture or way of life is true, moral, proper, and right (Kottak & Kozaitis, 2012). By its very definition, ethnocentrism creates division and conflict between social groups whereby mediating differences is challenging when everyone believes they are culturally superior, and their values, beliefs, norms, expressive language, practices, and artifacts should be the standard for living. BIOGRAPHICAL REFLECTION 7.1

NEW HOME & RACE RELATIONS

My family fled communist Laos to find safety and freedom with a kernel of hope that our life in a different country would be easier. After four years of living in a dilapidated Thailand refugee camp, fenced by barbed wire, my family resettled in the United States in 1979. Of all places, we ended up in Nashville, home to America’s country music. How heartland could one get! I get to tell friends and colleagues that my first three words of English were: Yes, No, and Hee-Haw. All kidding aside, there were serious racial tensions between the Hmong and our Black neighbors. They had no idea who we were and vice versa. Granted, most of our Black neighbors were indifferent towards us; some were friendly and greeted us with a good morning wave; a few, however, found new opportunities to perpetrate their violence. Three Hmong families – my father’s, my cousin’s, and our brother-in-law’s – with 19 children were housed in a 4-bedroom and 1 restroom apartment. We were refugees; tight space was not a problem. Soon enough, though, we discovered we may have escaped the terror of communists, but then only to enmesh in a new terror on Wharf Avenue in Nashville’s impoverished project, a quicksand that swallowed Hmong refugees into culture shock and further made us easy crime targets. While biking around the block, my younger brother, Pao, 9 years-old, was chased and shot on the forehead by a BB gun, nearly blinding him. The two juvenile Black boys who shot him were never brought to justice. My aunt Blong had her stack of food stamps stolen from her pocket as she was shoved to the sidewalk. Early one morning my uncle Nhia Va got robbed and stabbed in the stomach while walking to his car to go to work. He managed to run two blocks to find help at our apartment while trying to keep his intestines from slipping out more. I was ten years old; the gruesome image haunted me for years. The police had to be called more times than I can remember. My older brother, Shua, was the only person who spoke English and made all the calls to the police. One day we heard a loud bang on our door. We opened the door and found eight angry black men standing outside, yelling and

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demanding Shua to go outside. Who knew what would have transpired next had we not had a security door. Quickly, my brother called the police again. The men dispersed when the police came a minute later. These incidents in turn twisted us, and we learned to hate back, wondering why Black people were so mean. We spoke ill of them and wished they didn’t exist. The racial tensions were beyond remedy. The only remedy was to move away, but we could not. We had no money, no way to search for a new place. Where it would be safe, we could not afford; where we could afford with the little government cash aid we received, there was no vacancy. Our three congested Hmong families lived in fear and constant harassment for another eight months before our sponsor found two open apartments on 40th Avenue and a house in a quiet White neighborhood, making our relocation possible. The project on 40th Avenue felt different, though our new neighbors were also predominantly Black. We felt safe sitting outside our front door to relax. The Black kids in the neighborhood were friendly and invited my two brothers and me to play basketball and football. Sports pulled us together and made us friends. In basketball these Black friends taught us names like Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, and football Earl Campbell, Steve Bartkowski, Ed “Too Tall” Jones, and Joe Montana. When our family moved to Fresno a year and half later to join the growing Hmong community in Fresno, my brothers and I truly missed those three Black friends. At times we reminisced about our childhood playdays with Joe Bert, KK, and Lil. Through those friends, we learned to judge people by character, not by skin color – reversing our Wharf Avenue nightmare. Church service was a thing our family, along with other Hmong and White American families, did on Sunday mornings. White people from the Church of Christ picked us up for service; they dropped us off. But they didn’t live near us. Occasionally they invited us to their homes across town. We saw how nice, clean, and spacious their homes were; no broken glass bottles on the street, grass cut, and trees trimmed – a drastic change from what I’ve seen at our apartment in the project. It was my first glimpse into the economic divide of a deep sociological (perhaps racial) issue beyond my comprehension. My first introduction to college was when a church friend, Allen Burris, took us to get some tutorials from his college friends at David Lipscomb College. On a side conversation, I asked a naïve question to which I learned something new quickly, “Allen, what’s the name of the principal in your college?” “My principal is Mr. Snow,” I revealed proudly like I got points for knowing it. Allen responded, “In college we don’t have a principal, but we have a president.” I remember asking Allen further (with my broken and hesitant English) why Jimmy Carter is the president, but we have a person in the school called president, too? The conversation morphed into some additional explanation that Jimmy Carter is the president for the whole United States, but the school president is only in charge of the college. I knew then I wanted to go to college, not to become a college president but just to know things. Fresno’s growing Hmong population provided my parents a sense of belonging - seeing relatives, speaking the same language, and living near each other in apartment clusters in SE Fresno. They felt they could be Hmong again after two years of cultural and linguistic isolation in Nashville. Other Hmong people organized cultural festivals to restage an old practice in a new country, for example, the Hmong New Year celebration became the premier event to attend. This multifaceted social event attracted friends and relatives from all over the country to meet in Fresno. Young single people had the opportunity to find a spouse, fulfilling booth vendors and organizers’ dreams of cash operating schemes. My sisters who were barely in their mid-teens were pressured to get married. Some conversations among the elderly women – my mother included - were about how to marry off their daughters before they became “old maids.” Occasionally the conversation drifted off to complain about the inconsistent welfare amount they received from social services. Both issues horrified and embarrassed me profoundly. I only wish my sisters were directed towards going to college instead of early marriage; I wish my parents had education and held jobs, so we didn’t have to rely on welfare. I vowed never to succumb to the social backwardness of my culture because being Hmong meant uneducated and dependent on welfare. This story “New Home & Race Relations” by Silas Cha is licensed under CC BY NC ND 4.0

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The U.S. cultural lens is a product of the country’s founding fathers and early settlers. European culture and history became the widely accepted view during the colonialization of what we call “America.” Eurocentrism is a worldview centered on Western civilization derived from the culture and history of Western Europe and the early colonizers. As the country was conquered and a government established, native peoples and immigrants (voluntary and involuntary) were pressured to assimilate and acculturate to European way of life. Through assimilation, minority groups were forced to assume and absorb the majority (dominant group) culture. Acculturation occurred as minority groups adapted to the dominant culture while maintaining some cultural uniqueness such as language, traditions, and dietary customs. Eurocentric ideals continue to be instilled in America today through socialization of children and youth, and the assimilation and acculturation of new immigrants. Eurocentric ideals promote racial-ethnic group dominance of Whites. White supremacy is the belief that White people are a superior race and must dominate society to the exclusion or detriment of other racial-ethnic groups. As we have learned, the concept of race is socially constructed. Scientists working on the human genome project showed there is no “race” gene (Anderson & Collins, 2010). The meaning of race stems from social, historical, and political contexts which nonetheless makes race meaningful and real in our experiences. Racial framing and classification reflect prevailing or dominant group views and reinforces the ideological belief that racial categories and grouping is natural or the norm though scientific evidence suggests the contrary. Racial categories are the basis for allocating resources and framing political issues and conflicts (Anderson & Collins, 2010). For example, the Holocaust was a result of the social construction of “Jew” as a race in Nazi Germany. Still today White supremacist groups and White racism typify the “Jewish” racial category even for people who are seen and live in our society as “White” (Ferber, 1999). In contrast to ethnocentric and Eurocentric beliefs and ideas, cultural relativism insinuates judging a culture by the standards of another is objectionable, unpleasant, and offensive. It seems reasonable to evaluate a person’s values, beliefs, and practices from their own cultural standards rather than be judged against the criteria of another (Kottak & Kozaitis, 2012). Learning to receive cultural differences from a place of empathy and understanding serves as a foundation for living together despite variances. Like many aspects of human civilization, culture is not absolute but relative suggesting values, beliefs, and practices are only standards of living as long as people accept and live by them (Boas, 1887). Developing knowledge about cultures and cultural groups different from our own allows us to view and evaluate others from their cultural lens and life experience. Sometimes people act on ethnocentric thinking and feel justified disregarding cultural relativism. Overcoming negative attitudes about people who are culturally different from us is challenging when we believe our culture and thinking are justified. Consider the social issue of

Image by Ketut Subiyanto, Pexels is licensed under

CC BY 4.0

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infanticide or the killing of unwanted children after birth. The historical practice in some societies occurred in times of famine or hardship when resources were scarce to keep non- productive humans alive. Many people find infanticide a human rights violation regardless of a person’s cultural traditions and beliefs and think the practice should stop. People often feel justified condemning the practice of infanticide and the people who believe and practice the tradition.

Prejudice is an attitude of thoughts and feelings directed at someone from prejudging or making negative assumptions. Negative attitudes about another’s culture are a form of prejudice or bias. Prejudice is a learned behavior. Prejudicial attitudes can lead to discriminatory acts and behaviors. Prejudicial attitudes and beliefs stem from overcategorizing, stereotypes, and fallacies about people. We are prejudice when we overcategorize people by exaggerating a group’s belief system, associating the belief with a certain type of people, and defining the belief and type of people in a positive or negative way to

justify a favorable or unfavorable prejudice (Farley, 2010). Stereotypes are oversimplified ideas about groups of people we believe to be true (Griffiths et al., 2015). By stereotyping people, we infer all members of a group have the same characteristics or abilities. Fallacies are errors in our reasoning that undermine logical thinking. Fallacies are classified as illegitimate arguments (inconsistent or inappropriate), irrelevant facts, or unsubstantiated information (Lau & Chan, 2021). Prejudice occurs in the mind as we process information about people. Our attitudes and beliefs of others reflect what we think about their characteristics or abilities. There are three ideological dimensions of prejudicial thinking: cognitive, affective, and conative (Farley, 2010). A cognitive form of prejudice depicts the beliefs we think are true about others. Affective forms of prejudice indicate our likes and dislikes of others. Lastly, the conative dimension signifies the behavior we are likely to display towards others as a result of our prejudice. For example, thinking the practice of infanticide should stop (cognitive) and those who practice it malevolent (affective) is prejudicial. Trying to stop the practice (conative) with force is discriminatory. There are times in the case of human rights issues like this where the fine line between criticizing with action (ethnocentrism) and understanding with empathy (cultural relativism) are clear. However, knowing the appropriate context when to judge or be open- minded is not always evident. Do we allow men to treat women as subordinates if their religion or faith justifies it? Do we allow people to sacrifice puppies for religious or spiritual purposes? Do we stop children who do not receive vaccinations from attending school? All of these issues stem from cultural differences and distinguishing the appropriate response is not always easy to identify.

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Because prejudice is associated with the mind and one’s thinking, it is important to understand its causes. Social scientists have found three general theories on why people are prejudice. The first perspective explains that some people have an authoritarian personality that is prone to prejudice in order to fulfill their own personality needs (Adorno et al., 1950; Freud 1930, 1962). This theory suggests prejudice is produced by a particular personality pattern or type. The term “authoritarian” was given to this theory to illuminate that people with this personality pattern or type are likely to support authoritarian political movements promoting and supporting prejudice such as White supremacy. According to Brown (1965) the basic characteristics associated with an authoritarian personality are: 1) adherence to conventional values, 2) uncritical acceptance of authority, 3) aggressive towards others who do not conform to authority or the norms, 4) oppose and reject self-analysis, 5) superstitious and stereotypical in thinking, 6) concerned with power and being tough, 7) display destructive and cynical ideas, 8) view the world as wild and dangerous, and 9) overly concerned with sex crimes and people living wild sex lives. An authoritarian personality results in scapegoating or displacing aggression and projecting emotions or traits a person does not like about one’s self and attributing them to others. Examples include blaming others for personal failures or a violent person suspecting others as being harmful. Several theorists have discovered specific personality patterns and traits associated with prejudice. Ehrlich (1973) found insecure and people lacking self-esteem are often prejudiced. They are unable to accept negative aspects of their personalities (Farley, 2010). Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswick, Levinson, and Sanford (1950) showed prejudiced subjects were highly concerned about their social status and came from strict homes. Hamilton (1981) uncovered the need to see the world in oversimplified terms was linked to prejudice. Whereby, Fishbein (1996) showed the need to deny one’s own shortcomings was linked to prejudicial thinking. Furthermore, Duckitt (2001) linked the need to obey and respect authority reflected the need for personal control and security. Lastly, Altemeyer (1998) coined the term “social dominance orientation” to describe the belief in the importance of social hierarchy or belief that some people are better than others. The result of this research on personality and prejudice shows

APPLICATION 7.1 THE THINKING BEHIND PREJUDICE

Goal

To understand the psychology of prejudice and discrimination.

Instructions

Watch the Crash Course video Prejudice and Discrimination (https://youtu.be/7P0iP2Zm6a4). Answer the following questions about prejudicial thinking and acts:

1. Define prejudice. 2. Discuss the influence of social identity (i.e., race, ethnicity, age, gender, sexuality, social class, etc.) on

stereotypical beliefs and prejudicial thinking. 3. Explain the impact stereotypes and prejudice have on behavior and discrimination.

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that when people feel there is a threat to their social stability or cohesion, the effects of authoritarianism on personal and social prejudice are greater (Feldman, 2003).

The second perspective suggests people learn or are socialized to be prejudiced. Socialization occurs throughout the course of life. Learning the cultural traits and characteristics at certain stages of life is important in developing self-identity and group acceptance. Parents and peers with whom a child feels close identification are especially strong influencers (Kasser et al., 2002; Bandura & Walters, 1963; Allport, 1954). People learn prejudice through socialization reinforcing implicit bias and racist ideologies such as “White is normal.” Social learning theory (Bandura, 1977) is a form of symbolic interactionism examining micro-level interactions of thinking and behavior. Interactionists consider how people interpret meaning and symbols to understand and navigate the social world. Individuals create social reality through verbal and non-verbal

interactions. These interactions form thoughts and behaviors in response to others influencing motivation and decision-making. Hearing or reading a word in a language one understands develops a mental image and comprehension about information shared or communicated such as the media message of “the crack mother icon” which is most commonly visualized as a single mother of color on drugs with multiple children receiving welfare or government assistance. BIOGRAPHICAL REFLECTION 7.2

THAT IS NOT AN ALTERCATION Winston is a delightful soul. He is one of my three sons and his smile tells it all. He lives life out loud, is solid in who he is, and has a bright future. He was about 5’11 in junior high, which makes him look older, and is an exceptional athlete. He looks predominately African American although he comes from a multi-racial background as you can see in this photo from his 8th grade graduation.

When he was in junior high school, I received a call from the Dean at the school he attended. The Dean announced who he was and stated, “Winston has been in an altercation, you need to come to the school.” My first thoughts are, “Winston in a fight? He has never been in a fight. He is a highly competitive athlete who I have seen shoved on a court by an opponent, and he shrugs it off and keeps moving. Fighting is not him. Either way, I raced to the school. When I arrive, my Winston is in the office and visibly annoyed that I have shown up. He is shaking his head and tells me this is being blown out of proportion. The Dean tells me that he has video footage of the altercation, but first he wants Winston to tell me what happened. He tells Winston with an emphatic tone, “Tell your mother what happened.” Winston says, “We were play fighting on the bus.” The Dean states again in an emphatic tone, “Winston, I have video footage of what happened, tell your mother the truth.” Winston insists, “We were playing on the bus mom.” At this point I am annoyed because I raced over from work, now I simply want to see this video. The video rolls and I see a bus full of rambunctious middle schoolers. The bus driver is visibly agitated at all of the energy behind him. Finally, the scene of the “altercation.” Winston is sitting across from one of his friends on the

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bus, an Asian Indian friend. His friend has a ball in his hand and Winston placed his hand underneath his friend’s hand and slaps up causing the ball to drop on the floor. His friend stands up and punches Winston in the arm a few times, and Winston starts laughing with him about the matter with his body in a defensive mode saying, “Ok, Ok, I’m sorry dude.” End of altercation. In the most diplomatic way possible, I shared with this Dean how I felt that the language he used to describe what happened was overzealous at best. I asked him "Where is Winston's friend who punched him?" He stated that he was in the lobby of the administration building. I asked, “Are they ok with each other?” The Dean said, “Yes.” I said, okay, I need to get back to work. I wondered if the Dean, being a White man, working at a mainly White school, made his perspective “whitewashed” to the ways boys’ banter. I was most concerned because the language he used could have caused Winston to be suspended from school. He insisted that Winston be sent home for the day as a result. I advocated for him to stay in school as he did nothing wrong from what I observed. As a matter of fact, he was punched several times. I also stated that the lack of mediation for these types of interactions at school is a problem and as administrators, there is an expectation that they would try to mitigate situations like this. I would have many more stories like this where people would see him as a “Big Black Boy,” and use loaded words to describe him or a situation involving him. The implicit bias of his size and color would be quelled once people got to know him and realize what a sweet and respectful young man he is. It was and still is heart wrenching as a mother to remind him to not forget where he is and who he is around. I wondered what would have happened to Winston along the way if he did not have a parent that was advocating for him and teaching him how to navigate through a world as a “Big Black Boy.” I would often pray that instead of seeing altercations, or threats, they would see what I see. I see a young man who embraces the person he was created to be. This story “That Is Not an Altercation” by Guadalupe Capozzi is licensed under CC BY NC ND 4.0

Implicit bias or unconscious prejudice reinforced through socialization (e.g., societal messages) frames positive words and images for in-group members who share interests and identity and negative ones for out-groups. An in-group is a group toward which one feels particular loyalty and respect. The traits of in-groups are virtues, whereas traits of out-groups are vices (Henslin, 2011). An out-group is a group toward which one feels antagonism and contempt. Consider members of a team or club, people on the same team will develop an in-group admiration and acceptance while viewing members of the opposing team or club as members of their out- group. Socialization protects and shelters in-group members with ideologies that instill unconscious prejudice and animosity toward or competition with out-groups. As in-group members are socialized they receive selective exposure and modeling to reinforce group homogenity (similarity) and cohesiveness (belonging). Agents of socialization including family and peers reward behavior and attitudes that conform to group norms and punish those that do not (Farley, 2010). Children growing up in prejudicial environments are likely to express prejudice towards out-groups and internalize prejudicial beliefs and attitudes which lays the foundation for similar ideas and thinking in adulthood. Asch (1956) discovered people conform to gain acceptance and learn the rules or norms by watching and mimicking reference group members. Reference groups are also influential

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groups in someone’s life. A reference group provides a standard for judging one’s own attitudes or behaviors within a social setting or context (Henslin, 2011). People use reference groups as a method for self-evaluation and social location or status. People commonly use reference groups by watching and emulating the interactions and practices of others so, they fit in and garner acceptance by their associated in-group. Bonilla-Silva & Embrick (2007) learned that studying neighborhoods where people grow up around White- centered life socializes them to a life centered on Whites. The third perspective suggests a correlation between socioeconomic status and prejudice. Socioeconomic status (SES) is an individual’s social position or class (Conerly, Holmes, and Tamang, 2021). Marx & Engels (1967) suggested there is a social class division between the

capitalists who control the means of production and the workers. In 1985, Erik Wright interjected that people could occupy contradictory class positions throughout their lifetime. People who have occupied various class positions (e.g., bookkeeper to manager to chief operating officer) relate to the experiences of others in those positions, and as a result, may feel internal conflict in handling situations between positions or favoring one over another. Late in the twentieth century, Dennis Gilbert & Joseph Kahl (1992) updated the three-component theoretical perspective (class, status, and power) of Max Weber (1922, 1978) by developing a six-tier model portraying the United States class structure including underclass, working-poor, working, lower middle, upper middle, and capitalists. The social class model depicts the distribution of property, prestige, and power among society based on income and education. Each class lifestyle requires a certain level of wealth in order to acquire the material necessities and comforts of life (Henslin, 2011). The correlation between the standard of living and quality of life or life chances (i.e., opportunities and barriers) influences one’s ability to afford food, shelter, clothing, healthcare, other basic needs, and luxury items. A person’s standards of living including income, employment, class, and housing effects their cultural identity. Social class serves as a marker or indication of resources. These markers are noticeable in the behaviors, customs, and norms of each stratified group (Carl, 2013). People living in impoverished communities have different cultural norms and practices compared to those with middle incomes or families of wealth. For example, the urban poor often sleep on cardboard boxes on the ground or on sidewalks and feed themselves by begging, scavenging, and raiding garbage (Kottak & Kozaitis, 2012). Middle income and wealth families tend to sleep in housing structures and nourish themselves with food from supermarkets or restaurants. Language and fashion also vary among these classes because of educational attainment, employment, and income. People will use language like “White trash” or “welfare mom” to marginalize people in the lower class and use distinguished labels to identify the upper class such as “noble” and “elite.” Sometimes people often engage in conspicuous consumption or purchase and use certain products (e.g., buy a luxury car or jewelry) to make a social statement

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about their status (Henslin, 2011). Nonetheless, the experience of poor people is very different in comparison to others in the upper and middle classes and the lives of people within each social class may vary based on intersectionality or their position within other social categories including age, (dis)ability, gender, race, region, and religion. Socioeconomic status influences the social position and life experiences of people. The social structure plays an integral role in the social location (i.e., place or position) people occupy in society. Your social location is a result of cultural values and norms from the time period and place in which you live. Culture affects personal and social development, including the way people will think or behave, including ideas and feelings of prejudice. Social location influences how people perceive and understand the world in which we live. People have a difficult time being objective in all contexts because of their social location within cultural controls and standards derived from values and norms. Objective conditions exist without bias because they are measurable and quantifiable (Carl, 2013). Subjective concerns rely on judgments rather than external facts. Personal feelings and opinions from a person’s social location drive subjective perspectives and concerns about others and the world. Socioeconomic status and other characteristics pertaining to race, age, gender, and education also influence the location people occupy at any given time. Specifically, Farley (2010) found education reduces prejudice. Sniderman & Piazza (1993) concluded educated people were more comfortable with abstract ideas and engaged in complex thinking or thoughtful reflection. Other researchers showed prejudice is reinforced by teaching ideologies of dominant groups both formally in the classroom and informally through other agents of socialization such as family and peers (Jackman and Muha, 1984; Schaefer, 1996). Bonilla-Silva & Forman (2000) discovered educated people hide their prejudices to avoid being perceived as bad and project an image of being color-blind. Reaffirming research by Picca & Feagin (2007) showed educated Whites only express racist views in Whites-only settings. The reality of an insecure social position feeds prejudicial thinking and behavior. Working class prejudice arises from whites competing with people of color (Ransford, 1972). Competition creates a social environment of threats and enemies between racial-ethnic groups. The Klu Klux Klan (KKK) draws its most support from working-class and poor Whites (Farely, 2010). As the United States diversifies and the minority population increases, people of color further become a perceived threat to White’s socioeconomic opportunities and power (King & Weiner ,2007; Pederson, 1996; Quillian, 1996).

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RACISM & EXPLOITATION Race reflects a social stigma or marker of superiority (Kottak & Kozaitis, 2012). Racism is an attitude, ideology, behavior, or social arrangement (e.g., institution) that benefits and supports a particular race or ethnic group (i.e., dominant or powerful) over another (minority). Racism is projected by people in different forms such as racial prejudice, ideological racism, scientific racism, individual discrimination, and institutional discrimination. Racial prejudice is the fundamental attitude that favors one racial-ethnic group over another, lending it to cause unequal treatment on the basis of race (Farley, 2010). Prejudicial attitudes derive from people’s thinking and can be overt or subtle. Overt prejudice manifests into direct dislike or disdain of a particular racial-ethnic group or its members with the belief that they are inferior. Subtle prejudice occurs through the recognition that a particular racial-ethnic group causes their own problems or is the root of social problems. Ideological racism is the belief that some people are biologically, intellectually, and culturally inferior to others (Farley, 2010). This ideology views racial-ethnic groups as superior or inferior to one another. Racist ideology has been substantiated by early publications of scientific theory forming racist bias in research called scientific racism. Consider, social Darwinism which argued “survival of the fittest” creating the

APPLICATION 7.2 THE AFFECT OF IMPLICIT BIAS

Goal

To recognize stereotypical beliefs and implicit bias in thinking.

Instructions

1. Watch the TED-Ed video We All Have Implicit Biases presented by Dushaw Hockett (https://youtu.be/kKHSJHkPeLY).

2. Discover your lens and potential bias by taking the Harvard Implicit Test (https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html).

3. Watch Stereotype Threat: A Conversation with Claude Steele (https://youtu.be/failylROnrY) & Stereotype Threat Up Close: See It, Fix It (https://youtu.be/7Z63khyCOK4). As you watch the videos, think about how stereotype threat creates barriers, reduces confidence, and causes people to disengage.

4. As you view the three (3) videos and take the Harvard Implicit Bias test, please make 10 annotations (e.g., explanations or comments) to share with your peers. In your 10 annotations or replies:

• react (positively or negatively)

• share connections to your own learning experience

• expand on the strategies presented

Image by Kelly L, Pexels is licensed under CC BY 4.0

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socially accepted belief that people with wealth and power are the “most fit.” This ideology was adopted in colonial America to warrant the domination and support the colonization of the native peoples of Africa, the Americas, and Asia by White Europeans (Farley, 2010). The use of scientific theory to justify a racial superiority and inferiority rationalized for many the idea of a “natural law” advertently served dominant group interests. However, thorough scientific analysis does not substantiate or validate the biological, intellectual, cultural superiority of any racial-ethnic group (UNESCO, 2021: Montagu, 1964). True science has discredited the existence of racial superiority, defines race as a social construct and confirms that race is not sound on a biological basis. Therefore, ideological and scientific racism are accepted by those who want to rationalize their domination of other groups or legitimize their superiority. Discrimination is an action of unfair treatment against someone based on characteristics such as age, gender, race, religion, etc. When discrimination centers on race, it is racism. There are two types of racial discrimination: individual and institutional. Individual discrimination is “unfair treatment directed against someone” (Henslin, 2011, p. 218). Whereas institutional discrimination is negative systemic treatment of individuals by society through education, government, economy, health care, etc. According to Perry (2000), when people focus on racial-ethnic differences, they engage in the process of identity formation through structural and institutional norms. As a result, racial-ethnic identity conforms to normative perceptions people have of race and ethnicity reinforcing the structural order without challenging the socio- cultural arrangement of society. Maintaining racial-ethnic norms reinforces differences, creates tension, and disputes between racial-ethnic groups sustaining the status quo and reasserting the dominant groups position and hierarchy in society.

Upon the establishment of the United States, White legislators and leaders limited the roles of racial-ethnic minorities and made them subordinate to those of White Europeans (Konradi & Schmidt 2004). This structure systematically created governmental and social disadvantages for minority groups and people of color. It has taken over 200 years to ensure civil rights and equal

APPLICATION 7.3 LITTLE ACTS OF DISCRIMINATION

Goal

To identify and distinguish indirect, subtle, or unintentional acts of discrimination.

Instructions

1. Read the article from Psychology Today (2010) by Dr. wing Sue called Microaggressions in Everyday Life (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/microaggressions-in-everyday-life/201010/racial- microaggressions-in-everyday-life).

2. Listen to an NPR interview of Dr. Wing Sue explaining the concept Microaggressions: Be Careful What You Say (https://www.npr.org/2014/04/03/298736678/microaggressions-be-careful-what-you-say).

3. Watch Implicit Bias and Microaggressions: The Macro Impact of Small Acts presented by Dr. Wing Sue (https://youtu.be/Nrw6Bf5weTM).

4. Summarize the social and personal impact of microaggressions. 5. Share a personal experience related to implicit bias and microaggressions.

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treatment of all people in the United States; however, discriminatory practices continue because of policies, precedents, and practices historically embedded in U.S. institutions and individuals behaving from ideas of racial stereotypes. Think about the differences people have in employment qualifications, compensation, obtaining home loans, getting into college, toxic waste dumping. What racial and ethnic stereotypes persist about different racial and ethnic groups in these areas of life? Whites in the United States rarely experience racial discrimination making them unaware of the importance of race in their own and others’ thinking as compared to Americans of color or ethnic minorities (Konradi & Schmidt, 2004). Some Whites argue racial discrimination is outdated and feel uncomfortable with the blame, guilt, and accountability of individual acts and institutional discrimination. These ideas and feelings have prompted many White Americans to protest Critical Race Theory in schools. Critical Race Theory (CRT) is a socio-intellectual movement of civil rights scholars and activists who challenge approaches to racial justice in U.S. laws. A key concept of CRT is intersectionality and how forms of inequality and identity are affected by race, class, gender, and disability. CRT emphasizes critical thinking about race, views race as a social construct, uses storytelling to explore lived experiences, and argues the idea of race advances the interests of Whites at the expense of people of color. CRT challenges the idea that U.S. law is neutral and color-blind. The movement began in the 1960s, but in 2020 became the focus of U.S. conservative lawmakers to ban and restrict the instruction of CRT and anti-racism education in primary and secondary schools in response to White grievance, guilt, and shame. Those opposed to CRT have misrepresented its principles and significance. CRT has not been part of the U.S. primary and secondary school curriculum. Its study and writings have historically been examined in higher education. Banning or restricting the work of CRT silences discussions about the history of race, racism, equality, and social justice.

APPLICATION 7.4 RECOGNIZING WHITE PRIVILEGE

Goal

To appraise and detect racial privilege in our lived experience.

Instructions

1. Read the article White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack (1989) by Peggy McIntosh (https://psychology.umbc.edu/files/2016/10/White-Privilege_McIntosh-1989.pdf).

2. Watch I Grew Up in Poverty. Here’s Why I Recognize My White Privilege presented by Tom Reitz (https://youtu.be/xp8YYVxIeVQ).

3. Reflect on why it is important to share your story with others and listen to the story of others. 4. Why is it important to have conversations with people who are different from you? How might sharing

stories transform our lives, our stories, and the society we live in?

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By redirecting attention or ignoring race, White people believe they are practicing racial equality by being color blind, and it will eliminate racist atmospheres (Konradi & Schmidt, 2004). They do not realize the experience of not “seeing” race itself is racial privilege. Research shows the distribution of resources and opportunities are not equal among racial and ethnic categories, and White groups do better than other groups and Blacks are predominantly among the underclass (Konradi & Schmidt, 2004). Regardless of social perception, in reality, there are institutional and cultural differences in government, education, criminal justice, and media and racial-ethnic minorities received subordinate roles and treatment in society. SUMMARY In Module 7, we examined socio-cultural hierarchies and power in the United States. We learned the dominating cultural group sets the standard for living and governs resources. Next, we explored the causes and types of prejudice. You were asked to recognize and think about your implicit bias. We also discovered the origins and promotion of Eurocentric thinking and behavior as a mechanism to promote racial-ethnic group dominance of Whites. And lastly, we considered how racism is projected by people in different forms including racial prejudice, ideological racism, scientific racism, individual discrimination, and institutional discrimination.

REVIEW QUESTIONS 1. Discuss how culture influences social power and hierarchies in the United States. 2. Explain how cultural hegemony affects race and ethnic relations. 3. Analyze the causes and types of prejudice in society. Include your understanding or

interpretation about why prejudice exists. 4. Assess the possible motivations behind racist ideologies. 5. Examine how racist ideas make it possible to maintain racist policies. TO MY FUTURE SELF From the module, what information and new knowledge did I find interesting or useful? How do I plan to use this information and new knowledge in my personal and professional development and improvement?

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APPLICATION 7.5 VISUAL ETHNOGRAPHY PART 1

Goal

To compare and contrast our personal life to others around the world and make connections within diverse populations.

Background

Ethnographers study people and cultures by using qualitative methods. Ethnography or ethnographic research is the firsthand, field-based study of a particular culture by spending at least one year living with people and learning their customs and practices (Kottak and Kozaitis, 2012). In the field, ethnographers are participant observers and a participant of the group or society of study. Participant observers face challenges in remaining objective, non-bias, and ensuring their participation does not lead or influence others of the group in a specific direction (Kennedy, Norwood, and Jendian, 2017). This research approach expects ethnographers to eliminate the risk of contaminating data with interference or bias interpretations as much as humanly possible.

Some researchers choose to study their own culture. These practitioners refer to themselves as native anthropologists. Many native anthropologists have experience studying other cultures prior to researching their own (Kottak and Kozaitis, 2012). The practice of learning how to study other cultures gives practitioners the skills and knowledge they need to study their own culture more objectively. In addition, by studying other cultures then one’s own, native anthropologists are able to compare and analyze similarities and differences in cultural perceptions and practices.

Visual ethnography is a qualitative research method of photographic images with socio-cultural representations. The experience of producing and discussing visual images or texts develops ethnographic knowledge and provides sociological insight into how people live. For this exercise we will use a visual ethnographic research method to learn about ourselves and others.

Instructions

You will use pictures from your living spaces to connect with others from around the world. Consider teaming up to support visually impaired learners. In your home or place you live, take a photo of the following items:

1. The street you live on 2. Your home 3. Front door of your home 4. Your family 5. The living room 6. The ceiling 7. Your sofa or seating 8. Lamps or lighting 9. The stove 10. The kitchen sink 11. Your cutlery drawer

12. Pantry or where you store food 13. The toilet 14. The shower or bathing area 15. Your toothbrush 16. Your bedroom 17. Your wardrobe 18. Your shoes 19. Children’s toys (if applicable) 20. Children’s playground (if applicable) 21. Your pets 22. Your car or method of transportation

Source

Kennedy, V. (2018). Beyond race: Cultural influences on human social life. West Hills College Lemoore.

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REFERENCES Adorno, T. W., Frenkel-Brunswick, E., Levinson, D. J., & Sanford, R. N. (1950). The authoritarian

personality. Harper & Row. Allport, G. W. (1954). The nature of prejudice. Addison-Wesley. Altemeyer, B. (1998). The other authoritarian personality. Advances in Experimental Social

Psychology, 30, 47-92. Anderson, M. L. & Collins, P. H. (2010). Race, class, & gender: An anthology. (7th ed.).

Wadsworth. Asch, S. E. (1956). Studies of independence and conformity: a minority of one against a

unanimous majority. Psychological Monographs, 70(416), 1-12. Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological

Review, 84(2), 191–215.

APPLICATION 7.6 VISUAL ETHNOGRAPHY PART 2

Goal

To compare and contrast our personal life to others around the world and make connections within diverse populations.

Instructions

1. Watch the video See How the Rest of the World Lives, Organized by Income presented by Anna Rosling Ronnlund (https://www.ted.com/talks/anna_rosling_ronnlund_see_how_the_rest_of_the_world_lives_organized_b y_income?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare)

2. Next visit the website Dollar Street located at https://www.gapminder.org/dollar-street 3. Once you have accessed the Dollar Street website, take the Quick Tour for a tutorial on how to use the

site. If the Quick Tour does not appear when you click the site link, click the menu on the right-hand top corner and select Quick Guide, which will open the Quick Tour window.

4. After completing the Quick Tour, access your visual ethnography photos and compare your photographs with other people throughout the world.

5. For your analysis, explain the differences and similarities based on income and country. Specifically, describe what the poorest conditions are for each item as well as the richest conditions and what cultural similarities and/or differences exist in comparison to your items with your assigned learning team.

6. Share the similarities and/or differences between your photographs and those on the website with the class.

Source

Kennedy, V. (2018). Beyond race: Cultural influences on human social life. West Hills College Lemoore.

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Bandura, A. & Walters, R. H. (1963). Social learning and personality development. Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

Boas, F. (1887). Museums of ethnology and their classification. Science, 9, 589. Bonilla-Silva, E. & Embrick, D. G. (2007). Every place has a ghetto: The significance of Whites’

social and residential segregation. Symbolic Interaction, 30, 323-345. Bonilla-Silva, E. & Forman, T. A. (2000). “I’m not a racist, but: Mapping White college students’

racial ideology in the U.S.A.” Discourse and Society, 11, 51-86. Brown, R. (1965). Social Psychology. Free Press. Carl, J. D. (2013). Think social problems. (2nd ed.). Pearson Education, Inc. Conerly, T. R., Holmes, K., & Tamang, A. L. (2021). Introduction to sociology 3e. OpenStax. Duckitt, J. (2001). A dual process cognitive-motivational theory of ideology and prejudice.

Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 33, 41-113. Ehrlich, H. J. (1973). The social psychology of prejudice. Wiley Interscience. Fadiman, A. (1997). The spirit catches you and you fall down : a Hmong child, her American doctors,

and the collision of two cultures (1st ed.). Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. Farley, J. E. (2010). Majority-minority relations. (6th ed.). Prentice Hall. Feldman, S. (2003). Enforcing social conformity: A theory of authoritarianism. Political

Psychology, 24, 41-74. Ferber, A. L. (1999). What White supremacists taught a Jewish scholar about identity. The

Chronicle of Higher Education, B6-B7. Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford University Press. Fishbein, H. D. (1996). Peer prejudice and discrimination: Evolutionary, cultural, and

developmental dynamics. Westview Press. Gilbert, D. & Kahal, J. A. (1992). American class structure. (4th ed.). Wadsworth Company. Griffiths, H., Keirns, N., Strayer, E., Cody-Rydzewsk, S., Scaramuzzo, G., Sadler, T., Vyain, S., Byer,

J., and Jones, F. (2015). Introduction to sociology 2e. OpenStax College. Griswold, W. (2013). Cultures and societies in a changing world. (4th ed.). Sage Publications, Inc.

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Hamilton, D. L. (1981). Cognitive processes in stereotyping and intergroup behavior Hillsdale. Erlbaum.

Hamilton-Merritt, J. (1993). Tragic mountains: the Hmong, the Americans, and the secret wars for

Laos, 1942-1992. Indiana University Press. Henslin, J. M. (2011). Essentials of sociology: A down-to-earth approach. (11th ed.). Pearson. Jackman, M. R. & Muha, M. J. (1984). Education and intergroup attitudes: Moral enlightenment,

superficial democratic commitment, or ideological refinement? American Sociological Review, 49, 751-769.

Kasser, T., Koestner, R., & Natasha L. (2002). Early family experiences and adult values: A 26-

year prospective longitudinal study. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 826- 835.

Kennedy, V. (2018). Beyond race: Cultural influences on human social life. West Hills College

Lemoore. Kennedy, V., Norwood R., & Jendian, M. (2017). Critical thinking about social problems. Kendall

Hunt Publishing Company. King, R. D. & Weiner, M. F. (2007). Group position, collective threat, and american anti-

semitism. Social Problems, 54,47-77. Konradi, A. & Schmidt, M. (2004). Reading between the lines: Toward an understanding of

current social problems. (3rd ed.). McGraw-Hill. Kottak, C. P. & Kozaitis, K. A. (2012). On being different: Diversity and multiculturalism in the

north American mainstream. (4th ed.). McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Lau, J. & Chan, J. (2021). Critical Thinking Web. University of Hong Kong.

https://philosophy.hku.hk/think/fallacy/fallacy.php Marx, K. & Engels, F. (1967). Communist manifesto. Pantheon. Montagu, M. F. A. (1964). Man’s most dangerous myth: The fallacy of race. (4th ed.). World. Parenti, M. (2006). The culture struggle. Seven Stories Press. Pederson, W. (1996). Working class boys at the margin: ethnic prejudice, cultural capital, and

gender. Acta Sociologica, 39,257-79. Perry, B. (2000). Beyond Black and White. Sociology of Crime, Law and Deviance, 2, 301-323.

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Picca, L. H. & Feagin, J. R. (2000). Two-faced racism: Whites in the backstage and frontstage. Routledge.

Quillian, L. (1996). Group threat and regional change in attitudes toward African Americans.

American Journal of Sociology, 102, 816-860. Ransford, H. E. (1972). Blue-collar anger: Reactions to student and Black protest. American

Sociological Review, 37, 333-346. Schaefer, R. T. (1996). Education and prejudice: Unraveling the relationship. Sociological

Quarterly, 37, 1-16. 60 Minutes. (2015 August 13). Hmong Our Secret Army. [YouTube].

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4U2P7tsOAQ Sniderman, P. M. & Piazza, T. (1993). The scar of race. Belknap Press and Harvard University

Press. UNESCO. (2021). Anti-Racism: UNESCO’s Early Mental Engineering. The UNESCO Courier.

https://en.unesco.org/courier/lrsl-lrqmy/anti-racism-unescos-early-mental-engineering Weber, M. (1922, 1978). Economy and society. University of California Press. Wright, E. O. (1985). Class. Verso.

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MODULE 8. OUR WAY FORWARD

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

At the end of the module, students will be able to: 1. evaluate responses and strategies to coping with subordinate or minority status 2. explain racial and social justice practices and social movements 3. explain the importance of race and ethnicity in the creation of cultural expressions, social

developments, progress, and change 4. summarize the process for creating cultural awareness and building cultural intelligence 5. demonstrate methods and approaches for working with others in a culturally diverse

society 6. describe and apply anti-racist and anti-colonial practices

KEY TERMS & CONCEPTS

Acceptance Adaptive Responses Alternative Movements Anti-Racist & Anti-Colonial Tools Approaches to Reducing Prejudice Assertiveness Assimilation Avoidance Change Agents Change-Oriented Responses Conflict Prevention Strategies Conflict Reduction Techniques Conflict Resolution Conspiracy of Silence Contact Hypothesis Cooperativeness Cross-cultural Conflict Cultural Bias Cultural Intelligence Cultural Realities

Displaced Aggression Dynamics of Power Education Experiential Exercise Global Consciousness Individual & Group Therapy Interpersonal Conflict Persuasive Communication Race-Based Traumatic Stress Reform Movements Reframing Religious or Redemptive Movements Resistance Movements Resocializaton Revolutionary Movements Social Movement Socio-Cultural Lenses Toxic Stress Truthfulness Types of Ignorance

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INTRODUCTION The fight for equality and humanitarian treatment in the United States has been difficult and often absent for racial-ethnic groups throughout our history. Today, many Americans remain blind or apathetic in acknowledging and correcting the transgressions of our past. Fulfilling the promises created by the founders of this nation is attainable and may be realized if people act, hold each other accountable, and live by the words pledge and vowed in the Constitution by its citizenry.

RACIAL & SOCIAL JUSTICE

At the beginning of our story, we asked if someone had ever misrepresented or taken advantage of you. We asked these questions to invoke an emotional frame of reference for you to begin to empathize and develop understanding about the impact of the United States and its history on people of color. It is difficult to comprehend another person’s pain, particularly if we have never experienced it ourselves, so we began with generalizations to help you build a mental bridge about the feelings that are invoked when you have been wronged or treated unfairly by others. Racism and discrimination inflate race-based traumatic stress. Stress is a physiological and cognitive reaction to situations of perceived threats or challenges (Resler, 2019). Day-to-day stress is tolerable with coping skills and supportive relationships; however, exposure to adverse experiences over a long period of time can become harmful and toxic. Individuals experience toxic stress when they must maintain a level of hyper-vigilance to unpredictable or dangerous environments. Being a racial minority leads to greater stress because of the prevalence of systemic racism and racial discrimination (Resler, 2019). Racial minorities are in a constant state of red alert from having to anticipate racial events and interactions and being cognitively aware of how to respond appropriately for survival. Racial trauma can result in psychological affliction, behavioral exhaustion, and physiological distress (Comas-Diaz and Jacobsen, 2001). When we are confronted by pain or trauma inflicted by others, we either develop adaptive strategies or change-oriented strategies to cope. Depending on the social conditions, our responses to such social and psychological distress vary. Minority groups, as a whole, function the same way by adapting to or changing the status quo. There are four common adaptive responses to subordinate or minority status: acceptance, displaced aggression, avoidance, and assimilation (Farley, 2010). Each adaptive response consents to having unequal status and attempts to adjust or live within the social system. Acceptance involves the greatest degree of giving into a subordinate position. Some minorities

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accept inferior status because they are convinced the ideology of the dominant group is superior, others believe they cannot change their situation and become apathetic, and several pretend to accept their status by playing on dominant group prejudices such as acting dumb to fool the majority and navigate social contexts (Farley, 2010). Displaced aggression is another adaptive response to subordinate status. In social systems where people are powerless, frustration and hopelessness are directed towards each other rather than the dominant group. Because minorities are oppressed by the dominant group and the power structure does not permit a mechanism for them to retaliate or strike back, they displace their emotions and aggression onto each other (Farley, 2010). Examples are seen in communities of color where minority group members commit violent acts on one another. In a state of displaced aggression, it is common for minorities to scapegoat or blame each other for their lack of power and lower status. Fighting each other releases the pain of being powerless while also inflating the misnomer of having more power than their minority group counterparts. Another common method for adapting to subordinate status is avoidance. Some minority group members avoid contact with the dominant group to cope with the state of being powerless. By avoiding contact with the dominant group, minorities are able to forget or ignore their subordinate status (Farley, 2010). As a way of avoiding their inferior reality, other minority group members attempt to escape by using drugs and alcohol. Lastly, assimilation is a way minority group members adapt to subordinate status. Assimilation necessitates minority group members to become part of or accepted by the majority or dominant group. This response relies heavily on socially and culturally transforming one’s position or role in society (Farley, 2010). To become part of the majority group or be accepted by the group, minorities must pass or fit into the dominant white culture. In an effort to assimilate, minority group members practice code switching where they alternate between their native or indigenous self into an assimilated and acculturated self. BIOGRAPHICAL REFLECTION 8.1

THE BLUE MORNINGS

As a child, one of my earliest memories was of the “blue mornings.” That time before the sun rises when the night is almost gone. When I was about six-years-old, I used to wake up afraid because my three other siblings and I were in a strange place, waiting for my mom to come home from wherever she was. I worried about her never coming back. My childhood had many blue mornings of fear and sadness. My grandmother was from Mexico, and she embodied everything that a Mexican grandmother could be. She died around this time, and suddenly, my 26-year-old mother, who was addicted to heroin, and had four children that she was not used to taking care of, was now motherless, and we were motherless as well as my grandmother had become our mother. On the next blue morning I remember, my mother was arrested, and we had to go live in a foster home with relatives. I woke up to a year of blue mornings without her because she was in prison for a year. I worried about

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her and wondered whether she was safe. I was so excited to get mail from her which usually had beautiful drawings. When she was released from prison, it seemed like we were all going to be together, and we were for about a year. She and my stepfather were both on parole, and we had parole agents visiting our home. That “family chapter” would come to a screeching halt when my stepfather was shot and killed in front of our home later that summer. We moved immediately to stay with my grandfather for a few weeks. My mother found a boyfriend soon after and left us to move to Los Angeles with him. These blue mornings were packed with fear. We went back to a foster home to live with relatives until she got a place and could come and get us. She eventually did, about two years later, and we lived with her for a few months. We came home from school one day, while living in Los Angeles, to a packed-up home. My mother announced that we were leaving to go back to Fresno. We were on a Greyhound bus headed back to Fresno to live in a migrant camp for a few weeks, then back to the foster home. These blue mornings were ones of exhaustion. We stayed there for two years until we got to high school. Throughout the blue mornings of moving, grief, loss, trauma, fear, abandonment, and more loss, God was there. Even if we were the poorest people I knew, even if we moved every school year, even if my mother was lost and was not paying attention to God…he was paying attention to us, we were protected. The most profound blue morning was a blessing that came at age 21. I committed to a life of faith that included forgiveness and hope for a future. My blue mornings were times that I prayed and spent time with God in the process of building a different life. This helped me develop a life that was not defined by my upbringing, but instead, redefined. I realized the gift of being born in a country where I had resources and the ability to get educated as a woman of color. Refined in the understanding that I was given many tools to help me step up and out of this life. I also recognized that not everyone is given the same. Because of those blessings, I did well in school and ultimately became a parole agent myself. I recently retired from that career after 25 years and am now a professor of Criminal Justice at a local junior college. God did that. There were so many jobs I was not qualified for, so many instances when the answer should have been no, but it was yes. In the thousands of blue mornings that I spent with Him…He healed me…He helped me…He restored me…He defined me. He transformed the blue mornings from a time of sadness trauma to a time of gratitude and hope. Now, the blue mornings are a time that I walk and take in the new day with so much hope. They are the times that I pray and cry out in appreciation for what I get to wake up to every day. The blue mornings no longer represent fear, trauma, loss, and rejection, but represent my special time with God. The time that he reminds me, it’s always bluest before daybreak. It is the best time. This story “The Blue Mornings” by Guadalupe Capozzi is licensed under CC BY NC ND 4.0

Rather than adapt or accept subordinate status, some minority groups focus on change- oriented responses. Change-oriented responses focus on altering majority-minority relations and transforming the role of the minority group in the social structure and system (Farley, 2010). The goal is to increase the political, social, and economic power of the group while preserving its culture. Change-oriented responses are realized and implemented through social movements. A social movement is an organized effort to bring about social change. Social movements can develop on the local, national, or global level (Conerly, Holmes, & Tamang, 2021).

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David Aberle (1966) observed and categorized six types of social movements. The first are reform movements which concentrate on modifying a part of social structure or system. Black Lives Matter is a reform movement motivated to stop police brutality by pressuring elected officials and law enforcement agencies to change policing practices. The second are revolutionary movements that center on changing society. The Civil Rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s worked to gain equality rights under the law for Black Americans in the United States. Religious or redemptive movements converge to provoke spiritual growth or change in people. American Indian Residential Schools of the mid- 17th through early 21st centuries forced Native American children to give up their culture, language, and religion in an effort to assimilate them into Euro-American ideologies and beliefs. Alternative movements focus on self-improvement both in transforming personal beliefs and behaviors. Anti-Racist practices and support for Critical Race Theory are spreading throughout the United States specifically among White Americans. This alternative movement is grounded in the premise that race is socially constructed and used to oppress and exploit people of color in the United States. Finally, resistance movements strive for preventing change to existing social structures or systems. White supremacy groups involving the American Front, Klu Klux Klan, Proud Boys, and Christian Identity are participating in resistance movements throughout the United States. In California alone, there 72 active white nationalist hate groups supporting resistance (Southern Poverty Law Center, 2020). Awareness leads people to start a social movement for change or resistance. An effective social movement must have an organized course of action to achieve a goal, a method to create interest or promote the movement, a message to communicate the significance for change or resistance, and a large number of unified and committed people supporting the cause. Social

movements develop and evolve in five stages: (1) initial unrest and agitation, (2) mobilization, (3) organization, (4) institutionalization, and (5) organizational decline and possible resurgence (Henslin, 2011). The longevity of a social movement and its effectiveness strongly depend on the ability to maintain involvement of a large group of people over time. Other social and environmental factors influence the effectiveness of a social movement to create or resist change. The physical environment affects the development of organizations including social movements. People organize their activities and way of life relative to weather conditions. A second factor of success is the political organization or structure of a society (i.e., democratic,

authoritarian, etc.). Political authorities have the power to mobilize a community and political agencies can strongly affect the course of development and action in a society. Culture is another stimulating factor of efficacy. Social change requires transformation of social and

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cultural institutions religion, communication systems, and leadership. If society is not prepared for change, then it will resist so a social movement’s success depends on the cultural climate of the community. Lastly, the mass media serves as a gatekeeper for social change by either spreading information supporting or contradicting a movement’s message (Henslin, 2011). If social movements are unable to reach a large number of people, they cannot form an organized course of action. REDUCING PREJUDICE In Module 6, we examined three types of prejudice: cognitive (formulated by beliefs), affective (framed by disdain), and conative (expressed through discrimination). These and other forms of prejudice develop from a multitude of causes including personality, socialization, and historically fixed foundations in our social structure and institutions (Farley, 2010). Because the causes of prejudice are diverse and multi-dimensional, identifying a single solution to reduce societal bigotry is impossible. The best approaches to reducing prejudice vary by person and context. For some, education and contact with minorities may improve understanding and compassion. Others may need a change in their social setting or environment to escape conformity and the peer pressure of intolerance. Certain people might require therapy to address the underlining personality issues causing narrow-minded thinking and behavior (Smith, 2006). There are five major approaches to reducing prejudice. Each approach must be geared to a specific individual or situation. The effectiveness of each approach will depend on the techniques practiced and the type and causes of prejudice being addressed. Stiff and Mongeau (2003) found persuasive communication such as written, oral, audiovisual, and other forms of communication effectively influence people’s attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. If persuasive communication is directly aimed at reducing prejudice, then results reduce prejudicial thinking and behavior. Change occurs when the following conditions are present (Flowerman, 1947; Hovland et al., 1953; McGuire, 1968, Farley, 2010). First, the audience or receiver must be attentive, and the communication or message must be heard. This condition is challenging to overcome because many people have learned to avoid or ignore persuasive communications including advertising, political messages, and propaganda. Second, the audience or receiver must understand or comprehend the communication that prejudice is immoral and harmful. Third, the communication must be received in a positive way or through a positive experience to reinforce discontinuing prejudice as a good idea. Lastly, the audience or receiver must internalize and retain the message to eliminate prejudice. According to Triandis (1971), these conditions are met when those delivering the communication are credible and respected, the content and dissemination of the message are conveyed appropriately at the right time, place, and setting, and the characteristics of the audience are open to the idea of reducing prejudice because prejudice has no psychological or emotional function for them. Therefore, persuasive communication is most effective for people who are unprejudiced or least prejudiced.

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Education is an enlightening experience focused on human development. Learning either formally in school or informally enhances growth, development, and understanding by such activities as reading, viewing, and reflection. Education facilitates learning by teaching information including rights, duties, and moral obligations of humanity. Schooling and instruction about intergroup relations helps people breakdown stereotypes and reduces prejudice through simulation and experiential exercises (Lewin, 1948; Fineberg, 1949; Farley, 2010). For example,

role-playing activities help students view situations from another person’s perspective, building empathy and understanding about the injustices and inequalities some people confront or face. Intergroup learning occurs best with impartial teachers, the inclusion of minority role models, non-discriminatory practices, and curriculum free of stereotypical portrayals of minorities (Lessing and Clarke, 1976; Farley, 2010). Dovidio and Gaertner (1999) found educational programs are effective in reducing prejudice when they provide wide-ranging information about minority groups and their members. Some common techniques that address prejudice are teaching facts about race and ethnic relations, imparting tolerance, interactive activities that replicate experiences and evoke real world situations, and intergroup contact. The contact hypothesis suggests intergroup contact reduces prejudice by exposing people to minority group members. Intergroup contact allows people to discover the inaccuracies or errors in their thinking and understanding about others. Pettigrew (1998) found intergroup contact reduces prejudice by learning about the out-group and in-group, liking people in the out-group, and altering behavior. Integrated social settings help people see that their stereotypes or fears about out-groups are unfounded (Farley, 2010). Intergroup contact is most effective in reducing prejudice when people involved share similar status and power, and no one can exercise dominance or authority over another. Additionally, contact should be noncompetitive and nonthreatening while inspiring interdependence and cooperation. It is important for contact to go beyond the superficial and work towards effectively changing the attitude regardless of situation or setting (Hewstone, Rubin, and Willis, 2002). When participants engage in intergroup contact, they develop appreciation for each other by listening and learning from each other, engage oneself to speak freely and discuss tough issues or subjects with others, critically self-reflect about power and privilege differences group members experiences, and build alliances to reduce intergroup inequalities (Nagda, 2006). For some people, prejudice serves as a way to handle personal feelings of insecurity or low self- esteem (Farley, 2010). Individual and group therapy is the best approach to resolve personality

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problems leading to prejudice. Individual therapy centers on discovering unaddressed psychological issues of prejudice; however, group therapy is the most commonly used to reduce prejudice because it takes less time to create change in more people (Allport, 1954; Smith, 2006; Farley, 2010). Cognitive-behavioral therapy changes personality patterns to reduce prejudice. Rational-emotive therapy helps people develop social relationships by reducing anger and hostility. Researchers have found these forms of therapy include methods that work towards increasing self-acceptance decrease prejudice (Grossarth-Maticek, Eysenck, and Vetter, 1998; Ellis, 1992; Fishbein, 1996; Farley, 2010). As mentioned previously, experiential exercises including simulation activities are helpful in reducing prejudice. Experiential exercises, like the Privilege and Life Chances activity in Module 7, provide an opportunity for a learner to be exposed to a new condition or a wrong behavior (Armstrong, 1977). To reduce prejudice, these exercises are designed to simulate discrimination to inform people about the irrationality, psychological effects, and emotional consequences of prejudice and discrimination. This approach is often combined with others including education, intergroup contact, and therapy. Experiential exercises are most effective with thorough discussion, debriefing, and reflection (Fishbein, 1996). Facilitation of the structured exercise centers the learner’s experience and ways to bring about change. This approach is valuable for reducing affective prejudice such as liking or disliking, reducing implicit bias, and encouraging people to take change-oriented action to address intergroup conflict and inequality (Lopez, Gurin, and Nagda, 1998; Farley, 210). BIOGRAPHICAL REFLECTION 8.2

MY TURN, WHY ENDING RACIAL PREJUDICE IS NOT A HOPELESS CAUSE

I am an African-American man who has never really understood how a person is wired to have prejudicial feelings toward someone simply because of color. I wasn’t brought up that way, and I’ve never bought into the idea that history or tradition is an excuse to behave that way. Maybe it is because I was raised in a fairly sheltered environment growing up as an African-American child of the 60s; I somehow escaped having the “N” word tossed my way all the way through seventh grade. Maybe I owe it to my private Catholic school education, which kept me effectively cloistered from severe racial slurring incidents. Don’t get me wrong, I was well aware that I was Black, and I instinctively sensed that there were parts of my hometown that I needed to avoid, on account that I didn’t look like others from those parts. So, I did. And before seventh grade was over, I transferred to a new school where I was very harshly introduced to the ‘N’ word and was reminded of it many times thereafter. It seems we all cope with racial prejudice in our own way. Some of us deal with it politically, some spiritually, and others rather ignore it as something that hopefully “other people” will have to deal with, but certainly not “me.” Some people retaliate against racial slurs with violence as it seems the only way to show both the offender and onlookers that the offense is intolerable and will not be tolerated, period. But what if the bigot is bigger and stronger than the subject of the bigotry? Then “whipping his a--” may not be an option to solve the issue. And no, putting a bullet between the offender’s eyes is not the answer either! It just doesn’t seem logical to serve a life sentence behind bars when you were the offended person to begin with.

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Since my name is Daryl, not Dwayne Johnson, nor am I interested in shooting anyone, my way of dealing with this issue of race is to write about it, and hopefully you, will see that this racial prejudice business should be just as intolerable for anyone else as for me. Truthfully, I don’t know if racial prejudice will ever totally be resolved. But I do know that it can be much reduced if the following things occur with increasing frequency: 1. Racial slurs of any kind, against any race, or even within the same race should never occur, ever at any time.

The idea of Blacks using the “N” word ourselves was apparently meant to diffuse the power of said word, but it was an ineffective strategy. It served only to confirm for many that we have a less than lofty view of ourselves ironically - for using the same word meant to offend us. As a former U.S. Air Force officer, I remember an occasion when I was stationed at a new base. Shortly after my arrival, one of my young black subordinates said to me “Hey, N______, it’s about time you showed up.” That did not occur again of course but looking back I can only roll my eyes in bewilderment and wonder. If Caucasians called each other “Honkeys,” it would seem no less absurd to me.

2. We need to minimize telling racial jokes either openly or behind the backs of the race being joked about. This

is a big one, and not an easy one for some people to let go of. But when everyone agrees that racial “jokes” are neither funny nor in good taste, we’ll take a big step toward racial harmony. When minorities are defended when no minority is present in the room, then a big step will have been taken toward cultural sensitivity. But as long as the practice of ethnic “jokes” continues, there will always be a secret discontent between races, each one secretly wondering if the other can really be trusted to have mutual respect behind closed doors.

3. Schools need to continue taking active steps to promote diversity instruction that teaches accurate history

about human trafficking and slavery that occurred over the years, and how that behavior led to where we stand now. There isn’t a single race, not one, that has not made grievous errors historically when it comes to treatment of even its own.

4. Finally, we need honest, open discussions where young people feel safe sharing their thoughts regarding

aspects of other cultures that they don’t understand, including differing facial features, skin color, language, personal expression, dress and music. But it can’t simply end there. The resultant bridging should be an understanding that different races celebrate and appreciate each other’s differences, not simply their own.

To close, this is not intended to be “Solving Racial Prejudice for Dummies,” nor “The End of Racial Prejudice 101”. And Heaven knows the four areas noted above will not be easy for some of us to do. And I know that some individuals will stubbornly put their foot down and refuse to budge because staying separate from people different from them is more comfortable for them, and it seems to make more sense to them. But in the long run, is it really better, or does it just seem to be? Racial prejudice won’t end by attrition alone - maintaining a laissez-faire approach to this social problem, in essence waiting until all bigoted people somehow change or die, one by one. If that’s the case, I need to be cryogenically put to sleep for several hundred years. When I wake up, no doubt some of them will still be here waiting for me. At the end of the day, it’s safe to say that many people of all races are simply weary of racial separatism, and long for a nation where there is a widespread commonality in being just fine with the fact that we are all different. I hope this affirms for many that there is truly hope that one day we will all - or at least most of us, bond together in unity. Our country is worth it. This story “My Turn” by Daryl Johnson is licensed under CC BY NC ND 4.0

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BUILDING COMMUNITY Racial equity requires change agents or people who are willing to initiate and manage struggles over injustice, inclusion, and unequal relations of power. Building an equitable society involves altering our social arrangements and behaviors (Bruhn and Rebach, 2007). Transforming society away from prejudice and discrimination means constructing a new social structure where all people have equal rights, liberties, and status. Meaningful social change starts with each of us. Ending racial prejudice and inequality is everyone’s responsibility. Ivey-Colson and Turner (2020) and the UOTeaching Community (2020) offer some anti-racist and anti-colonial tools from the works of Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, Dr. Robin DiAngelo, Dr. Leilani Sabzalian, Dr. Gloria Jean Watkins (Bell Hooks), and other academic experts. These tools require daily practice to counter racial prejudice and discrimination, systemic racism, and oppression of minority racial and ethnic groups. The following tools serve as a model to 1) inform people about lesser-known facts, 2) confront and address past shame, anger, and blame, and 3) develop empathy (Ivey-Colson and Turner, 2020).

Table 4. Anti-Racist & Anti-Colonial Practices

Education Enact cultural and linguistic dexterity by harvesting knowledge and facts about racial-

ethnic minorities

Mindful awareness Be present in the daily practice of being anti-racist, anti-colonial, and anti-oppressive

Courage Show compassion and vulnerability even when it’s uncomfortable

Individuality Acknowledge the quality and character of an individual rather than perpetuate myths and stereotypes

Humankind Recognize and value the diverse range of human experiences that exists in each of our lives and act as all humans are worthy of compassion or benevolence

Anti-colonial literacy Cultivate egalitarian partnerships and sharing with tribal nations to enhance indigenous education and survivance

Anti-racist work Act and express anti-racists ideas

Equality Engage in treating all humans as equals and promote equity

Empathy Share, think, and care about others

Allyship Take risks and share your privilege to support marginalized groups and people of color

Love Spread love and healing over fear and oppression - Mix care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, and trust as well as honest and open communication

Source: Adapted from Ivey-Colson, K. & Turner, L. (2020). 10 keys to everyday anti-racism. Greater Good Magazine. https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/ten_keys_to_everyday_anti_racism and UOTeaching Community. (2020). Anticolonial pedagogy. University of Oregon. https://blogs.uoregon.edu/uoteachingcommunity/about/anti-oppressive-pedagogy-study- circle/anticolonialism-pedagogy/

Cultural Intelligence In a racial-ethnic diverse society, it is becoming increasingly important to be able to interact effectively with others. Our ability to communicate and interact with each other plays an integral role in the successful development of our relationships for personal and social prosperity. Building cultural intelligence requires active awareness of self, others, and context

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(Bucher, 2008). Self-awareness requires an understanding of our personal identity including intrinsic or extrinsic bias we have about others and social categories of people. Cultural background greatly influences perception and understanding, and how we identify ourselves reflects on how we communicate and get along with others. It is easier to adjust and change our interactions if we are able to recognize our own uniqueness, broaden our percepts, and respect others (Bucher, 2008). We must be aware of our identity including any multiple or changing identities we take on in different contexts as well as those we keep hidden or hide to avoid marginalization or recognition.

Active awareness of others requires us to use new socio-cultural lenses. We must learn to recognize and appreciate commonalities in our lives and cultures not just differences. This practice develops understanding of each other’s divergent needs, values, behaviors, interactions, and approach to teamwork (Bucher, 2008). Understanding others involves evaluating assumptions and truths. Our personal socio-cultural lens filters our perceptions of others and conditions us to view the world and others in one way blinding us from what we have to offer or how we complement each other (Bucher, 2008). Active awareness of others broadens one’s perspective to see the world and others through a different lens and understand diverse viewpoints that ultimately helps us interact and work together effectively. Today’s workplace requires us to have a global consciousness that encompasses awareness, understanding, and skills to work with people of diverse backgrounds and cultures (Bucher, 2008). Working with diverse racial-ethnic groups involves us learning about others to manage complex and uncertain social situations and contexts. What may be socially or culturally appropriate in one setting may not apply in another. This means we must develop an understanding of not only differences and similarities, but those of social and cultural significance as well to identify which interactions fit certain situations or settings.

As we come into contact with racial-ethnic diverse people, one of our greatest challenges will be managing cross-cultural conflict. When people have opposing values, beliefs, norms, or practices, they tend to create a mindset of division or the “us vs. them” perspective. This act of loyalty to one side or another displays tribalism and creates an ethnocentric and scapegoating environment where people judge and blame each other for any issues or problems. Everyone attaches some importance to what one values and believes. As a result, people from different cultures might attach greater or

lesser importance to family and work. If people are arguing over the roles and commitment of women and men in the family and workplace, their personal values and beliefs are likely to

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influence their willingness to compromise or listen to one another. Learning to manage conflict among people from different cultural backgrounds increases our ability to build trust, respect all parties, deal with people’s behaviors, and assess success (Bucher, 2008). How we deal with conflict influences productive or destructive results for others and ourselves. Self-assessment is key to managing cross-cultural conflicts. Having everyone involved in the conflict assess “self” first and recognize their cultural realities of personal history and experience will help individuals see where they may clash or conflict with others. If someone comes from the perspective of white men should lead, their interactions with others will display women and people of color in low regard or subordinate positions to white men. Recognizing our cultural reality will help us identify how we might be stereotyping and treating others and give us cause to adapt and avoid conflict with those with differing realities. BIOGRAPHICAL REFLECTION 8.3

RELIGIOUS & CULTURAL CONFLICTS

The cultural pressure from relatives in Fresno made my father return to his shaman practice. He never really fit in the church to begin with. While in Nashville, he attended church services with us children to “make the church like us.” The church donated clothing, sofas, kitchen items, and sometimes food to our family. He probably felt the need to reciprocate by attending church service. In retrospect, I remember him always being very respectful of all the church services. He sat in church quietly, but he would tell us children afterwards not to take church seriously. Our family’s church attendance subsequently led to my conversion to Christianity at the tender age of 13, fascinated by concepts of the soul and immortality over sexual curiosity. With the Bible as my guiding principles, I devoted my teen years to serving God and intended on becoming a minister. This mission was short lived when I entered my second year in college at UC Berkeley. As I watched my father lay dying in his hospital bed, I discovered the limitations and hypocrisy of the church. I saw the cultural divide of Hmong clan structure and church practice. Relatives came to visit my father with reverence, telling him what he had meant to them. The church just wanted to know if my father would repent before he died. The cross-cultural misunderstandings, religious conflicts, and differences of being Hmong and American were beyond fixing. Nevertheless, shortly before my father died, he and I were able to reconcile on the purpose of religion in human life. He was a highly consulted shaman; I was a “prodigal son” so to speak, having returned from a “Jesus freak” journey. There were six of us sons, but I knew he wanted all of us to master a Hmong cultural practice rather than ministering for the Christians. He also noticed I had left the church in disappointment, confusion, and sharp spiritual pain. When a spiritual core is absent – whether it’s taken away or one chose to do away with it (as in my case) – life can seem gloomy, meaningless, void, and even suicidal. For me, an identity crisis ensued from this divergence from Christianity – a mental breakdown that sent me into a spiritual whirlwind of what seemed incurable by man or God. I found a little solace reading “Why I Am Not A Christian,” and “A Freeman’s Worship” by Bertrand Russell. My grades suffered, but I may have begun to find myself. The Hmong community in the Central Valley has had its share of issues in relations with American mainstream. Some of these challenges included educational gaps, income, racism, domestic violence, social justice, and religious and cross-cultural conflicts. While these issues had been worked on and some progress had been made, they remain critical points to our community as we continue to define our culture, identity, and relations with others racial groups. This story “Religious & Cultural Conflicts” by Silas Cha is licensed under CC BY NC ND 4.0

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Some form of cultural bias is evident in everyone (Bucher, 2008). Whether you have preferences based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, (dis)ability, region, social class or all social categories, they affect your thoughts and interactions with others. Many people believe women are nurturers and responsible for child rearing, so some do not support men receiving custody of the children when there is a divorce in the family. Bias serves as the foundation for stereotyping and prejudice (Bucher, 2008). Many of the ideas we have about others are ingrained, and we have to unlearn what we know to reduce or manage bias. Removing bias perspectives requires resocialization through an ongoing conscious effort in recognizing our bias then making a diligent effort to learn about others to dispel fiction from fact. Dealing with bias commands personal growth and the biggest obstacles are our fears and complacency to change.

Additionally, power structures and stratification emerge in cross-cultural conflicts. The dynamics of power impact each of us (Bucher, 2008). Our assumptions and interactions with each other are a result of our position and power in a particular context or setting. The social roles and categories we each fall into effect how and when we respond to each other. A Hispanic, female, college professor has the position and authority to speak and control conflict of students in her classroom but may have to show deference and humility when conflict arises at a faculty meeting she attends. The professor’s position in society is contextual and, in some situations, she has the privileges of power, but in others, she may be marginalized or disregarded. Power affects how others view, relate, and interact with us (Bucher, 2008). Power comes with the ability to change, and when you have power, you are able to invoke change. For example, the White racial majority in the United States holds more economic, political, and social power than other groups in the nation. The dominant group’s power in the United States allows the group to define social and cultural norms as well as condemn or contest opposing views and perspectives. This group has consistently argued the reality of “reverse racism” even though racism is the practice of the dominant race benefitting off the oppression of others. Because the dominant group has felt prejudice and discrimination by others, they want to control the narrative and use their power to create a reality that further benefits their race by calling thoughts and actions against the group as “reverse racism.” However, when you are powerless, you may not have or be given the opportunity to participate or have a voice. Think about when you are communicating with someone who has more power than you. What do your tone, word choice, and body language project? Now imagine you are the person in a position of power. What privilege does your position give you because of your race, ethnicity, age, gender, or other social category? Power implies authority, respect, significance, and value. Those of us who do not have a social position of power in a time of conflict may feel and receive treatment that reinforces our lack of authority, disrespect, insignificance, and devaluation. Therefore, power reinforces social exclusion of some inflating

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CC BY 4.0

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cross-cultural conflict (Ryle, 2008). We must assess our social and cultural power as well as those of others we interact with to develop an inclusive environment that builds on respect and understanding to deal with conflicts more effectively. Communication is essential when confronted with cross-cultural conflict (Bucher, 2008). Conflicts escalate from our inability to express our cultural realities or interact appropriately in diverse racial-ethnic settings. In order to relate to each other with empathy and understanding, we must learn to employ use of positive words, phrases, and body language. Rather than engaging in negative words to take sides (e.g., “Tell your side of the problem” or “How did that effect you?”), use positive words that describe an experience or feeling. Use open-ended questions that focus on the situation or concern (e.g., “Could you explain to be sure everyone understands?” or “Explain how this is important and what needs to be different”) in your communications with others (Ryle, 2008). In addition, our body language expresses our emotions and feelings to others. People are able to recognize sadness, fear, and disgust through the expressions and movements we make. It is important to project expressions, postures, and positions that are open and inviting even when we feel different or uncomfortable around others. Remember, words and body language have meaning and set the tone or atmosphere in our interactions with others. The words and physical expressions we choose either inflate or deescalate cross-cultural conflicts.

The act of reframing or rephrasing communications is also helpful in managing conflicts between diverse people. Reframing requires active listening skills and patience to translate negative and value-laden statements into neutral statements that focus on the actual issue or concern. This form of transformative mediation integrates neutral language that focuses on

APPLICATION 8.1 CULTURAL INTELLIGENCE RESOURCES

Goal

To recognize methods and approaches for interacting and building relations with diverse populations.

Instructions

1. What role does power play in our ability to collaborate with others and develop understanding? 2. How might power structures be created when one group tries to provide aid to another? 3. Research the Cultural Intelligence Center (https://culturalq.com/) and online videos such as Cultural

Intelligence: A New Way of Thinking by Jeff Thomas (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3S76gAKp6Q&feature=youtu.be). Describe what information, tools, and practices are available to improve knowledge and communication skills with others.

4. Provide examples on how to apply the cultural intelligence in the following conditions or situations: (a) minimize culture shock, (b) recognize ethnocentric attitudes and behaviors, (c) practice cultural relativism, (d) develop multiple consciousness, and (e) step outside your comfort zone.

Source

Adapted from Kennedy, V. (2018). Beyond race: Cultural influences on human social life. West Hills College Lemoore.

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changing the message delivery, syntax or working, meaning, and context or situation to resolve destructive conflict. For example, reframe “That’s a stupid idea” to “I hear you would like to consider all possible options.” Conversely, reframe a direct verbal attack, “She lied! Why do you want to be friends with her?” to “I’m hearing that confidentiality and trust are important to you.” There are four steps to reframing: 1) actively listen to the statement; 2) identify the feelings, message, and interests in communications; 3) remove toxic language; and 4) re-state the issue or concern (Ryle, 2008). These tips for resolving conflict help us hear and identify the underlying interests and cultural realities. Conflict Resolution Strategies & Practices Interpersonal conflict involves situations when a person or group blocks expectations, ideas, or goals of another person or group. Conflict develops when people or groups desire different outcomes, opinions, offend one another, or simply do not get along (Black, et al., 2019). People tend to assume conflict is bad and must be eradicated. However, a moderate amount of conflict can be helpful in some cases. For example, conflict can lead people to discover new ideas and new ways of identifying solutions to problems or conditions and is often the very mechanism to inspire innovation and change. It can also facilitate motivation among groups, communities, and organizations to excel and push themselves in order to meet outcomes and objectives (Black et al., 2019). According to Coser (1956), conflict is likely to have stabilizing and unifying functions for a relationship in its pursuit for resolution. People and social systems readjust their structures to eliminate dissatisfaction to re-establish unity. The appropriate conflict resolution approach depends on the situation and the goals of the people involved. According to Thomas (1977), each faction or party involved in the conflict must decide the extent to which it is interested in satisfying its own concerns categorized as assertiveness and satisfying their opponent’s concerns known as cooperativeness (Black et al., 2019). Assertiveness can range on a continuum from assertive to unassertive, and cooperativeness can range on a continuum from uncooperative to cooperative. Once the people involved in the conflict have determined their level of assertiveness and cooperativeness, a resolution strategy emerges. In the conflict resolution process, competing individuals or groups determine the extent to which a satisfactory resolution or outcome might be achieved. If someone does not feel satisfied or feels only partially satisfied with a resolution, discontent can lead to future conflict. An unresolved conflict can easily set the stage for a second confrontational episode (Black et al., 2019). Anti-racist allies can use several techniques to help prevent or reduce conflict. Actions directed at conflict prevention are often easier to implement than those directed at reducing conflict (Black et al., 2019). Common conflict prevention strategies include emphasizing collaborative goals, constructing structured tasks, facilitating

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intergroup communications, and avoiding win-lose situations. Focusing on collaborative goals and objectives prevents goal conflict (Black et al., 2019). Emphasis on primary goals help clients and community members see the big picture and work together. This approach separates people from the problem by maintaining focus on shared interests (Fisher and Ury, 1981). The overarching goal is to work together to address the structure of the overarching social concern or issue.

Table 5. Five Modes of Resolving Conflict

Conflict-Handling Modes Appropriate Situations

Competing (Assertive-Uncooperative)

1. When quick, decisive action is vital—e.g., emergencies 2. On important issues where unpopular actions need implementing—

e.g., cost cutting, enforcing unpopular rules, discipline 3. On issues vital to company welfare when you know you’re right 4. Against people who take advantage of noncompetitive behavior

Collaborating (Assertive-Cooperative)

1. When trying to find an integrative solution when both sets of concerns are too important to be compromised

2. When your objective is to learn 3. When merging insights from people with different perspectives 4. When gaining commitment by incorporating concerns into a consensus 5. When working through feelings that interfered with a relationship

Compromising

1. When goals are important but not worth the effort or potential disruption of more assertive modes

2. When opponents with equal power are committed to mutual goals 3. When attempting to achieve temporary settlements to complex issues 4. When arriving at expedient solutions under time pressure 5. As a backup when collaboration or competition is unsuccessful

Avoiding (Unassertive- Uncooperative)

1. When an issue is trivial or when more important issues are pressing 2. When you perceive no chance of satisfying your concerns 3. When potential disruption outweighs the benefits of resolution 4. When letting people cool down and regain perspective 5. When gathering information supersedes immediate decision 6. When others can resolve the conflict more effectively 7. When issues seem tangential or symptomatic of other issues

Accommodating (Unassertive-Cooperative)

1. When you find you are wrong—to allow a better position to be heard, to learn, and to show your reasonableness

2. When issues are more important to others than yourself—to satisfy others and maintain cooperation

3. When building social credits for later issues 4. When minimizing loss when you are outmatched and losing 5. When harmony and stability are especially important 6. When allowing subordinates to develop by learning from mistakes

Source: Adapted from Thomas, Kenneth W. 1977. “Toward Multidimensional Values in Teaching: The Example of Conflict Behaviors.” Academy of Management Review 2:487.

Attribution: Copyright Rice University, OpenStax, under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license

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When collaborative partners clearly define, understand, and accept tasks and activities aimed at shared goals, conflict is less likely to occur (Black et al., 2019). Conflict is most likely to occur when there is uncertainty and ambiguity in the roles and tasks of groups and community members. Dialogue and information sharing among collaborative partners is imperative and eliminates conflict. Understanding others’ thinking is helpful in collaborative problem solving. Through dialogue, people are better able to develop empathy, avoid speculation or misinterpreting intentions, and escape blaming others for situations and problems which leads to defensive behavior and counter attacks (Fisher and Ury, 1981). Sharing information about the state, progress, and setbacks helps eliminate conflict or suspicions about problems or issues when they arise. As groups and community partners become familiar with each other, trust and teamwork develop. Giving people time to interact and get to know each other helps foster and build effective working relationships (Fisher and Ury, 1981). It is important for collaborative members to think of themselves as partners in a side-by-side effort to be effective in their anti-racist work and accomplish shared goals. Avoiding win-lose situations among collaborative partners also weakens the potential for conflict (Black et al., 2019). Rewards and solutions must focus on shared benefits resulting in win-win scenarios.

Conflict can have a negative impact on teams or collaborative work groups and individuals in achieving their goals and solving social issues. People cannot always avoid or protect themselves or others from conflict when working collaboratively. However, there are actions everyone can take to reduce or solve dysfunctional conflict. When conflict arises, you may employ two general approaches by either targeting changes in attitudes and/or behaviors. Changes in attitudes result in fundamental changes in how groups get along, whereas changes in behavior reduce open conflict but not internal perceptions maintaining separation between groups (Black et at., 2019). There are several ways to help

APPLICATION 8.2 CONFLICT REDUCTION IN ACTION

Goal

To choose, connect, and reframe our approaches to conflict.

Instructions 1. Watch Finding Confidence with Conflict presented by Kwame Christian (https://youtu.be/F6Zg65eK9XU). 2. Identify a time or event in your life when you experienced racial-ethnic conflict. 3. Share how you responded. Did you fight, flee, or freeze? Explain how your lived experience influenced

your response. 4. Do you find it difficult to stand up for yourself or others in difficult conversations? Do you agree with

others when you personal disagree? Do you avoid conflicts all together? 5. For personal and professional success, you must be willing to engage in conflict. How can you build new

habits to feel confident with conflict and manage confrontations in a productive way?

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reduce conflict between groups and individuals that either address attitudinal and/or behavioral changes. The nine conflict reduction techniques in Table 6 operate on a continuum, ranging from approaches that concentrate on changing behaviors at the top of the scale to tactics that focus on changing attitudes on the bottom of the scale.

Table 6. Conflict Reduction Techniques

Technique Description Target of Change

Physical separation Separate conflicting groups when collaboration or interaction is not needed for completing tasks and activities

Behavior

Use rules Introduce specific rules, regulations, and procedures that impose particular processes, approaches, and methods for working together

Behavior

Limit intergroup interactions Limit interactions to issues involving common goals

Behavior

Use diplomats Identify individuals who will be responsible for maintaining boundaries between groups or individuals through diplomacy

Behavior

Confrontation and negotiation Bring conflicting parties together to discuss areas of disagreement and identify win-win solutions for all

Attitude and behavior

Third-party consultation Bring in outside practitioners or consultants to speak more directly to the issues from a neutral or outsider vantage point to help facilitate a resolution

Attitude and behavior

Rotation of members Rotate individuals from one group to another to help understand frame of reference, values, and attitudes of others

Attitude and behavior

Identify interdependent tasks and common goals

Establish goals that require groups and individuals to work together

Attitude and behavior

Use of intergroup training Long-term, ongoing training aimed at helping groups develop methods for working together

Attitude and behavior

Source: Adapted from Black, J. Stewart, David S. Bright, Donald G. Gardner, Eva Hartmann, Jason Lambert, Laura M. Leduc, Joy Leopold, James S. O’Rourke, Jon L. Pierce, Richard M. Steers, Siri Terjesen, and Joseph Weiss. 2019. Organizational Behavior. Houston, TX: OpenStax College.

Attribution: Copyright Rice University, OpenStax, under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license

Truth Telling & Social Discourse An unequal part of systems of power is the way discourse operates. Social justice advocates and allies become attuned to bias and exclusion for the stand they take towards speaking the truth about White authority and privilege (Burbules, 2018). In the face of truth, the dominant group

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creates a context that shields any claims of scrutiny upon Whites and reinforces the unquestionable naturalness or normality of their status and power. Truthfulness involves accuracy aiming at the facts and sincerity to speak about reality with honest motives in the truth we speak (Williams, 2002). There are many aspects to contemplate in truth telling including awareness of context, history, personal experiences, equity, and justice in the United States. The implication and responsibility for Whites in a racist society centers on the framework of truthfulness; however, various degrees of ignorance about racial-ethnic minorities is problematic making the idea of “truth” relative in the eyes of Whites. Burbules (2018) identified five types of ignorance that influence the racial-ethnic empathy of Whites.

Table 7. Types of Ignorance

Type Characteristics

Forgivable Could not expect to know

Lethargic A lack of effort to find out

Apathetic Should have made the effort to find out

Willful Refuse to acknowledge

Suppressed or unconscious Unable or unwilling to fully acknowledge though aware

Source: Adapted from Burbules, N. C. (2018). The role of truth in social justice education . . . and elsewhere. Philosophy of Education Society.

The conspiracy of silence has long been the tactic used by the White race to outwardly ignore the mistreatment and injustices bestowed on people of color in the United States (Zerubavel, 2006). Silence is practiced by never publicly discussing or mentioning open secrets such as the sexual assaults and exploitations of slaves by masters in the antebellum South. White conspirators become silent witnesses by keeping the uncomfortable truth hidden in plain sight and perpetuating a sociology of denial including the murder, torture, rape, theft, and other inhumane and unlawful treat to people of color by Whites in the United States (Krugman, 2002). According to Zerubavel (2006), denial arises from a need to avoid discomfort and pain. To avoid psychological distress, people may choose to block disturbing information from consciousness. The psychological feelings of fear and embarrassment also reinforce denial. It is challenging for some people to talk about issues or conditions that frighten or shame them. The conspiracy of silence has allowed Whites to actively avoid and deliberately refrain from noticing and refusing to acknowledge their presence in the oppression of indigenous and people of color in the United States (Zerubavel, 2006).

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Both normative pressure and political constraint maintain conspiracies of silence among the dominant group. The power and status of Whites imparts their control on the scope of attention on racial-ethnic group relations through formal censorship to informal distraction tactics using formal agenda-setting procedures and informal codes of silence (Zerubavel, 2006). As the demographic changes in the United States, it threatens the power, privilege, and status of the White race, pain, fear, and embarrassment grow among the dominant group. The White race is now faced with shifts in society and culture, and the need to reconcile White thought, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors with racial-ethnic minority groups is overdue.

SUMMARY

In Module 8, we examined the impact of racism and discrimination on race-based trauma and stress. We learned about the diverse coping mechanisms people of color develop including the adaptive and change-oriented strategies they utilize. You were asked to explore the Native American experience in the United States, and to think about anti-racist and anti-colonial practices to improve your relationships with diverse groups and people. We also explored the five major approaches to reducing prejudice. And lastly, we reviewed the strategies and methods for building community and making connections with diverse populations.

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. Discuss the strategies people of color use to cope with their subordinate or minority status. 2. Describe anti-racist, anti-colonial practices, ways to reduce prejudice in our society. 3. Illustrate ways to resolve and reduce cross-cultural conflict. 4. Reflecting on the history and experiences of major underrepresented racial groups

including African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinx Americans, and Native Americans, explain the significance of race and ethnicity on the development and progress of the United States.

TO MY FUTURE SELF From the module, what information and new knowledge did I find interesting or useful? How do I plan to use this information and new knowledge in my personal and professional development and improvement?

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APPLICATION 8.3 FOSTERING CONNECTIONS

Goal

To share our social and cultural experiences with others in our community to make connections within diverse populations.

Instructions

1. For this activity, interview another student in class. Record the student’s responses to the following:

CULTURAL EXPRESSIONS

• What are typical foods served in the culture?

• Are there any typical styles of dress?

• What do people do for recreation?

• How is space used (e.g., How close should two people who are social acquaintances stand next to one another when they are having a conversation?)

• How is public space used? For example, do people tend to “hang out” on the street, or are they in public because they are going from one place to the next?

STANDARD BEHAVIORS

• How do people greet one another?

• Describe how a significant holiday is celebrated.

• How would a visitor be welcomed into a family member’s home?

• What are the norms around weddings? Births? Deaths? SPECIFIC BELIEFS

• How important is hierarchy or social status?

• How are gender roles perceived?

• How do people view obligations toward one another?

• What personal activities are seen as public? What activities are seen as private?

• What are the cultural attitudes toward aging and the elderly? ENTRENCHED IDEOLOGIES

• How important is the individual in the culture? How important is the group?

• How is time understood and measured? (e.g., How late can you be to class, work, family event, or appointment before you are considered rude?)

• Is change considered positive or negative?

• What are the criteria for individual success?

• What is the relationship between humans and nature? (e.g., Do humans dominate nature? does nature dominate humans? Do the two live in harmony?)

• What is considered humorous or funny?

• How do individuals “know” things? (e.g., Are people encouraged to question things? Are they encouraged to master accepted wisdom?)

• Are people encouraged to be more action-oriented (i.e., doers) or to be contemplative (i.e., thinkers)?

• What is the role of luck in people’s lives?

• How is divine power or spirituality viewed?

2. With your partner or pair for this activity, develop a presentation to share your responses and insights about each other with the class.

Source

Adapted from Kennedy, V. (2018). Beyond race: Cultural influences on human social life. West Hills College Lemoore.

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