How the Jews Became White: Jewish- Americans of the early 20th century
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document in english
history 1789 to present
research papers
date published 21/04/2008
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SummaryRace is often viewed as a predetermined feature, one that is fixed in biological terms. In reality however, “race” is not immutable or fixed in biology, but rather something that is fluid, historically relative, and socially constructed. As a result, “It has become Customary among academics to set words like ‘race,’ ‘races,’ ‘Anglo-Saxons,’ or ‘whiteness’ in undermining quotation marks” (Jacobson 9). The extent of the fluidity of race in America is apparent in the varying numbers of different races reported by scholars, ranging from two to thirty-six. The American ethno racial map- which indicates who is assigned to which pole- has changed dramatically in the early 19th century, resulting in the disappearance of whole races from conscious view, public discussion, and recent memory, while their descendents still walk this earth. In this essay I will explore the rise and fall of one of these “races” in American racial consciousness- the Jewish- Americans of the early 20th century- and its emergence as Caucasians.
Table of Contents
- The twentieth century witnessed the emergence of American Jewry on the world Jewish scene.
- Southern and eastern European immigrants constituted the vast majority of the 23 million immigrants.
- As Karen Brodkin argues in How the Jews Became White Folk, race is merely a façade.
- The word 'ethnicity' only came to use after WWII.
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