Becoming an American

The Native Americans

America was founded on immigration. Many groups of people fled their homelands for
various reasons such as economics, religion, politics, and war. although there was always chaos
in finding themselves and trying to find ways to assimilate and acculturate, let us not forget that
these groups were not the first humans to occupy the great terrain of the new world. Native
Americans inhabited coast to coast, mountain top to river bank, valley floor to rolling hills and
even dusty scorching deserts. The Native Americans endured atrocious acts of marginalization as
well as killing sprees and mass genocide. Their obstacles of assimilation and acculturation were
alien to them and their effects have hardly faded.

In the midst of conflict for land, a Baptist missionaries journal reads that Native
Americans were “deficient in intellectual and moral culture…. They do not furnish their share to
the advancement of society, and the prosperity and wealth of the world.” These ideas began a
chain of discrimination that fueled ethnocentric white superiority and pious notions of God-given
land to whites and the destiny to manifest America from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the
Pacific Ocean in the west. (Olsen & Beal Pg. 62) Starting with the passing of the Indian Removal
Act in 1830, President Andrew Jackson imposed the law to protect Native Americans and
granted the auctioning process of Native American land. This period is known as the “Trail of
Tears.” The Trail of Tears began with 100,000 Natives including the Choctaws, the Creeks and
eventually the Cherokee being moved to Oklahoma. (Olsen & Beal Pg. 67)

The Map to the left of this text

shows the various Native American
tribes that were removed from their
land and pushed west into
Oklahoma. This includes the three
mentioned Native American
ethnicities; Choctaws, Creeks and
Cherokee. (M2: Chapter 3NA map
4)(Web Resources)
 The Final Assault on the Native Americans began with the Homestead Act of 1862 which
allowed thousands of white settlers to secure 160-acre plots of free land in the Great Plains. The
massive number of settlers pressured the Plains natives to leave their own land and settle
westward. Next came the completion of the five trans-continental railroads, joining eastern
manufacturing companies with the western economy. (Olsen & Beal Pg. 70) The third major
assault was the obliteration of the Buffalo herds. There was an unrestricted access to buffalo
hunting that wiped thousands of them out and reduced the resources of the Native Americans. In
fact, a lot of the hunting was encouraged to destroy the Plains Indians economy in order to force
them into living in reservations. By 1883 the southern buffalo herd was completely wiped out
with only a few left in the northern herd near Canada. The buffalo were a valuable resource to
Native Americans for example; buffalo provided meat, skins for blankets, moccasins, clothes and
covering for teepees etc. Tribes such as the “Blackfeet, Dakotas, Sioux, Crows, Cheyanne’s,
Comanche’s, Pawnees and Kiowa were nomadic hunters whose social and economic life
revolved around the buffalo.” (Olsen & Beal Pg. 19) Moreover, The Blackfeet traditionally relied
on the buffalo for food, clothing, shelter, and much of their domestic and military equipment.
The pervasive use of the buffalo in Blackfeet culture provides the basis for Alfred Vaughan's
claim, recorded by John C. Ewers, that the buffalo was the Blackfeet's "Staff of Life."
After the Indian wars ended in the 1880’s the Natives living on reservations continued to
despise the government and the ill policies and agreements that oppressed their tribes.
Reservations were supposed to “protect” Native Americans from white racism, however, after
the Native Americans were left with hardly any resources, their communities were plagued with
poverty, alcoholism and a lack of social stability. (Olsen & Beal Pg. 196) Whites attempted to
assimilate Native Americans by sending Christian missionaries to reservations in order to
convert natives into Christians so that they could adopt similar values rather than continue
ancient spiritual acts of worship including rituals such as; the Ghost Dance and the Sun Dance.
(Olsen & Beal Pg. 195) In 1871, the federal government discontinued recognizing Native
American tribes as independent and instead began legislating for them. Allotment laws were
passed including the Dawes Severalty Act that permitted the federal government to allot tribal
lands under various conditions. As a result, “the Dawes Act had plundered Indian Land and
destroyed Indian culture.” (Olsen and Beal Pg. 201)

A photo of graduates of the Carlisle

Boarding School, all Native Americans.
The caption says "Educating the Indian
Race. Graduating Class of Carlisle, PA."
ca. 1890s
The photo above shows the boarding school Natives attended. Men were forced to cut their hair and dress
like their white counterparts. Natives were encouraged to leave behind their traditions. (Web Resources)

The African Americans

The social and economic institution of slavery highly stratified the African Americans
from then until now. As European agriculture expanded, demand for tobacco, rice, indigo, and
cotton exponentially grew. In order to accommodate such high demands for resources, southern
farmers needed a large labor force that would do the work for seemingly nothing, however, labor
was scarce and slave labor seemed like the only solution. This was the beginning of the Atlantic
Slave Trade. (Olsen & Beal Pg. 95) The first slaves were captured by Africans themselves and
traded for centuries. When slavery reached the new world, it evolved into a harsher binding of
long laborious hours and abusive treatment of slaves. In 1619 the first slaves in America were
delivered to Virginia, these groups are known as the “charter generation.” The charter generation
eventually gave way to the “plantation generation” which were slaves who had virtually no rights
and opportunities and were only looked at as property. After years of enslavement, the House of
Burgesses decreed African Americans and their children lifetime servants. (Olsen &Beal Pg. 97)
Slavery became a major resource in the south, the entire economy was based on slave
labor, without the African Americans, the south would decline with low production due to no
labor. Insecurities were prevalent amongst whites, they feared the day African Americans would
have rights and in order to suppress that reality, they had to keep black people as slaves. The
American Revolution’s ideas seeped into the ideological theories that eventually revolved around
the civil war. Political philosophy and capital interests continued to divide the North and the
South. With the debate of tariffs and slavery, the civil war erupted between the Union in the
north and the Confederates in the South. (Olsen & Beal Pg. 107)
In April of 1865, the Union military defeated Robert E. Lee and his Confederate troops.
“The Confederacy was finished, Lee surrendered and the national nightmare was over.” (Olsen
& Beal Pg. 109) “the civil war and reconstruction had raised African-American expectations, but
dreams and even laws cannot immediately change economic and social structures.” (Olson &
Beal Pg. 206) Since the economy of the south heavily relied on slavery and agriculture; “The
Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendment did not
alter the reality.” (Olson & Beal Pg. 206) White southerners were able to sustain power over the
African-American communities through systematic legislation, physical abuse, and intimidation.
One of the biggest rights stripped away from African-Americans was the right to vote. If
African-Americans voted, then they would eventually give themselves some power. In order to
suppress the vote of black voters and white employers threatened to fire black employees,
physical intimidation tactics were ramped and poll taxes were imposed so that the majority of the
black population could not financially afford to vote. (Olson & Beal Pg. 206)) Literacy tests
were also used to prevent black voter turnouts, however, there was still a portion of the white
population who could not afford to vote due to the poll tax nor read the literacy tests imposed
upon voting. So, the Sothern legislatures passed “grandfather clauses” which was an exception
that enabled illiterate poor whites to vote because their grandfathers were eligible to vote in
1860. (Olson & Beal Pg. 207)
Maps and Charts
The first image below illustrates the slave trade from various regions of Africa to the New world. The
Second image illustrates cotton planation with a contrast of major productions of cotton and other goods.
Lastly, the third image shows different distributions of slaves throughout the south. (Web Resources)
The Mexicans

After the Mexican American war ended in 1848, the United States acquired what is now
known as California, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas and part of southern Utah. “Manifest Destiny
and the lightening victories of the Mexican War led most Americans to see victory as the will of
God.” (Olsen & Beal Pg. 218) At the beginning of 1990 Mexicans were the largest foreign
immigrant group in the United States due to the fact that Mexico neighbors with the U.S and
Mexicans had continently traveled back and forth. As agriculture expanded in the southwest,
more undocumented workers began to immigrate from Mexico and Mexicans soon became one
of the most exploited workers all. (Olsen & Beal Pg. 266) Mexicans in The Unity League of
Texas and California campaigned against segregated schools because Mexicans increasingly saw
themselves falling into the cracks of poverty limited by their resources and unjust acts of
marginalization. (Olsen & Beal Pg. 271)

The Chinese

“More than any other immigrant community, the Chinese had lived in isolation in
America.” (Olsen & Beal Pg. 284) The Chinese lived in ghettos isolated in communities that
were relatively self-governed. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 limited Chinese population
and prevented them from forming nuclear families. The Chinse were singled out when it came to
discrimination and in contrast to the European immigrants, the Chinese were the first group to be
marginalized by laws enacted to deny them citizenship. (Everyculture.com/Chinese/History of
Chinese Americans)

The Japanese

In the early 1890’s most Americans were worried about marginalizing Catholic and Jews,
the Japanese went relatively unnoticed until Japanese immigration increased and Japan was in
the midst of becoming a major military power. (Olsen & Beal Pg. 172) As the Japanese
population grew exponentially, the Japanese Exclusion League in California and the American
Federation of Labor called for an end to Japanese immigration and as a result, the National
Origins Act of 1924 ended Japanese immigration. On December 7, 1941, Japan bombed Pearl
Harbor. Americans were stunned and uneasy about the new tensions of possible war. Rumors
regarding an Issei and Nisei sabotage circled the press which led the Chamber of Commerce, the
American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the remaining of the Japanese Exclusion
League insisting on the arrest of all Japanese Americans. (Olsen & Beal Pg.174) The FBI
performed rigorous investigations against the Japanese and after a couple of months arrested
nearly 2,000 Japanese people. President Franklin D Roosevelt signed an executive order that
mandated the relocation of 40,000 Issei and 70,000 Nisei. A diverse group of Japanese people
including white and blue-collar workers were forced to leave behind their homes and property in
order to be isolated in internment camps. The War Relocation Authority (WRA) oversaw most of
the process and constructed 10 camps in California, Arkansas, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah,
and Arizona. “While some in the majority population objected to the oppressive treatment of
loyal American residents and citizens, most Americans either approved or were neutral about the
actions of our government. Wartime American propaganda about the Japanese reflected long-
held racist attitudes of many Americans.” (Everyculture.com/Japanese/Responses to Internment)
 Agricultural workers picking crops. Imperial
Imperial Valley CA (Web Resources) “The Only One Barred” an editorial cartoon
that points out the exclusive ban on the
Chinese. (Olsen & Beal Pg. 85)

Internment Camps displayed on the U.S maps showing where

Japanese at the Amache internment camp in Japanese citizens got relocated. (Web Resources)
Colorado 1943. (Web Resources)
 Reflection

How has this course increased your awareness of the difficulties that immigrants faced in
America in their quest to be accepted and considered "Americans"? What
information/knowledge from other courses you have taken has added to your experience in this
course?
In the course of the history class, I have learned so much regarding the struggle most
immigrant groups faced coming to America. It is so fascinating to see the parallels all immigrant
groups faced regarding the process of assimilation and acculturation. Most immigrant groups
made the long voyage to America for economic opportunities they could not find in their own
countries. Others came for political reasons after they found themselves falling into an
ideological revolution they no longer felt they belonged in. Various immigrant groups escaped
violence and famine and sought refuge in America to save themselves and their family. America
embodied a new start and the calling of individualism that provided a structure for everyone to
grow and succeed. However, Eurocentric dominance flourished in the early colonial era which
led to a chain of discrimination and marginalization for the immigrant groups that followed. The
most interesting and ironic fact is that America was founded on immigration and it became the
diverse melting pot we know it to be. But still, former issues have taken a contemporary and
hypocritical stance debating the rights of various new immigrant groups. For this I like to use
Gore Vidal’s reference to America which is; “The United States of Amnesia.” Americans forget
how this country was founded and they hardly consider that immigration was the main force.
My awareness as to how minority groups are still so disenfranchised has become more
pronounced; because I’ve been able to see the various laws and barriers that they faced for
decades that led to the generational decline of their communities. In the course of this semester, I
have also been taking a Sociology class that analyzes the social structures of society and our
influential behavior on one another. One of the most important things that I have learned from
my Sociology course was about race and ethnicity. I found a lot of connections in both courses
starting with the historical matters regarding race relations in the early settlement of the U.S up
into the twenty-first century. Egocentrism has plagued the mind of white people and it has
created a major barrier between the white elite and the rest of the minority population in
America.
“The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles. Freeman
and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word,
oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an
uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary
re-constitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.” (The
Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx Pg. 2) I found this quote to be very applicable to the study
of this course because historically societies have always struggled with assimilating closely and
fairly. Class and economics seem to become a constant pattern when you search for reasons as to
why we struggle to accept each other. America is the new world frontier of a society and the
repetitive nature of our struggle is fascinating because we consider ourselves one of the most
progressive societies in the world. However, taking my sociology course I have noticed that
change has been slow and racism has taken new forms of applicability. Marginalization is still
prevalent, though it has taken rather less visible pathways that mislead us and hide the fact that
racism still harbors itself institutionally.