This week’s readings were particularly interesting because they focused on the immigrant groups that were not Black but were also not American enough either. The Italians, Irish, Jews, and Puerto Ricans—just like all immigrants to this country—strove to be accepted by Americans. This term American is also intriguing because from this week’s readings as well as past readings, it seems as if “American” is often considered to be synonymous with “whiteness”. 

In “Communities,” Joshua Zeitz dives into the economic and cultural reasons for why Italians, Irish, and Jews segregated themselves from each other. He cites religion as well as skill-level as reasons for the separation. Driven by Catholicism, Irish and Italians lived closed to parishes. Meanwhile, Jews opted for public schooling. 

I was completely persuaded by Zeitz argument until I read Robert Orsi’s “The Religious Boundaries of an Inbetween People: Street Feste and the Problem of the Dark-Skinned Other in Italian Harlem.” To me, it seems that Orsi is suggesting that the reason these immigrant groups chose to differentiate from one another is so that they can better appeal to the white race. Orsi claims that many Italians and Puerto Ricans who lived in Harlem were often grouped together with the stereotypical slummy views of Harlem. They were placed side-by-side with the African American population, and looked down upon just as if they were Black. Thus, in hopes of trying to Americanize and to be better accepted, Italians and Puerto Ricans both tried to distance themselves from the darker-skinned races. 

To combine these two articles, it may be that these immigrant groups clustered together in communities not only because of cultural differences, but because they wanted to be seen as different. The best way to be accepted into American culture is to be as dissimilar as one could be from the most hated group in America (at the time): African Americans.

It’s also worth noting that in American history, there has been a prolonged belief that dark skin equated to bad; one would be thought of as lazy, a savage, and un-American. I wonder where this sentiment originates, and if this racist belief still holds true today. 

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