What is the Difference Between Race and Ethnicity?

Racism and bigotry? Race describes a population of people who share the same physical characteristics, such as skin color, hair color and texture, eye color and shape, etc. Ethnicity characterizes a population geographically by region or descent. It describes a person’s nationality, beliefs, culture and religion. Race and ethnicity are often thought of as the same thing, but are actually quite different. Race describes physical characteristics, while ethnicity describes cultural characteristics. Race was the key point in the majority of the arguments in this era.

Danieals says “Race relations in the progressive era were punctuated by numerous race riots…”.

While it seems that the human race continues to become more of a mixture of races and ethnicities, I believe that we will continue to use both race and ethnicity to characterize people in the future. Racism is prejudice solely directed toward one’s race. It is the feeling that one’s race is superior to another and is illustrated in the quote, “The root causes were clearly the racism that caused whites to fear and resent the growth of the black populations…”.

Bigotry is discrimination of someone because they do not share the same beliefs or opinion as you. The difference between racism and bigotry is that racism is based on the intolerance of an entire race, based only on race. Bigotry is intolerance of others, with different opinions and beliefs.

Why does Nativism exist? What aspects of life is it concerned with and why? As described in the book, nativism is “the opposition to all or to certain groups of immigrants” (Daniels VII).

Nativism protects those who were nativly born in a country from the immigrants who migrate into it. This protects the interests of those born in the country against those of immigrants. This was developed when there was fear of the immigrants taking over. In my opinion nativism is a sense of nationalism, as evidenced in the book, “ it heightened both american nationalism and nativism”. Nativism exists because of scared citizens afraid that immigrants are going to take jobs and overpopulate areas. Nativism has existed since being a political factor in the 1790s. We will continue to have nativism in our country due to our immigration problem and other aspects.

Nativism comes into perspective in many ways. Population, employment, and lack of communication skills are all ways that immigration could hurt the United States. However, sometimes immigration helps America’s economic needs and leads to more innovations. Describe the effectiveness of federal legislation in favor and against immigration between 1890-1924. The United States was split down the middle when it came to the argument about immigration. Everyone had a different opinion about whether immigrants should be allowed in the United States or not. People were worried about them taking over american jobs. However, immigrants did strengthen our economy back in this time period.

“The Immigration Restriction League, founded in 1894 by a group of Harvard graduates”, was an anti-immigration organization that tried to limit immigration into the United States. The IRL thought that problems like crime, poverty, and lack of jobs in the United States were due to immigrants. The American Protective Association was also another anti-immigratation organization. However the APA had no power by 1911. The people of the United States were mostly against immigration. In fact numerous laws were put in place to keep immigrants out and withhold them from obtaining citizenship. Aliens mostly came “to the United States because for the economic opportunity”. Ironically by immigrants coming to the US for the economy they made it grow by paying taxes while living in the United States. It was found that Native-born citizens are more likely to commit crimes than aliens.

What impact did WWI have on various immigrant and minority groups in the United States? After the World War I victory, America became the land of hope. Many immigrants and minority groups seeked betterness. With more immigrants seeking a better life “major immigration laws greatly narrowed the opening in the so-called golden door”. Immigrants soon played a vital role in our military fighting in the war. Many immigrants achieved their citizenship in this way. Immigration became a good thing in America’s economy and helped to boost it. Immigrants did all the jobs that other people did not want to do. They helped fight for our country and came home to nothing but low pay but high labor jobs.

When leaders weren’t questioning the work of the immigrant workers they were extremely helpful. However most higher paying jobs were reserved for the native-born population. This was proven when Daniels said “largely native-born Catholics and Jews were appointed to a distinctly larger share of important positions than ever before” (Daniels 148). Immigration started to decline the in the 1930s due to the great depression The author writes about immigrants and minorities in the US between 1890-1924. Describe the similarities and differences that faced immigrants and minorities. Immigrants and minorities faced many similarities and differences during the 1890-1924 time period. Immigrants are the people who come into the United States while minority groups are the descendants of them.

Similarities were that both immigrants and minority groups were treated the same back in this era. Nativists and other, “anti-immigration groups responded to fears of unchecked immigration” and had problems with them because they took jobs and overpopulated places. Both were also heavily involved with multiple controversies. Differences between immigrants and minorities included the fact that minorities were native born, while immigrants came from other countries. This is proven by the quote from the book “chinese not only crossed the borders illegally and jumped ship, they also took advantage of a natural disaster”.

Immigrants arrived in America by ships and foot. The African Americans were given the right to vote in the 15th amendment, while immigrants were still not allowed. What methods were used to assimilate immigrants into American culture? The term melting pot is about the mixing of different types of cultures and mixing them to match another. The melting pot wasn’t as successful as the US wanted it to be, “the newcomers were often treated in hostile fashion”. America has been known as the Land of the Free and that is what immigrants longed for. They were promised freedom and protection.

Immigrants were not welcomed with open arms back then. In fact, immigrants were given hard times by many nativists. I feel that it is portrayed that immigrants were welcomed by everyone in this country, however this book portrays the hard life of immigrants. Although coming into this country wasn’t easy, life here was a lot better than life in other countries at that time. “Immigrants can best be assimilated into our society who have relatives, friends, or others of similar backgound already here”. Education and employment were better in the United States. Although the nativist gave the immigrants a hard time, it was worth it for the new opportunities America brought. Discuss the impact WWII had on American minority groups.

Racism and controversy were some of the many things to come out of World War II. One example is that WWII was the “most important factor” for the “decline of anti-Semitism”. African Americans and other minority groups wondered why they were fighting what was known as a “white man’s war.” Minorities lacked the self confidence and feeling of being worthy that was once there. Men were upset because they were fighting for their countries’ freedom, which they didn’t want them to have. African Americans had to pay more for their home utilities than whites did. Even though the prices were higher for the houses the plumbing and air conditioning were worse. After World War II, the American economy changed significantly. While everyone was having to make sacrifices, “it gave minority groups opportunities to make demands”

The unemployment rate dropped remarkably. Although, when minority groups returned from war they still were not given rights, but they were on track to their freedom. Come up with and answer three different discussion questions using your knowledge of US History and Not Like Us. Your answers must be 3-5 sentences in length. Your questions and answers should be original and your own. You need to print a copy of your original discussion questions which will be used the day of our class discussion. On page 63 what is the graph trying to display? The graph shows us how the population has changed in America from 1820 to 1920. It shows that the population has diversified into many different races. This graph clears any confusion up in my head. It helps me get a clearer understanding of what Daniels is trying to explain in my head.

How has immigration changed from 1890 to now? The number of undocumented immigrants have grown higher today. The number of immigrants are about the same as they were in 1890 but in the 1930s there was a decrease in immigration. Most immigrants now are hispanic and less are from Europe and Asia. Why did minority groups receive limited benefits from progressivism? Many progressives thought of the minority groups badly. Progressives thought that the groups were taking advantage of the system and Americas freedom. The progressives were known to be racist against minorities groups, they thought that since the groups were already taking jobs that they should have lower benefits than the rest.