The arguments in Mahajan’s article and Wilson’s article provide a clearer picture of how racial/ethnic inequality parallels itself between different non-white groups and how racial/ethnic inequalities parallel class inequalities. Gans’s article is harder to digest not because his predictions of racial divides masquerading as class divides are outlandish but because he attempts to describe Asian Americans in a way that aligns them with white Americans, which is an idea most people, Asian or not, would disagree with due to its naïve idealism. Mahajan in particular would disagree vehemently, as the central argument of his piece is the reasons for the “perpetual foreignness” of Asian-Americans.
While Mahajan’s article and Wilson’s article describe different ethnic groups, both articles recognize the perpetual “othering” of the groups they write about. The similarities between their articles show that …show more content…
My teacher, a Slovakian immigrant, came to the U.S. during the 90’s during the fall of the Soviet Union; she was very passionate about immigration rights. When it came time for us to learn about immigration during the 1990’s, I was intrigued to know that Italians, Irish, and eastern Europeans, groups which are considered “white” today, were not considered “white” back then. Each new wave of immigrants went through the process of “becoming white,” gaining economic and political privilege. In the last century, the definition of “white” has expanded greatly, but for people like Ozawa and Thind, who were Americans through and through, “whiteness ” eluded them. In his article, Gans states that Eastern and Southern Europeans were able to become “white” due to their integration into the mainstream economy and entry into the middle class. Asians and Asian-Americans have been a part of the mainstream economy and middle class since the 1900s, but the feeling of “perpetual foreign-ness” persists. This raises the question, “what makes
While Mahajan’s article and Wilson’s article describe different ethnic groups, both articles recognize the perpetual “othering” of the groups they write about. The similarities between their articles show that …show more content…
My teacher, a Slovakian immigrant, came to the U.S. during the 90’s during the fall of the Soviet Union; she was very passionate about immigration rights. When it came time for us to learn about immigration during the 1990’s, I was intrigued to know that Italians, Irish, and eastern Europeans, groups which are considered “white” today, were not considered “white” back then. Each new wave of immigrants went through the process of “becoming white,” gaining economic and political privilege. In the last century, the definition of “white” has expanded greatly, but for people like Ozawa and Thind, who were Americans through and through, “whiteness ” eluded them. In his article, Gans states that Eastern and Southern Europeans were able to become “white” due to their integration into the mainstream economy and entry into the middle class. Asians and Asian-Americans have been a part of the mainstream economy and middle class since the 1900s, but the feeling of “perpetual foreign-ness” persists. This raises the question, “what makes