This was the first time I’ve ever heard of the concept of “racial scripts”/counterscripts, which Molina brings up throughout her book. She argues that these “racial scripts” were adopted and applied to racial groups in the 1920’s-1960’s, which highlights, “how race was socially constructed and why different racialized groups occupied carious positions in the U.S. racial hierarchy.” It was facinating to read about how some of these “racial scripts” are passed from one racial group to another through the means of violence and cultural representations of those racial groups. For examples, Mexicans began to be seen as lazy, and easily exploitable by whites, a stereotype that “passed” along from blacks.
What I notice here is a big effort for many Mexican immigrants to find their “whiteness” and alienate themselves from being compared to blacks or Asians. What we can see here is a story about finding a Mexican racial identity. What do you guys think about Mexican immigrants desiring “whiteness”? How can this relate to what we’ve read throughout the semester.
You bring up a good point about Mexicans and whiteness. Actually, I wish Molina had discussed such issues more instead of just sort of assuming that there is a monolithic Mexican or Mexican-American. That being said, most, if not all immigrant groups, in the early 20th century made a case for their whiteness. Until mid-century, no one really (legally) challenged the fairness or constitutionality of the idea that citizenship and whiteness were connected. Rather, the key court cases included racialized people who were arguing that they were white in order to be granted citizenship. Most were unsuccessful.
I agree with Mike. Early 20th century immigration was very racially defined and constructed. European immigrants had to adapt to American racial ideas and learn and maneuver their way through this system to identify themselves as something other than "other". Unfortunately, in this landscape, there was just a white and black dichotomy, so for many immigrant groups if you were not seen as white you were associated as black/"other". But as you were saying, Mexican Americans have been trying to navigate this complex system but government laws and practices continuously paint them as "other".
Natalia Molina sets out to write a book with a very broad and ambitious title: "How Race is Made in America." But, did she actually talk much about racial construction in any significant way? She also seems to want to focus primarily on Mexican racial "scripts" and immigration policies regarding Mexicans, but she focuses a great deal on other groups, namely Asians. I know she argues that once set of racial scripts become available they can be used against other groups. However, is it historically and academically sound to assume that different groups have been racialized in the same way? At one point, she compares African Americans' experiences during the Great Migration to Mexican's experiences during "Operation Wetback." Is this really a valid comparison, when we consider the fact that, despite the horrible racism and immigration policies which Mexican immigrants, (Bracero) guest workers, Mexican-Americans, and "undocumented" Mexican immigrants have faced and are facing, African Americans were enslaved and then subjected to Jim Crow (including 50-100 lynchings per year) for roughly 70 years, not to mention mass incarceration?
My biggest issue with the book is when she claims that the racialization of immigrant groups is always motivated by economic exploitation. That can be argued under certain circumstances. For example, countries in the Western Hemisphere were exempt from national origins quotas in the 1924 Johnson-Reed Act because agribusiness wanted a cheap supply of labor. However, the exclusion of Asians and the quotas placed on "new immigrants" (Italians, EE Jews, Poles, etc.) had little to do with economics. The eugenicists writing the bill were obsessed with keeping what they saw as the purity of the "racial stock" of the country, what they imagined it looked like at some point. If it were about exploiting cheap labor, they would have kept people coming in from Southern and Eastern Europe. O.K., I will stop now...
I agree that Morina makes some large claims throughout her book, such as saying she is going to discuss how race is made, that racial scripts can be reinvented for other, new groups, and that all migration is motivated by economics. I do think she addresses how race is made through her discussion of racial scripts. I think that these scripts can indeed be reinvented for new groups, but articulated in different ways depending on the group which retains the uniqueness of the individual group. Morina does cast entire groups as monolithic though, which I think hinders her analysis of how groups are racialized because it does not allow for individual circumstances and instances of racism.
I agree with this part especially this monolithic point of view she has. By elimination individual differences and unique qualities within these races it creates a watered down stereotypical version for other groups to look on rather than understanding that these groups have many unique sub groups with traditions and values behind them.
I think this book is a good culmination for the course because it circles back around to some of our first readings which outlined the chameleon-like nature of race, it also pairs nicely with Impossible Subjects by Mae Ngai which I had to read for another class this week. Molina writes in her epilogue that race “themes are often molded and transformed, or even revived and recycled, by those in power to advance explicit and/or implicit agendas” (pg. 139). Ngai writes that the black-white paradigm of racism is constantly shifting to accommodate and integrate new immigrant groups. I would argue that the Americas create an us-them paradigm rather than black-white, because each new group must negotiate their "otherness" in response to groups already established in society. According to Molina, “when it comes to immigration, we understand each new ‘other’ in relation to groups with which we are already familiar” (pg. 22). From a sociological point of view, I agree that there are power structures in place within society that allows reoccurring situations to take place, such as new immigrant groups needing to negotiate their position within society. Historically, I do understand people’s hesitation to say that all immigrant groups endure the same situation while acclimating to America because that creates group identities with little variance. Molina casts Mexicans and Mexican-Americans as a largely monolithic group and at times describes the entire Latino/a population as monolithic. No group of individuals is completely monolithic and homogeneous which is why the power structure is constantly challenged and manipulated. Nevertheless, I think that Morina tackles a very large issue of how race is shaped in America, even if she does not fully answer the question. I think her work is a good jumping off point for a lot of questions about how racism is articulated and created in the first place, rather than reinvented after it already exists. I think it also begs based on her assertion that new groups have to compare themselves to already established groups, when is a cultural group deemed established? Do groups who come to America for reasons other than economic exploitation face the same roadblocks?
Melanie, I was also curious about the "monolithic" treatment that was happening here, but am curious if that's an exclusive deficiency we can hold Molina accountable for, or if that's just something that comes with the territory of writing about how groups of people are/have been racialized. In fact, I'd want to propose it's possible to make the same argument of any of the books we've discussed in class--that is, an author portrayed a racialized group as monolithic--because race, by it's very nature of categorization, creates a (false) system of homogeneity...if that makes sense. If it doesn't, I blame the four cups of coffee I've had today.
It was interesting to read this in parallel to my other classes book "Impossible Subjects" by Mae Ngai. The ideas that Molina introduce in her argument are interesting but I feel that they have been discussed before. The idea of racial scripts is new to me, and that it is a way (or an outline) to identify a certain group along racial lines. An interesting part of her argument is when she discuses the the link of Mexican immigration to labor and capitalism. This reminds me of the "boga" in McGraw's work, where economic/social standing is tied into labor which is ultimately associated with race. In this situation, Mexican labor is being brought into America for economic benefit, then being deported without a pathway to citizenship, labeling Mexicans as "unwanted". this attributed to their future status of the "illegal alien", of which is created through immigration policy/law. It helps to reveal just how racially backed these immigration practices were.
I agree, the beginnings of Capitalism and the rise of a Mexican labor force clearly was written very well in this book. However I think how they were racially looked at is also very vital. These racial attributes really factor in understanding how Mexicans were looked at in America.
I very much agree with the broad strokes that some times come about in this book--although, I'll admit that I was only able to see them after I took a look at some of the points folks were making in their blog posts, perhaps due to a personal bias. Although I don't have "answers" to the points some folks have raised, I wanted to chime in about a few things to see where that conversation might take us:
First, I think Molina makes clear that the issue of Mexican labor being seen ("racialized"?) as transitory is something that differentiated them from other immigrant groups, including some of the European groups that were mentioned above. If memory serves correctly, it was precisely *because* Mexican labor was considered transitory, that the racial "purity" concern was ignored at first, and why (I think) Molina was able to highlight economic exploitation as part of what influenced policy surrounding Mexican American labor. I *don't* agree with the idea that it is only every economic exploitation that drives immigration policies, but I also don't think that she was unequivocally making that claim.
Secondly, I don't think that Molina's comparison of the experiences of Mexican/-American folks and African American folks was suggesting that the trauma experienced by each group was comparable. Instead, I think the comparison was part of her thesis of "racial scripts," and the necessity for readers/scholars to "pull the lens back," and that by "seeing these processes as scripts that an occur over and over, we [can] expand our focus from just the representations to include the structural conditions that produced them" (9). Further on down this same page, she includes a caveat in which she make clear that she doesn't advocate that scripts are "uprooted from one situation to the next or simply transferred from one group to another," and that we must "always take into consideration the conditions under which racial scripts emerge--the social structure, the material conditions, and the historical context." That said, I concede that I might've missed an instance in which Molina's comparison seemed to cross a line, and it'd be helpful for me to be pointed to it again.
This week's reading is different from how we've been studying race in this class and rightly so. The American viewpoint of race has always been clouded in this black and white viewpoint and has run government policies through this thinking. Racial scripting is an interesting concept that adds to the veracity of these stereotypes. The one link that I did find interesting is that these racial perceptions in the United States, using African Americans as an example of this, bleed into the perceptions of African Americans of people outside the country such as immigrants coming in. So much so that many immigrants coming into the country did not want to be classified as black because this title endangered their status and opportunities in this country, creating a dangerous sense of race for further generations that continue these stereotypes.
This weeks reading about the origins of the term “Hispanic” in United States was defiantly the best way to end class. In this book the author ties in racialization of those coming from Latin America and how attributes and racial definition’s were slowly given to people from Latin America. As said, “The case with Mexicans today is exactly the same as it was with the Chinese fifty years ago. Support from Grant and other leading eugenicists of the time was key to passage of the 1924 Immigration Act’s restrictive legislation.” (Molina, 39) So tying Mexicans with how Chinese were envisioned when they first immigrated to America shows the deep racial attributes that were now given to Mexicans during this time. This creation of the term “Hispanic” created a new racial category that would impact so much for the United States today. My question for this class is does this impact with our understanding at how Latin American’s envisioned themselves racially? That is the main question I feel.
This was the first time I’ve ever heard of the concept of “racial scripts”/counterscripts, which Molina brings up throughout her book. She argues that these “racial scripts” were adopted and applied to racial groups in the 1920’s-1960’s, which highlights, “how race was socially constructed and why different racialized groups occupied carious positions in the U.S. racial hierarchy.” It was facinating to read about how some of these “racial scripts” are passed from one racial group to another through the means of violence and cultural representations of those racial groups. For examples, Mexicans began to be seen as lazy, and easily exploitable by whites, a stereotype that “passed” along from blacks.
ReplyDeleteWhat I notice here is a big effort for many Mexican immigrants to find their “whiteness” and alienate themselves from being compared to blacks or Asians. What we can see here is a story about finding a Mexican racial identity. What do you guys think about Mexican immigrants desiring “whiteness”? How can this relate to what we’ve read throughout the semester.
You bring up a good point about Mexicans and whiteness. Actually, I wish Molina had discussed such issues more instead of just sort of assuming that there is a monolithic Mexican or Mexican-American. That being said, most, if not all immigrant groups, in the early 20th century made a case for their whiteness. Until mid-century, no one really (legally) challenged the fairness or constitutionality of the idea that citizenship and whiteness were connected. Rather, the key court cases included racialized people who were arguing that they were white in order to be granted citizenship. Most were unsuccessful.
DeleteI agree with Mike. Early 20th century immigration was very racially defined and constructed. European immigrants had to adapt to American racial ideas and learn and maneuver their way through this system to identify themselves as something other than "other". Unfortunately, in this landscape, there was just a white and black dichotomy, so for many immigrant groups if you were not seen as white you were associated as black/"other". But as you were saying, Mexican Americans have been trying to navigate this complex system but government laws and practices continuously paint them as "other".
DeleteNatalia Molina sets out to write a book with a very broad and ambitious title: "How Race is Made in America." But, did she actually talk much about racial construction in any significant way? She also seems to want to focus primarily on Mexican racial "scripts" and immigration policies regarding Mexicans, but she focuses a great deal on other groups, namely Asians. I know she argues that once set of racial scripts become available they can be used against other groups. However, is it historically and academically sound to assume that different groups have been racialized in the same way? At one point, she compares African Americans' experiences during the Great Migration to Mexican's experiences during "Operation Wetback." Is this really a valid comparison, when we consider the fact that, despite the horrible racism and immigration policies which Mexican immigrants, (Bracero) guest workers, Mexican-Americans, and "undocumented" Mexican immigrants have faced and are facing, African Americans were enslaved and then subjected to Jim Crow (including 50-100 lynchings per year) for roughly 70 years, not to mention mass incarceration?
ReplyDeleteMy biggest issue with the book is when she claims that the racialization of immigrant groups is always motivated by economic exploitation. That can be argued under certain circumstances. For example, countries in the Western Hemisphere were exempt from national origins quotas in the 1924 Johnson-Reed Act because agribusiness wanted a cheap supply of labor. However, the exclusion of Asians and the quotas placed on "new immigrants" (Italians, EE Jews, Poles, etc.) had little to do with economics. The eugenicists writing the bill were obsessed with keeping what they saw as the purity of the "racial stock" of the country, what they imagined it looked like at some point. If it were about exploiting cheap labor, they would have kept people coming in from Southern and Eastern Europe. O.K., I will stop now...
I agree that Morina makes some large claims throughout her book, such as saying she is going to discuss how race is made, that racial scripts can be reinvented for other, new groups, and that all migration is motivated by economics. I do think she addresses how race is made through her discussion of racial scripts. I think that these scripts can indeed be reinvented for new groups, but articulated in different ways depending on the group which retains the uniqueness of the individual group. Morina does cast entire groups as monolithic though, which I think hinders her analysis of how groups are racialized because it does not allow for individual circumstances and instances of racism.
ReplyDeleteI agree with this part especially this monolithic point of view she has. By elimination individual differences and unique qualities within these races it creates a watered down stereotypical version for other groups to look on rather than understanding that these groups have many unique sub groups with traditions and values behind them.
DeleteI think this book is a good culmination for the course because it circles back around to some of our first readings which outlined the chameleon-like nature of race, it also pairs nicely with Impossible Subjects by Mae Ngai which I had to read for another class this week. Molina writes in her epilogue that race “themes are often molded and transformed, or even revived and recycled, by those in power to advance explicit and/or implicit agendas” (pg. 139). Ngai writes that the black-white paradigm of racism is constantly shifting to accommodate and integrate new immigrant groups. I would argue that the Americas create an us-them paradigm rather than black-white, because each new group must negotiate their "otherness" in response to groups already established in society. According to Molina, “when it comes to immigration, we understand each new ‘other’ in relation to groups with which we are already familiar” (pg. 22). From a sociological point of view, I agree that there are power structures in place within society that allows reoccurring situations to take place, such as new immigrant groups needing to negotiate their position within society. Historically, I do understand people’s hesitation to say that all immigrant groups endure the same situation while acclimating to America because that creates group identities with little variance. Molina casts Mexicans and Mexican-Americans as a largely monolithic group and at times describes the entire Latino/a population as monolithic. No group of individuals is completely monolithic and homogeneous which is why the power structure is constantly challenged and manipulated. Nevertheless, I think that Morina tackles a very large issue of how race is shaped in America, even if she does not fully answer the question. I think her work is a good jumping off point for a lot of questions about how racism is articulated and created in the first place, rather than reinvented after it already exists. I think it also begs based on her assertion that new groups have to compare themselves to already established groups, when is a cultural group deemed established? Do groups who come to America for reasons other than economic exploitation face the same roadblocks?
ReplyDeleteMelanie,
DeleteI was also curious about the "monolithic" treatment that was happening here, but am curious if that's an exclusive deficiency we can hold Molina accountable for, or if that's just something that comes with the territory of writing about how groups of people are/have been racialized. In fact, I'd want to propose it's possible to make the same argument of any of the books we've discussed in class--that is, an author portrayed a racialized group as monolithic--because race, by it's very nature of categorization, creates a (false) system of homogeneity...if that makes sense. If it doesn't, I blame the four cups of coffee I've had today.
It was interesting to read this in parallel to my other classes book "Impossible Subjects" by Mae Ngai. The ideas that Molina introduce in her argument are interesting but I feel that they have been discussed before. The idea of racial scripts is new to me, and that it is a way (or an outline) to identify a certain group along racial lines. An interesting part of her argument is when she discuses the the link of Mexican immigration to labor and capitalism. This reminds me of the "boga" in McGraw's work, where economic/social standing is tied into labor which is ultimately associated with race. In this situation, Mexican labor is being brought into America for economic benefit, then being deported without a pathway to citizenship, labeling Mexicans as "unwanted". this attributed to their future status of the "illegal alien", of which is created through immigration policy/law. It helps to reveal just how racially backed these immigration practices were.
ReplyDeleteI agree, the beginnings of Capitalism and the rise of a Mexican labor force clearly was written very well in this book. However I think how they were racially looked at is also very vital. These racial attributes really factor in understanding how Mexicans were looked at in America.
DeleteHI all,
ReplyDeleteI very much agree with the broad strokes that some times come about in this book--although, I'll admit that I was only able to see them after I took a look at some of the points folks were making in their blog posts, perhaps due to a personal bias. Although I don't have "answers" to the points some folks have raised, I wanted to chime in about a few things to see where that conversation might take us:
First, I think Molina makes clear that the issue of Mexican labor being seen ("racialized"?) as transitory is something that differentiated them from other immigrant groups, including some of the European groups that were mentioned above. If memory serves correctly, it was precisely *because* Mexican labor was considered transitory, that the racial "purity" concern was ignored at first, and why (I think) Molina was able to highlight economic exploitation as part of what influenced policy surrounding Mexican American labor. I *don't* agree with the idea that it is only every economic exploitation that drives immigration policies, but I also don't think that she was unequivocally making that claim.
Secondly, I don't think that Molina's comparison of the experiences of Mexican/-American folks and African American folks was suggesting that the trauma experienced by each group was comparable. Instead, I think the comparison was part of her thesis of "racial scripts," and the necessity for readers/scholars to "pull the lens back," and that by "seeing these processes as scripts that an occur over and over, we [can] expand our focus from just the representations to include the structural conditions that produced them" (9). Further on down this same page, she includes a caveat in which she make clear that she doesn't advocate that scripts are "uprooted from one situation to the next or simply transferred from one group to another," and that we must "always take into consideration the conditions under which racial scripts emerge--the social structure, the material conditions, and the historical context." That said, I concede that I might've missed an instance in which Molina's comparison seemed to cross a line, and it'd be helpful for me to be pointed to it again.
This week's reading is different from how we've been studying race in this class and rightly so. The American viewpoint of race has always been clouded in this black and white viewpoint and has run government policies through this thinking. Racial scripting is an interesting concept that adds to the veracity of these stereotypes. The one link that I did find interesting is that these racial perceptions in the United States, using African Americans as an example of this, bleed into the perceptions of African Americans of people outside the country such as immigrants coming in. So much so that many immigrants coming into the country did not want to be classified as black because this title endangered their status and opportunities in this country, creating a dangerous sense of race for further generations that continue these stereotypes.
ReplyDeleteThis weeks reading about the origins of the term “Hispanic” in United States was defiantly the best way to end class. In this book the author ties in racialization of those coming from Latin America and how attributes and racial definition’s were slowly given to people from Latin America. As said, “The case with Mexicans today is exactly the same as it was with the Chinese fifty years ago. Support from Grant and other leading eugenicists of the time was key to passage of the 1924 Immigration Act’s restrictive legislation.” (Molina, 39) So tying Mexicans with how Chinese were envisioned when they first immigrated to America shows the deep racial attributes that were now given to Mexicans during this time. This creation of the term “Hispanic” created a new racial category that would impact so much for the United States today. My question for this class is does this impact with our understanding at how Latin American’s envisioned themselves racially? That is the main question I feel.
ReplyDelete